What is Project Volta?
The Project Volta aims to boost the battery life of Android devices. It includes a battery saver mode which can extend battery life by around 90 minutes apart from several other subsystem optimizations, new job scheduler and better display of battery usage.
Google conducted some tests which concluded that each time an App wakes up your chipset, even if the display is not on, 2 minutes of standby time is lost. To rectify this, the new Job Scheduler API will keep the device asleep for maximum possible time and will schedule tasks in groups or for times when your phone is charging.
Google will also provide a battery historian app which will provide with detailed analysis of what exactly is eating your battery and will also arm developers with better tools to monitor battery consumption from their apps. Android L will also run ART run time instead of Dalvik Engine and this will also improve battery efficiency marginally.
Does Project Volta really Works?
Project Volta sounds tempting on paper, especially in desperate times when Android devices could use every bit of battery backup that can be saved. So how did it fair in practical analysis? Surprisingly great!
Nexus 5 running Android L developer preview and Nexus 5 running Android 4.4.4 KitKat were both tested with display on and a webpage loading every 15 seconds till the battery died. The Android 4.4.4 KitKat could hold ground for 5 hours and 45 minutes while Nexus 5 with Android L lasted for 7 hours 51 minutes, which is a 36 percent increase in performance!! This is more than 20 percent bump mentioned at Google I/O. In day to day life when the device is often on standby, we can expect the boost in performance to more than 36 percent which is simply awesome.
Conclusion
The project Volta was mentioned and highlighted at Google I/O, but we didn’t expect it to give a significant improvement in battery life. Now that we know that grade of Google effort and work on Project Volta, it’s the number one Android L feature on our list. Source: Ars Technica
