Energy efficient proximity alert on Android

Abstract

The proximity alert service on Android is important as an enabler of ubiquitous location-based services, however, it is also limited in this role due to its excessive energy expenditure. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of an energy-efficient proximity alert service for Android. Our method utilizes the distance to the point of interest and the user's transportation mode in order to dynamically determine the location-sensing interval and the location providers (GPS, GSM, or Wi-Fi) to be used. We implement our method as a middleware service in the Android open source project. Our service, for a realistic scenario, reduces GPS usage by 96.66% and increases battery life time by 75.71% compared to the baseline proximity alert in Android.