Introduction

In this workshop, we will try to benchmark Android apps in black box mode. As a reminder, the net energy consumed by an app can be defined as follows:

$E_{net} = E_{raw} - (P_{idle} \ast T_{measure})$

Benchmark your Smartphone when idle

Before starting, we will estimate the power consumption in idle mode, referred to as $P_{idle}$. Run a PowDroid benchmark without using your smartphone, but after first preventing the screen from going into sleep mode. Calculate $P_{idle}$, which is the average of the values in the Power column of the CSV file. The more values there are, the better.

Benchmark few popular apps

Choose two apps from the same functional family (e.g., web browsers). Run a PowDroid benchmark for each app, using a specific and well-defined scenario. Then calculate $E_{raw}$, which is the sum of the Energy column in the CSV file. Also calculate $T_{measure}$, which is the total duration of your benchmark, using the start_time and end_time columns.

Repeat this benchmark at least 5 times for each app, under identical conditions.

Awesome data vizualisation

For each app, you therefore have at least 5 net energy values $E_{net}$, bearing in mind that $E_{net} = E_{raw} - (P_{idle} \ast T_{measure})$. Basically, we subtract the energy consumed by the device itself to isolate the energy consumed by the app alone.

Visually represent the data points for “App1” and “App2” using a statistical graph such as a BoxPlot or ViolinPlot. You can use Excel or any other more suitable software.

So, which app consumes the least energy? 🏆

Share your results with the world

Make a Pull Request to add your data to the dedicated crowdsourcing repository