The Design and Implementation of a Power Management Solution for Smart Glasses

This study investigates the power management issues on smart glasses running Android system in order to develop an effective power management solution for wearable smart devices. While considering that CPU, display device, and WakeLocks are the main sources of power consumption that should be managed on Android platforms, this study focuses on managing the power consumption of CPU on smart glasses. The reason is that, based on the features of smart glasses, the much smaller display device and the potentially less misuse of WakeLock do not seem to be the power drains and, therefore, the supplied power is mostly consumed by CPU. The solution developed in this study is presented in the form of a user app (short for application) of power management in order not to directly modify the system internals of Android and to achieve portability. Its implementation takes advantage of the built-in power management mechanism of Android system in order to achieve its functionalities and uses the technique of dynamic messages to assist users in applying, setting up, and saving the desired power plans. The app works by extending the built-in power management functions of the host Android system and imposes no impact on the built-in power governors. For the purpose of enhancing user experience, customized power plans are built as the preset user defined power plans. The settings in these power plans are derived from measuring the real power consumption in common use cases of smart glasses. Compared to the default built-in power plan of Android system, one of the presettings shows power saving close to 20%.