What is the problem?

Most smartphones these days have long-living batteries, but who doesn't want their phone to last for just an hour more? While using an app, you maybe not necessarily need your display. Up to 20% of your battery power is consumed by the display. So, why not turn off all the pixels on it? Plus, this app can help prevent burn-in caused by statically displayed images and text.

Here is the solution!

FakeStandby is an Android app to turn off your screen while keeping apps running. This includes foreground jobs, which means you can keep

• listening to music on YouTube
• staying online in various text messengers
• running your favorite game
• listening to podcasts

all with your screen turned off!

Some more use cases

A user has reported to use the app to keep the GPS tracking in a buggy navigation app running, whlie the phone is in the pocket. Another user wrote me he uses it while driving to have a video call in only one direction where the calling person could see them, but the driver is not distracted.

How does it work?

This app displays an overlay over the foreground app using Android's accessibility services. All it renders on the overlay is a black canvas, effectively turning your pixels off. The apps you're using won't notice this, because technically your phone is turned on.

Disclaimer

Some smartphones have LCD displays with background lighting that only turns off when you actually press the power button to lock your phone. The concept of this app works better with OLED or AMOLED displays, where "turning pixels black" is identical to "turning pixels off". You should not expect huge power saving effects on any device, especially on devices with LCD displays.

Contribute

Feel free to contribute to the FakeStandby project! Make sure to look at the Code Of Conduct and the Contributing Information.

Special Thanks

Special thanks goes to all contributors! You can find them in CONTRIBUTORS.md. I also want to thank all the nice people who have donated some money!

Licensing

FakeStandby is an Android app that turns off your screen while keeping apps running.

Copyright (C) 2023 Jonas Bernard

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.