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Why do push notifications work the way they do
(lemmy.blahaj.zone)
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this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2025
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Decided to go the let app run in the background on graphene. With 3 apps in the background running all the time. Battery last 12 hours, with heavy use less. I'm unaware of how to get or self host push notifications outside of Google. It's not death to your battery but it defintely shaves off 20 percent and that's a rough number.
I've been using a pixel for 2 years with 600 plus cycles and my battery health is still 100 percent excellent, I did a hardware health check today.
Great. Now do 40 apps and try not to get them killed by the OOM mechanism. I'm not saying I like the fact that messages go through Google's servers, but I'm afraid there is no equivalent FOSS solution.
Why do you need to be constantly bombarded by notifications. I have one email client and 2 messaging apps that run in background all the time for notifications. And for all other apps I don't get and don't need notifications.
There is a FOSS alternative. ntfy.
I've been running it for a couple of years, if not longer. Works extremely well. The downside, of course, is getting the apps to support it.
The ones I care about already do.
That's fine for you and me, but not for the masses.
The problem isn't really 40 apps keeping connections open. That shouldn't cause much battery drain or RAM usage. Really really heavy emphasis on "shouldn't".
Too many shitty apps that keep doing shit when running in the background instead of just waiting for data to arrive. So Google takes the sledgehammer approach and just doesn't let apps do that and instead makes them rely on Google's one dedicated background app that they know behaves.
Good guy Google. Guess what? The developer of apps can deliberately hide or delay the push notifications if it detects its background optimization is enabled. Really, really emphasize on "can", not "should".