Miyoo Mini Plus battery and why - Part 2
Hey everyone as you can see by the title of this thread, this is Part 2 of the conversation related to my thoughts about the Miyoo Mini+ battery. I wanted to create a new post to address some items about overlays and the speaker consuming battery life. I was incorrect in my previous post about how I believe overlays contribute to battery draining. I performed a dozen one-hour tests of my Miyoo Mini + over the last day to come up with better observations concerning this handheld.
For these tests, the device was charged to 100%. I allowed for 10 minutes off of the charger to let the CPU and battery cool, and I powered on and immediately navigated (GameLauncher) to Pokémon Unbound (a GBA rom hack game) or Pokémon Blue (GB game rom). For each test, the device sat for one hour (timed) while the game ran at 100% speed (no fast forward until the last test). After the one-hour mark, I then backed out to the menu and took a screenshot of the battery life in the OnionOS Battery Monitor app. These are my notes from those screenshots:
(Control Tests)
1A) GBA Game. Overlay on. Volume set at lowest sound (1), Brightness at 7. Wifi connected. (Actual gaming under my typical settings for an hour as a control test. // This is very, very close to what I’ve been seeing for a full battery drain. I’m confident one-hour tests are accurate at this point.)
Battery Monitor states 86% after one hour of testing. Estimated battery left: 3H08
1B) GB Game. Overlay on. Volume set at lowest sound (1), Brightness at 7. Wifi connected. (Actual gaming under my typical settings for an hour as a control test.)
Battery Monitor states 82% after one hour of testing. Estimated battery left: 3H52
(Overlay Tests)
2) GBA Game. Overlay On. Volume at 0. Brightness at 5. Wifi connected.
Battery Monitor states 82% after one hour of testing. Estimated battery left: 3H38
3) GBA Game. Overlay Off. Volume at 0. Brightness at 5. Wifi connected.
Battery Monitor states 82% after one hour of testing. Estimated battery left: 3H42
(Speaker Tests)
4) GBA Game. Overlay On. Volume at 50%. Brightness at 5. Wifi connected.
Battery Monitor states 74% after one hour of testing. Estimated battery left: 2H23
5) GBA Game. Overlay On. Volume at 50%. Brightness at 5. Wifi disabled.
Battery Monitor states 88% after one hour of testing. Estimated battery left: 5H04
(Power Savings Test)
6A) GBA Game. Overlay Off. Volume at 0. Brightness at 0. Wifi disabled.
Battery Monitor states 90% after one hour of testing. Estimated battery left: 5H55
6B) GB Game. Overlay Off. Volume at 0. Brightness at 0. Wifi disabled.
Battery Monitor states 92% after one hour of testing. Estimated battery left: 6H48
(CPU Test)
7) GBA Game. Overlay On. Volume at 0. Brightness at 5. Wifi connected. CPUclock.txt deleted from folder. (I repeated my overlay test, however I wanted to see if removing the overclock file would have any impact on battery life).
Battery Monitor states 82% after one hour of testing. Estimated battery left: 3H46
8) GBA Game. Overlay On. Volume at 0. Brightness at 5. Wifi connected. CPUclock.txt saved and set to 1800. Fast forward enabled. (I repeated my overlay test, however I wanted to see if using fast-forward the entire time would have any impact on battery life).
Battery Monitor states 80% after one hour of testing. Estimated battery left: 3H32
Findings: Based on these 1-hour tests, as you can see, I was wrong in my initial post about overlays. Overlays do not cause extra battery drain (Test 2 vs 3). I think the biggest takeaway is that WIFI, not the speaker, is the main culprit towards battery draining (Test 2 vs 4 and 5). The final tests were more about performance, one with the cpuclock.txt file removed showing what many posts say: there’s only a negligible amount of battery consumed for overclocking purposes (Test2 vs 7). Surprisingly, enabling fast forward does not have a noticeable impact on battery life (Test 2 vs 8).
Oddities: You might notice that my one-hour control tests somehow left me with more battery life but less remaining time than the standard “overlay” tests with no volume and less brightness – this was strange to me. This might’ve been from the act of actually playing these games instead of having them sit in-game (differences between flashing screens, CPU usage spikes, etc).
For the folks in my previous post or in other posts who have claimed to get 8+ hours on their MM+. I’m really curious how that’s possible after my “power savings” tests. I would like to hear how you’re getting such great battery.
Wi-FI is easily the biggest draw on battery, however I intend to keep it on to earn retroachievements. If it’s coming down to the wire, and I am wanting to squeeze an extra few minutes out of my device, I would turn off my volume. I am happy about my findings on overlays as I think the community really added some neat bezels to this little device and these tests will allow me to keep tinkering with them.
Let me know if there’s any other tests that you want me to run. I could do a few others, if the community wants to see some info.
TL; DR: Overlays do not impact the battery. If you’re not utilizing wi-fi then turn it off -- you can dramatically increase your battery life.
