Spirent Communications has launched a new system that aims to help OEMs improve battery life in smart devices by not only allowing them to break results down by component, but also automate the entire process.
Quantum – making its debut at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and billed as a “user experience analytics system” – automatically tests different consumer use cases on a mobile device while performing synchronized power consumption measurements.
“Basically it gives developers and manufacturers the opportunity to see how each of the components of their device – whether that be the hardware, the software stacks or the applications – is affecting performance, and gives them the tools to focus on that efficiency,” says Mike Keeley, director of product management at Spirent.
Quantum also allows testers to create different usage profiles, he adds. “You can emulate a lot of different usage scenarios – how many SMSs do you send, how much time you spend doing video telephony, web browsing or voice calls, and so on.”
As the mobile industry has shifted towards 4G and smartphones, battery life has become increasingly problematic for devices. Apps like streaming video and multi- player games means bigger screens, faster application processors and higher throughput modems, which means higher power consumption.
And because batteries can only pack so much juice in the physical space of a smartphone or tablet form factor, OEMs are looking for ways to make power consumption more efficient. Spirent’s Quantum aims to give testers a clearer view of where they can tweak the device to get more power efficiencies out of it.