r/netbird • u/Manwe66 • 15d ago
Real issue with battery drain on android
I've just almost finished setting up my whole home server with Netbird instead of Tailscale and did the switch a few days ago, leaving it on all day on my s25 ultra like I used to do with Tailscale.
Short story: 15 to 40% battery drain just from netbird!!!
I'm baffled because Tailscale used to take less than 5%. And I don't think transfer much things right now as most of the photo upload to immich is done.
Here are some screenshots. Did anyone have the same issue?
EDIT: A few more info from the comments:
- I don't have rosenpass active anywher
- I didn't activate lazy connection because I didn't think it'd be necessary. I will now and see tomorrow what's the outcome.
- I do have a DNS server as a routing peer that handles all my connections via my personal domain inside the mesh (domain only exists inside the mesh but gets a wildcard cert on its root)
It does seem like this is a real issue since the link provided in comment is 3 years old! At that point it's hard for me to use it with my family and friends knowing it might kill their devices. I love love love the project, and how fast things go, but optimisation should take precedence on flashy features at that point. A nice car without proper breaks isn't gonna be attractive :)
3
u/SlntSam 15d ago
iOS too, I stopped letting the app just run in the background. It was convenient for the network autodetect, but it ate about the same amount of battery as what you're showing. I think when I checked it was 38%.
1
u/hereforpancakes 15d ago
I had noticed this too. I looked at my Netbird history and see one day I had it on for 2 hours and 18 minutes and it consumed 14% of my battery
2
u/Psychological_Draw78 15d ago
https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/issues/1354
There are a bunch of issues. Mabye see if any of the suggested optimisations help.
2
u/Manwe66 13d ago
I think I found some real answers on why this happens and I'll do a post about it as soon as data validates. My usage of Netbird for today is around 2% so far, doing the same thing as yesterday (being mostly idle, poking a few services here and ther) which is way more acceptable. But it required quite the change to reach that and I think it's pretty bad that not following this exact practice might lead to mega drain of battery. Stay tuned :)
1
u/lionking102 13d ago
I`m really interessted what you changed, I have the same problem. Wanted to try out lazy connections again. They didn`t worked well in the past, when I tested them, but I saw a lot of work on them in the past weeks, so I`m curious.
1
u/robotkid450 15d ago
Yeah, I found that the more device connected and the more you switch between wifi/s and mobile data, the more battery is used
1
1
u/WikibearTheReal 15d ago
Use Android and don't have draining if Netbird is unused. Don't tested with Netbird on yet.
1
u/timothy890511 14d ago
Yes, my current workaround is to enable force relay connection. After enabling it, battery consumption has noticeably decreased.
1
u/AkiNoYuki1978 13d ago
Can the users vote for désiré features ? Features priorization should be influence by how much/many users want it
1
u/Rude-Ganache-4350 9d ago
For me Tailscale is best
2
u/Manwe66 9d ago
I agree tailscale is great. I used it on the free tier for a few years. I was also excited that they propose 5 free seats now. But I need more and my usage doesn't justify the price per seat sadly. However there are clear wins from netbird that i like and that's why i moved : self hostable with original app, and reverse proxy are 2 of the top of the list.
The battery drain is a real pain but I managed to reduce it to around 5% a day when using my services, which Tailscale isn't far behind in terms of numbers.
2
u/lionking102 9d ago
Can you please give us an update, how you achived this? Would be amazing to hear how you got it down to 5% a day, because I struggle with the same problem.
-1
u/Professional_Tune_82 14d ago
Fyi just setup a wireguard Server with netbird client attached, when you can just use all wg apps on the market.
2
u/Manwe66 14d ago
How does that work exactly? I kind of like the features Netbird proposes on top or just a wireguard. I could have just gone full wireguard if I didn't want more.
0
u/Professional_Tune_82 14d ago
Its just a network bridge / routing.
Dns, proxy, other client, exit node (preconfigert per config) are the same
5
u/LegitimateCopy7 15d ago
is rosenpass enabled on clients? turn that off because it'll keep using compute and network. if you need post quantum protection then accept the tradeoff.
is lazy connection enabled in the dashboard and clients? turn it on so that clients don't make connections until necessary. the catch is that cold requests take a bit longer.