How to Use Raksha Without
Draining Your Battery
"Won't a location app kill my battery?" is one of the most common questions before installing any family safety app. Here's how it actually works, and what you can adjust.
Last updated: July 2026 · 5 min read
How Background Location Actually Works
Raksha doesn't stream your GPS location constantly at full power — that would drain any phone quickly, and no well-built app works that way. Instead, location updates are batched and sent at intervals that adapt to what's happening: less frequent updates when you're stationary or the phone is idle, more frequent updates during active movement or an emergency. This tiered approach is what keeps daily battery impact small while still being fast to respond when it matters.
What Actually Affects Battery Use
GPS accuracy mode
High-accuracy GPS uses more power than network-based location. Raksha balances between the two depending on whether precise location is currently needed.
How often you're actively moving
A phone that's mostly stationary at home or the office uses far less battery for location than one constantly on the move.
OEM battery optimization fighting the app
Counterintuitively, aggressive battery savers on Xiaomi, Samsung, and OnePlus phones can sometimes cause the app to restart location services more often than a clean, unrestricted background process would.
Screen-on time from checking the app itself
Opening Raksha frequently to check the live map uses more battery than the background location service itself does.
Settings Worth Checking
Exempt Raksha from battery optimization in your phone's settings — this often reduces battery use rather than increasing it, since the app isn't forced to restart repeatedly
Keep location permission set to "Allow all the time" rather than "Allow only while using" — counterintuitively, the correct always-on permission lets the OS schedule updates more efficiently than an app fighting for foreground access
Update to the latest version of Raksha — location efficiency improvements ship regularly
If battery is still a concern, check which other apps are consuming background battery in your phone's battery settings — location sharing is rarely the biggest drain once properly configured