[Help Wanted]: Battery drain with background location tracking on iOS

[PKM-7]

Required Reading

• Confirmed

Plugin Version

4.18.9

Mobile operating-system(s)

• iOS
• Android

Device Manufacturer(s) and Model(s)

Client-reported issue — exact device model not yet confirmed. Will follow up with iPhone model once collected from the affected user.

Device operating-systems(s)

iOS version not yet confirmed — app supports iOS 15.0+ (Podfile platform target). Will update once collected from the affected user's device.

React Native / Expo version

React Native 0.72.1 (bare RN, not Expo)

What do you require assistance about?

We use react-native-background-geolocation in our production app (a live
safety-monitoring / location-tracking app) and our clients are reporting
significant battery drain caused by continuous background location on iOS.

Important requirement: this is a safety-monitoring app, so tracking behavior
must continue working exactly as it does today — continuous background
location even when the app is killed/terminated, reliable reporting while
stationary and moving, and no gaps in coverage. We are only looking for
configuration/approach changes that reduce battery consumption WITHOUT
reducing tracking reliability, frequency, or accuracy in any way that a user
or their monitor would notice. If a battery improvement requires trading off
tracking reliability, please flag that clearly as a trade-off rather than a
straightforward fix, so we can make that call knowingly.

Specific questions:

1. preventSuspend: true keeps the app alive in the background on iOS (we
   believe via a silent audio session — our Info.plist UIBackgroundModes
   includes "audio"). Is this the primary battery cost in our setup? What's
   the recommended alternative for an app that must keep reporting location
   while backgrounded?
2. heartbeatInterval: 15 fires indefinitely every 15s even while stationary —
   is this itself a significant battery cost separate from GPS accuracy?
   What interval would you recommend?
3. Would you recommend changing desiredAccuracy, distanceFilter, or
   stationaryRadius for our use case, and what values?
4. Any other iOS-specific config changes to reduce battery use without
   losing reliable background/killed-app tracking?

[Optional] Plugin Code and/or Config

BackgroundGeolocation.ready({
  desiredAccuracy: BackgroundGeolocation.DESIRED_ACCURACY_HIGH,
  distanceFilter: 10,
  stopOnTerminate: false,
  startOnBoot: true,
  batchSync: false,
  autoSync: false,
  preventSuspend: true,
  pausesLocationUpdatesAutomatically: false,
  stationaryRadius: 25,
  locationAuthorizationRequest: "Always",
  heartbeatInterval: 15,
  useSignificantChangesOnly: false,
  enableHeadless: true,
});

// onHeartbeat sends the cached event.location — no forced fresh GPS fix:
BackgroundGeolocation.onHeartbeat((event) => {
  if (event?.location?.coords) {
    sendLocationToServer(event.location);
  }
});

// Info.plist UIBackgroundModes: audio, fetch, location, processing, remote-notification

[Optional] Relevant log output

Not yet collected — logLevel is currently LOG_LEVEL_OFF in production (no
verbose logging enabled). Can enable LOG_LEVEL_VERBOSE and send Xcode console
logs / BackgroundGeolocation.emailLog() output from an affected device if
needed for diagnosis.

[PKM-7]

Device Manufacturer(s) and Model(s): Apple iPhone 15 Pro
Device Operating System(s): iOS 26.6

[christocracy]

4.18.9

v4 is no longer supported. See the v5 migration guide

Important requirement: this is a safety-monitoring app, so tracking behavior
must continue working exactly as it does today — continuous background
location even when the app is killed/terminated, reliable reporting while
stationary and moving, and no gaps in coverage.

If you want to be rich, you can't avoid taxes.

preventSuspend is documented to consume more battery. 99% of use-cases do not require it. Remove preventSuspend from your config.

pausesLocationUpdatesAutomatically: false,

Delete this config (do not set it to false, remove it).

distanceFilter: 10,

Increase it.

[christocracy]

preventSuspend: true keeps the app alive in the background on iOS (we
believe via a silent audio session — our Info.plist UIBackgroundModes
includes "audio"). Is this the primary battery cost in our setup? What's
the recommended alternative for an app that must keep reporting location
while backgrounded?

The SDK does not use audio to keep the app alive. You are directed to add the UIBackgroundModes audio merely for debugging, so the SDK can play debugging soundFX in the background while field-testing. You are warned to not submit your app with the audio capability.

[PKM-7]

Hi @christocracy,

Thank you for the detailed guidance — that's very helpful. We'll apply these changes on our end:

Remove preventSuspend
Remove pausesLocationUpdatesAutomatically entirely (rather than setting it to false)
Increase distanceFilter
We also removed the audio background mode already, so that part is already handled on our production branch.

Two follow-up questions before we proceed with a v5 migration, since this is a live production app and we want to avoid any disruption:

Will generating a new v5 JWT license key from the dashboard affect or invalidate our existing v4 legacy license key? Our production app is currently running on v4 with that legacy key, and we'd like to confirm it will continue to work uninterrupted while we plan and test the v5 migration separately, before we touch anything in production.

Regarding licensing for the v5 upgrade — we purchased our current license only about 4–5 months ago. Is there a free or discounted upgrade path to v5 for recent license holders, or does moving to v5 require purchasing a new license?

Appreciate your help — we want to make sure we handle both the migration and the licensing correctly before making any changes to our production setup.

Thanks!

[christocracy]

Will generating a new v5 JWT license key from the dashboard affect or invalidate our existing v4 legacy license key?

No.

Regarding licensing for the v5 upgrade — we purchased our current license only about 4–5 months ago. Is there a free or discounted upgrade path to v5 for recent license holders, or does moving to v5 require purchasing a new license?

You are allowed to create both v4 and v5 license keys having the same app package name.