Power Hero Review

For the past ten days I have been enjoying the 33% power increase that my new Seidio 1600mAh Extended Battery has provided me – it really has made a huge difference on my Treo 680 and I can finally end a day filled with calls with plenty of juice still to go.

Having said this, a new Treo software solution aptly called Power Hero is now helping to take my enhanced battery performance even further.  Power Hero provides me with a simple and easy to use console from which I can instantly see the status and control any one of the six main power-draining functions on my smartphone to help me deliver an estimated additional 20% power.

The main Power Hero console screen (above) allows me to quickly see the current status of my Phone, Bluetooth, Keyboard (backlighting), Network (wireless data connection), Infrared and Screen (brightness) and make any necessary adjustments.  In this case I have initially disabled all functions except obviously the Phone and also reduced my screen brightness from 76% to 65% since during the day I really don’t need it to be set higher.

The next step clicking the Power Saver button allows you to set some Auto-Off preferences.  For example, I really like the ability to automatically close my Network connection after a set number of minutes since typically when you use the Internet your wireless data connection stays on indefinitely draining and wasting precious Treo battery power. 

Additionally, another major power drain can occur when your Treo loses phone service (for example when riding on the subway) and Power Hero allows you to save battery life by automatically switching your phone off when no service is detected and retry connecting to the network after a set number of minutes.

Another interesting and rather ingenious feature is the Auto Bluetooth option (above right) which will automatically turn Bluetooth on when a call is received or when you’re dialling a number.  I’ve unfortunately had trouble getting my Bluetooth Headset to properly connect when the BT gets turned on but this is likely a problem at my end and not related to Power Hero’s performance.  It actually makes a lot of sense to have your Bluetooth enabled _only_ when you’re making or receiving calls…

Finally, you can also set individual Schedules for all six power-draining functions.  In my case I create a schedule to turn my Keyboard on at 19.00 every day and another to turn it back off at 6am (somewhat oddly you can’t simply set one schedule to On at one time and Off at another thus requiring two separate schedules).  I also set a similar profile for my Screen with a brighter setting for the evening and a darker for the day.

Overall I found Power Hero to be brilliantly simple – so much so in fact that one has to wonder why it had not been released sooner.  In less than five minutes I was able to completely refine all the power-draining functions on my smartphone and so make sure that I am able to always extend the performance of my Treo battery to the max.  Very highly recommended.

Treonauts always have the power of heroes…