The Criteria class is not documented in much detail.
Can someone please explain what POWER_HIGH and POWER_LOW change exactly?
Is it about battery drainage?
criteria.setPowerRequirement(Criteria.POWER_LOW);
criteria.setAccuracy(Criteria.ACCURACY_FINE);
...
locationManager.requestSingleUpdate(criteria, locationListener, null);
Update: I went through some of the source code. It turns out this parameter is ignored in my example because an accuracy is set as well.
createFromDeprecatedCriteria() in LocationRequest.java:
...
int quality;
switch (criteria.getAccuracy()) {
case Criteria.ACCURACY_COARSE:
quality = ACCURACY_BLOCK;
break;
case Criteria.ACCURACY_FINE:
quality = ACCURACY_FINE;
break;
default: {
if (criteria.getPowerRequirement() == Criteria.POWER_HIGH) {
quality = POWER_HIGH;
} else {
quality = POWER_LOW;
}
}
}
...
There are a number of different LocationProviders (gps, network, passive etc). The Criteria class can be used by the LocationManger to automatically select the best provider based on your requirements.
Criteria criteria = new Criteria();
criteria.setPowerRequirement(Criteria.POWER_LOW);
criteria.setAccuracy(Criteria.ACCURACY_FINE);
criteria.setSpeedRequired(true);
criteria.setAltitudeRequired(false);
criteria.setBearingRequired(false);
criteria.setCostAllowed(false);
return locationManager.getBestProvider(criteria, true);
How the Criteria class is actually used can be seen here here.
Setting the power requirement to Criteria.POWER_LOW would probably just rule out the device using the GPS location provider (since it uses far more battery than the other passive types).