Measure system-app VPN routing wakeups leading to increased battery usage

[kasnder]

Problem

Routing system apps through TrackerControl's VPN (include_system_vpn) noticeably affects battery life. The working hypothesis is wakeup frequency rather than tunnel throughput: background activity from Play Store, Play Services, carrier services, and similar apps traverses the tun and wakes packet-processing threads.

Work

• Measure wakeups and time in the packet loop with system apps included versus excluded; do not use MB/s as the primary metric.
• Consider replacing the current three-step flow (include_system_vpn → manage_system → show_system) with one clear toggle that controls VPN routing and UI visibility.
• Preserve/document the trade-off: excluding system apps is friendlier to battery, but conflicts with Android's “Block connections without VPN” behavior.

Always routing system apps through the VPN has previously been rejected because of battery impact.

[kasnder]

@nmarteybotchway This would be a potentially good thing for you to investigate. Battery use is always problematic with such apps. Enabling the routting of system apps, in the past, always greatly increased energy use. Although it's much lower these days, when one enables a Wireguard VPN.

[nmarteybotchway]

Thanks @kasnder - will look into this!