Samsung Pay is one of the most popular mobile payment platforms due to its wide acceptance. The Samsung Pay Framework app comes pre-installed on many Android handsets to make Samsung Pay more adaptive and give it more functions so that it works quietly behind the scenes. However, some users are now claiming the app is causing battery drain.
Samsung Pay Framework is causing battery drain
Many users have taken to social platforms like Reddit to complain about the battery drain issue with the Samsung Pay Framework app. Some claim the app is draining as much as 60% of their phone’s battery.
“A couple times a week I’ll notice that my battery is drained significantly. Then I’ll look and my battery stats and I’ll see that Android system is the culprit. When I go into Android system it says Samsung pay framework,” one user said on the Android Central forums.
“Anyone here getting they battery life consumed by this? I’m losing almost a quarter of a day here… My average was 24-28 hours with around double the SoT and Spotify streaming,” a Reddit user complained.
It must be noted that the Samsung Pay Framework app had been working without any issues for months, and then users suddenly started complaining about the battery drain issue. For now, it is not clear why the app is impacting battery life. There have been no theories from users either, although some have offered a few workarounds.
Some users say that force-stopping the app fixes the issue for them, while others say that strangely, disabling battery optimization worked for them. If you want to try this, go to Settings > Apps > Samsung Pay-Samsung Pay Framework > Battery and then enable “Not Optimized.”
Neither of these workarounds solve the issue completely; rather they just reduce the battery drain. The app can’t be uninstalled because it comes as a system app in many Android handsets. One can only disable or force-stop it. Users say the optimization fix reduces the battery drain to 40% after less than two hours of screen time, while force-stopping the app reduced the drain to 30% over the same period.
As of now, there has been no comment from Samsung about the development with the Samsung Pay Framework app. We can only hope the Korean firm is aware of the issue and is working on a fix.
Here’s why some see Samsung Pay as better than alternatives
Samsung Pay is a popular mobile payment platform. Unlike Apple Pay and Google Pay, which are purely NFC-based systems, Samsung Pay works with both NFC and traditional mag stripe terminals because it is compatible with Magnetic Secure Transmissions (MST). It may not be as popular as Apple Pay, but it enjoys a big network in the U.S. and other key markets.
Moreover, Samsung is constantly adding new features to make the service even more useful. An update last month made the service more convenient to use when NFC is available. After the update, when a handset with Samsung Pay is near an NFC terminal, users’ Favorite Cards will automatically open. As the name suggests, Favorite Cards are the cards the user has marked as favorites. These cards will now appear automatically when a user is near an NFC terminal, thus saving time when the user wants to make a purchase.
In August 2018, Samsung revealed Samsung Pay passed 1.3 billion transactions globally. In a press release at the time, the company said the service was live in 24 markets on six continents.
“Since we launched Samsung Pay three years ago, we have been dedicated to delivering a mobile wallet platform that is simple, secure and works almost anywhere. We have been expanding its availability and forming strategic partnerships in each market to meet the unique needs of their users,” the Korean firm said in the press release.
The company said it has partnered with more than 2,000 banks and financial institutions globally to bring its online payments service, transit cards, loyalty and membership card and ATM transactions facility to more markets.
The payment service also offers Samsung Rewards, which are points for purchases made with merchant partners. Further, Bixby integration allows users to make purchases using voice commands. One Bixby feature allows Samsung Pay users to shop using their smartphone cameras. Users just have to aim the camera at a product, and Bixby Shopping will identify the product and direct users to an e-commerce site offering that product.
