EMaaS: Energy Measurements as a Service for Mobile Applications

Abstract: Measuring energy consumption is a challenging task faced by developers when building mobile apps. This paper presents EMaaS: a system that provides reliable energy measurements for mobile applications, without requiring a complex setup. It combines estimations from an energy model with --- typically more reliable, but also expensive --- hardware-based measurements. On a per scenario basis, it decides whether the energy model is able to provide a reliable estimation of energy consumption. Otherwise, hardware-based measurements are provided. In addition, the system is accessible to the community of mobile software practitioners/researchers in the form of a Software as a Service. With this service, we aim at solving current problems in the field of energy efficiency in mobile software engineering: the complexity of hardware-based power monitor tools, the reliability of energy models, and the continuous need of data to build energy models.