Develop Reference

What locationManager.requestLocationUpdates do?

locationManager.requestLocationUpdates(provider, 2500, 2, this);
You need to walk 2 meters in every 2.5seconds to request for new location?. Correct me if i am wrong. Thank you.

minTime – Wise choice of value for minTime will help you reduce
power consumption. What you need to keep in mind is that elapsed
time between location updates will never be less than minTime, but
it can be greater, because it is influenced by the implementation of
each given Provider and the update interval requested by other
running applications.
minDistance – Unlike minTime this parameter can be turned off by
setting it’s value to 0. However, if minDistance is set to a value
greater than 0, location provider will only send updates to your
application if location has changed at least by given distance. This
parameter is not a great power saver like minTime, but it should be
kept in mind although.
These two parameters work in AND relation, so in order to receive location update, both of their conditions need to be achieved (i.e. more then 5 seconds has passed, and the distance change is greater than 10 meters).
You can check this link:
https://blog.codecentric.de/en/2014/05/android-gps-positioning-location-strategies/

Getting latitude and longitude updates based off of change in distance for Android

I know with the Android and the Location API's it's possible to receive periodic updates of latitude and longitude through an interval of time using the "setInterval" method and other methods on the "LocationRequest" class, but what I'm wondering is, what would be a good way to get latitude and longitude updates via GPS based off of a change in distance compared to the previous location without having it on all the time and not wasting battery (preferably a solution that is energy efficient).
For example, say I start at one place and then 2 minutes later I'm 5km from the distance that I originally started at. At this point the GPS would detect the change in location and update the latitude and longitude on the device.
If anyone could provide some insight or code samples on how to do this, that'd be great!
Thanks

You can based your position attribute update on how far you are from the previous location, but you can't based GPS frequency update on that, simply because you need a location request to find out that you are far enough.
If you want an energy efficient solution, you can reduce the rate at which new update appear. You can also reduce the window duration in which you listen for position (position may be less accurate).
A lot of information can be found here, specially in Adjusting the model to save battery and data exchange and Deciding when to start listening for updates chapters

You can get the location change if you specify the distance you want to get updates in the requestLocationUpdate parameter.
public void requestLocationUpdates (String provider, long minTime, float minDistance, LocationListener listener)
Here is example:
LocationManager yourLoc = (LocationManager) getSystemService(Context.LOCATION_SERVICE);
yourLoc.requestLocationUpdates(LocationManager.GPS_PROVIDER, 0, 2, onLocationChange);
Here you will receive location changes after every 2 meters you have travelled, irrespective of the time you spent at a particular location.
Hope that answers your question!!!

Does Android's requestLocationUpdate() with a minDistance conserve any battery?

I've successfully used the Android requestLocationUpdates() with the minTime and the minDistance parameters. I'm trying to understand the impact of minDistance on battery usage.
If minDistance is used, is the geolocation (e.g. GPS) continuously being polled to see if minDistance is exceeded?
The Android docs say:
The minDistance parameter can also be used to control the frequency of
location updates. If it is greater than 0 then the location provider
will only send your application an update when the location has
changed by at least minDistance meters, AND at least minTime
milliseconds have passed. However it is more difficult for location
providers to save power using the minDistance parameter, so minTime
should be the primary tool to conserving battery life.
How can the minDistance parameter be used unless the user's geolocation is continuously being polled? It seems like the Android service cannot perform any power-conserving optimization using this parameter.

It's a question of quality. If you only request updates after 100 meters, your gps does not need to run with full resolution. Depending on the driver and supplier, that might save energy. Android offeres a possibility. Whether it is used depends on the gps supplier and the app developer.

Variation in GPS data being at same location

In my application, I have calculated speed based on GPS locations.
As GPS receiver can have different coordinates even being on the same location, my app is recording speed even when phone is on my desk.
I need to avoid GPS data if I am receiving it being on same location.
I am thinking of adding some logic based on “bearing”, so that I can decide if the phone is actually moving or it’s receiving jumpy location data from any direction.
Before that I would like to know is there any other way to avoid this kind of data?

AS per the Javadoc for the method request public void requestLocationUpdates (long minTime, float minDistance, Criteria criteria, PendingIntent intent) found here
minTime minimum time interval between location updates, in
milliseconds minDistance
minimum distance between location updates, in
meters
so you can use minDistance parameter to avoid getting update for very short distances...

After working on many methods I programmed it with bearing.
I am getting speed based on last 5 locations. I added Logic to check bearing for each location with next location and if all bearing have larger difference, I assumed locations are being received from random directions and so the device is not actually moving.
And it worked great for me :)

Background Location Management on Android

Porting our location based game to Android.
We rely on updating user location when the app is in the background. What's the best way to accomplish this on the Android side while mitigating battery impact?
We don't need high-frequency updates, even 20 minute cadence is acceptable.
Thanks for any help

You will need to create a Background Service in order to accomplish what you want.
Inside that Background Service you will need to use LocationManager and request for Location Updates.
The function that request for Location Updates takes parameters for the fixes intervals as shown below:
public void requestLocationUpdates (String provider, long minTime, float minDistance, LocationListener listener)
you will use the minTime parameter to choose the interval between the fixes:
minTime : the minimum time interval for notifications, in milliseconds. This field is only used as a hint to conserve power, and actual time between location updates may be greater or lesser than this value.