Does Rootmetrics & OpenSignal Drain Battery Life & Memory?

Sensorly, OpenSignal, MyMobileCoverage or Rootmetrics apps basically turn your cell phone into a signal meter so you can measure your 3G & 4G LTE cell signal strength.  These apps run in the background of your phone and send data to the provider.  They all aggregate the data and provide a theoretical coverage map.

There is one big limitation to all of these apps.  They don't take into account direct customer feedback and map it similar to deadcellzones.com.  Most people know 3 or 4 areas where they persistently drop calls or cannot get a signal.  Deadcellzones.com allows you to contribute to a map direct customer feedback in a particular area WITHOUT downloading an app the might drain your resources and battery.  If you search for dead cell zones on your phone using a browser it will automatically redirect you to our dead zones mobile friendly site that does not require a download.

Reading these two blog posts and comments might indicate that these apps use resources and battery if you keep it running in the background constantly.  CBS article, Lifehacker article

Would love any technical feedback below.