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So, it seems the default policy for wifi on this device is never to disconnect itself to save power. The Vibrant defaulted to whenever the screen was off. That makes the default wifi policy between these two devices vastly different. In fact, there isn't even an option on this phone to disconnect from wifi when the screen is shut down. I wonder how this will affect battery life. I may think twice about enabling wifi.
The first thing I did after connecting it to my wifi was go to the wifi advanced settings and set the sleep policy to never. I'm glad it was already off by default. It shows that someone at HTC paid attention to that small detail and how it affected battery life. It greatly helps your battery life in my experience (with the Vibrant), since it's not constantly connecting and disconnecting from wifi which apparently uses more power.
Aspeds2989 said:
The first thing I did after connecting it to my wifi was go to the wifi advanced settings and set the sleep policy to never. I'm glad it was already off by default. It shows that someone at HTC paid attention to that small detail and how it affected battery life. It greatly helps your battery life in my experience (with the Vibrant), since it's not constantly connecting and disconnecting from wifi which apparently uses more power.
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Agree 100%.
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App
Aspeds2989 said:
The first thing I did after connecting it to my wifi was go to the wifi advanced settings and set the sleep policy to never. I'm glad it was already off by default. It shows that someone at HTC paid attention to that small detail and how it affected battery life. It greatly helps your battery life in my experience (with the Vibrant), since it's not constantly connecting and disconnecting from wifi which apparently uses more power.
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Really? How would that *improve* battery life? I would have it to *detract* from battery life. If I'm at home basking in my wireless network, why would I rather have the connection permanent than to have it disconnected when the screen shuts off as it does by default with the Vibrant? If what you say is true, then setting the timeout from the 15 minutes timeout, as I have it now, to full time connection (never timeouts), will actually save on battery? To me, that flies in the face of reason, but then again, stranger things I've come across.
Just hoping for a reply to the above, and perhaps someone can explain why having wifi never time-out even when the screen is off can lead to better battery life?
think about it. having to connect and reconnect everytime you turn on your screen is bound to eat up. if your screen is off its not sucking in massive amounts of data so the battery drain is at a min
Lockeskidney said:
think about it. having to connect and reconnect everytime you turn on your screen is bound to eat up. if your screen is off its not sucking in massive amounts of data so the battery drain is at a min
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Well, it's certainly not intuitive, and I am thinking about it, hence the post. In order to maintain an active wifi connection, there has to be continual pinging back and forth even with no active data connections from the device. Now, we all know that there *is* a lot of data being exchanged when the screen is off - whether it be syncing accounts, retrieving news items, emails, etc. This would all be taking place over a wifi connection by default. It is also my understanding that using your wifi radio consumes more power than your UMTS radio does. However, I'm not entirely sure of that last point.
Isn't it far more intuitive to believe (whether factual or not) that having the wifi radio powered on unnecessarily while in your pocket would consume more power than having it turn off? Even the seasoned users over in the Vibrant forums all recommend setting the wifi to turn off when the screen shuts off, which is a setting not available on the MT4G.
I'd like to believe that how HTC sets the default wifi behavior conserves power, but it sort of flies in the face of reason. I'm also of the belief that the device is set by default the way it is so that callers who use Wifi Calling can always be reached while at home on their wifi network. But, having such a wifi connection setting is actually eating up your battery life if you don't need wifi calling.
Wifi used less power that edge/g3/4g. Having it constantly on wifi with improve your battery life just because when wifi is enabled it shuts off cellular data.
option94 said:
Wifi used less power that edge/g3/4g. Having it constantly on wifi with improve your battery life just because when wifi is enabled it shuts off cellular data.
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Ah, OK, well there you have it. Someone ought to tell those folks over the in the Vibrant forums then. Thanks...
floepie said:
Ah, OK, well there you have it. Someone ought to tell those folks over the in the Vibrant forums then. Thanks...
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I have. I have a vibrant. Ordered the mytouch last night.
Also, can't have WiFi sleeping... otherwise WiFi calling won't work...
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Title says it all.
Sent from my HTC Inspire 4G using XDA Premium App
Sure does not.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
Not even comparable... data takes up tons of battery
Sent from my Inspire 4G using XDA Premium App
If it's constantly in a loop of trying, unsuccessfully, to connect to a wireless network, I could see it increasing obviously, but in a normal connected state, as the others say, no way as much as mobile.
alright awesome ill keep using wifi
Scott_S said:
If it's constantly in a loop of trying, unsuccessfully, to connect to a wireless network, I could see it increasing obviously, but in a normal connected state, as the others say, no way as much as mobile.
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Scott is right. If you don't have wifi connected it will constantly search for it causing battery drain. If you leave and don't plan on being on wifi I would shut it off so that your phone isn't constantly searching for a network. There are some battery settings in the wifi menu that can help with that though just not very much.
P.S. oops edited sorry Scott lol
Carlrobling said:
...Mud is right...
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I'll take that as a complement.
I disagree, every phone i have seen uses significantly more battery having wifi turned on, I definately notice it on mine, and im talking about being connected to a wifi the entire time. My battery life with wifi on has always been **** compared to it being turned off, Iphone's all of them including 4, droid x, vibrant, captivate, inspire all the same result with wifi enabled.
Do a expierment charge phone to 100% before going to bed, lets say 10 pm to 6 am check battery power lvl, next night enable wifi, I am absolutely certain that u will have a much larger drain.
as for does it drain more while in use than 3g or 4g is another issue, some say it uses less than mobile network to transfer data because a mobile tower can be a few miles away while the router is no more than 200 feet. I personally think wifi still uses more battery, however i do use wifi when available to keep my data usage down. if u disabled 3g altogether then maybe. but with both on u are powering another radio.
jc2470 said:
I disagree, every phone i have seen uses significantly more battery having wifi turned on, I definately notice it on mine, and im talking about being connected to a wifi the entire time. My battery life with wifi on has always been **** compared to it being turned off, Iphone's all of them including 4, droid x, vibrant, captivate, inspire all the same result with wifi enabled.
Do a expierment charge phone to 100% before going to bed, lets say 10 pm to 6 am check battery power lvl, next night enable wifi, I am absolutely certain that u will have a much larger drain.
as for does it drain more while in use than 3g or 4g is another issue, some say it uses less than mobile network to transfer data because a mobile tower can be a few miles away while the router is no more than 200 feet. I personally think wifi still uses more battery, however i do use wifi when available to keep my data usage down. if u disabled 3g altogether then maybe. but with both on u are powering another radio.
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If you're saying that having WiFi on uses more battery than having WiFi off, which is how I read the first part of your post, I'd have to say you absolutely correct.
I think the question was whether WiFi used more battery than mobile data.
Mobile data uses more battery because its constantly trying to look for a better connection. E/3G/4G/ETC...
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according to alot of other post about this same issue say wifi uses more battery either way because your 3g /4g radio is still on when using wifi
Both right
If you have WiFi always on, constantly polling for it, when not connected, you will use >battery. If you are connected to WiFi, and thus not polling all the time, <battery usage.
I use Llama to disable my WiFi when I am out not using GPS. It knows I leave home or work based on location as tringulated by the cell towers, thus GPS doesn't have to be on. Your phone is always polling for towers anyway, even with data shut off, so this does not use any battery to speak of. There are a lot of towers here in my basic hood, so Llama seems to identified that I leave home from 100-1000 meters, depending which direction I go.
You will use less battery if you shut off WiFi polling while you have no chance to connect to Wifi, that is for sure!
I use Llama to shut off and on all sorts of stuff based on location or a set of conditions. It is all logic based: If condition A exists, perform B toggle. Works great for me in an area with lots of towers so location at home vs. work vs. out is determined rather easily and accurately in my experience.
Edit: other conditions available include days of the week, time of day, headset or bluetooth enabled, etc.
Wifi definitively uses less battery than 3g from all the tests I've done and common experiences around the forum. Its not even close.
Can you change the wifi interval in the build.prop file to have it search after a longer delay? I know on mine it is set for 15 (seconds)?
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If your connected to wifi and using it, are you gonna get better battery life VS being connected to either 3g or 4g/hspa+?
and Why if so?
Shoot im sorry, this shouldnt be in this forum. I thought I was in the general questions forums. MY bad people. Please move mods.
smashpunks said:
Shoot im sorry, this shouldnt be in this forum. I thought I was in the general questions forums. MY bad people. Please move mods.
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This is the General forum. To answer your question, Yes it would use less battery on WiFi. On a data connection the signal is not a constant and the phone is always looking for a stronger signal.
Thanks, thats what I thought. And ive noticed that connected to wifi my battery lasts a lot longer.
smashpunks said:
Thanks, thats what I thought. And ive noticed that connected to wifi my battery lasts a lot longer.
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yes. And 4g eats your battery.
When I am only using the phone for data, I use WiFi when available. I turn on airplane mode then activate WiFi.
I don't know about that... when I'm on wifi my battery drains like a mofo. Weapon 3.0 ICS theme faux 1.3 kernel.
On every ROM and Kernel I've tried, Wi-Fi uses much, much less battery than 4G. I haven't tried any of the toggles / battery saving apps though so I'm not sure what effect those might have.
NeKr0MAtiK said:
I don't know about that... when I'm on wifi my battery drains like a mofo. Weapon 3.0 ICS theme faux 1.3 kernel.
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Do you disable data when you use wifi?
buru898 said:
Do you disable data when you use wifi?
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He shouldn't have to. If he's draining faster on WiFi then something is screwy with his setup.
On stock, cyanogenmod 7.1, and cyanogenmod 7.1 with various other kernels I've experienced increased battery drain with wi-fi on and connected with the phone sitting at home the entire day. Turn off wi-fi and let it just use the data connection to T-Mobile and I get drastically increased battery times. I'm assuming those of you who get better battery with wi-fi on are in extremely bad signal areas. Also, if you're on cyanogenmod have you turned off the auto wi-fi disconnect when sleeping feature? If you haven't then your battery life when sleeping should be the same as that of wi-fi turned off.
Wi-fi should always be priority if your in range.
Well my personal experience has been that wi-fi eats up battery like crazy. Same thing happens to the other smartphone users I know around here so I was surprised to see that people get better battery times with wi-fi on. Are you guys completely turning off your cellular radio? I don't like the quality and slight delay of wi-fi calling so my cellular radio stays on when I have wi-fi on.
I don't usually notice much difference between wifi and 3g battery drain here (no 4G for tmo here).
As someone already posted, my drain is worst when 3g signal is poor, like when I'm at work and the metal building interferes with everything.
Have you tried checking logs while connected to wifi to see if maybe some app or service goes crazy?
Nothing fishy going on when wi-fi is on. I get about 10-14 hours on battery with wi-fi on and next to no use of the phone vs somewhere around 20+ hours with wi-fi off and similar extremely light use. I keep meaning to do some more standardized testing where I literally don't touch the phone but life gets in the way and I have to make/answer a call or txt or whatever so I can't nail down any hard numbers. Typical experience on a slow day for me is that if I forget my wi-fi is on, my battery will be somewhere in the 3-5% range when I'm getting ready for bed while if I hadn't left it on, I can go to sleep and wake up and it'll still be hanging in there.
GTWalling said:
This is the General forum. To answer your question, Yes it would use less battery on WiFi. On a data connection the signal is not a constant and the phone is always looking for a stronger signal.
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That's true, I've always believed that Wifi eats battery faster because someone(don't remember who) always told me that Wifi uses more battery because it processes data faster, but I always noticed that when I used 4g, it drains a lot faster.
I always blamed it on the ROM, but I can see that it's not the ROM's fault.
Hey guys just a quick question. I already get phenomenal idle drain. I don't drop a single percent overnight in an 8 hr period. Couldn't be happier. I also have no wakelock issues However I want to help battery life while not idle.
So I created a tasker profile that enables data when only in apps that need it like Tapatalk. Then when I exit that app (screen still on) or turn the screen off data shuts off.
My question is if I'm going more harm then good with the constant data toggling. I know it's probably subjective to how much I use these data apps so data gets toggled. Is there a way to test this myself?
Not worth your effort. Don't try to micromanage too much.
thats right, enjoy your device instead.
OK thanks guys
Sandman-007 said:
Hey guys just a quick question. I already get phenomenal idle drain. I don't drop a single percent overnight in an 8 hr period. Couldn't be happier. I also have no wakelock issues However I want to help battery life while not idle.
So I created a tasker profile that enables data when only in apps that need it like Tapatalk. Then when I exit that app (screen still on) or turn the screen off data shuts off.
My question is if I'm going more harm then good with the constant data toggling. I know it's probably subjective to how much I use these data apps so data gets toggled. Is there a way to test this myself?
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How do you get this?
I would just say to one day use your data toggle, and don't the next day if you're curious. I'm usually curious about these things too. I set my Tasker up so it switches to 3G when I'm connected to my work's wifi. My whole work's area has very strong 3G and very weak LTE so I have bad signal because the phone keeps trying to connect to the LTE network. However, my work's wifi is also not very stable and it keeps disconnected which leads my phone to constantly toggle between 3G and LTE. I'm not sure if this affects battery drain but it felt a bit like a drain. I just ended up manually toggling. But I'm usually curious which what drains the battery more. Since your data would be off when the screen is off and if you're not using wifi you should get very good standby time.
I have Wifi set to turn off when the phone sleeps. During the evening, that usually results in the Wifi being active for about 30% of the time. Lately, (probably after a recent Google Play Services update), I noticed my Wifi is active 100% of the time. Anyone else notice this?
Lol, just noticed the same thing. For some reason it displays wifi as always on for me as well. Doesn't affect my battery life tho (not noticing it)
Sammath said:
Lol, just noticed the same thing. For some reason it displays wifi as always on for me as well. Doesn't affect my battery life tho (not noticing it)
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OK good to know its just not me.
It's "on" but only connects when in an area where it has already connected before.
p51d007 said:
It's "on" but only connects when in an area where it has already connected before.
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Yes I believe the behavior has not changed. However in my battery apps it's now showing WiFi active all the time. Previously, on would be 100% but active usually 50%. Now it's 100%
Maybe the app doesn't shut down the wifi connection completely but stops it from sending any data. Maybe the app justs shut down the wifi from ping-ing periodically but keeps the wifi one 100%.
Just my two cents
Wifi is on, but doesn't use that much power. It most likely is pinging at time, to see if a previously connected
wifi access point is available. I leave mine on 24/7, and haven't had any battery issues. In fact, with it on all the
time, my battery life is better because if I'm in an area where I've connected to wifi previously, it disables the
4G connection for data, and uses the wifi. Depending on your 4G connection, wifi could save your battery
life, since the amount of power required for the data part of the 4G signal, is dependent on your signal strength.
Low signal strength, more power required to connect.
p51d007 said:
Wifi is on, but doesn't use that much power. It most likely is pinging at time, to see if a previously connected
wifi access point is available. I leave mine on 24/7, and haven't had any battery issues. In fact, with it on all the
time, my battery life is better because if I'm in an area where I've connected to wifi previously, it disables the
4G connection for data, and uses the wifi. Depending on your 4G connection, wifi could save your battery
life, since the amount of power required for the data part of the 4G signal, is dependent on your signal strength.
Low signal strength, more power required to connect.
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Great post thank you! The question is more out of curiosity since this behavior wasnt happening before. BTW, I think I figured out whats going on. In Location Settings, under the 3 dot menu I had Wifi Scanning option turned off. For whatever reason, the option was turned back on. No idea how this can happen but I disabled it again.