Does "WiFi" on helps to save battery? - Captivate General

I saw several posts suggesting that leaving WiFi on where you have WiFi connection helps you to save the battery which I'm finding pretty strange. I thought WiFi actually drains battery faster then anything else. Are savings due to the fact that WiFi is more efficient then 3G or does it actually holds true that it saves battery?

All things being equal, Wi-Fi uses less power than 3G. Wi-Fi radio waves don't have to go as far, so they're easier to generate. When Wi-Fi is on, 3G is off, so you'll save power if you're actually transferring data.
A lot of programs will initiate data transfers by themselves when connected to Wi-Fi though, so perhaps that is why some will notice higher drain when Wi-Fi is on.
Also, if Wi-Fi is left on and you are on the move, your battery will drain since your phone is constantly searching for available networks.
Unless you've changed the settings, however, when your phone's screen it off it switches back to 3G to handle data.

artisticcheese said:
I saw several posts suggesting that leaving WiFi on where you have WiFi connection helps you to save the battery which I'm finding pretty strange. I thought WiFi actually drains battery faster then anything else. Are savings due to the fact that WiFi is more efficient then 3G or does it actually holds true that it saves battery?
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Yes, as Scotty said above me...
ScottyNuttz said:
All things being equal, Wi-Fi uses less power than 3G. Wi-Fi radio waves don't have to go as far, so they're easier to generate. When Wi-Fi is on, 3G is off, so you'll save power if you're actually transferring data.
Also, if Wi-Fi is left on and you are on the move, your battery will drain since your phone is constantly searching for available networks.
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This however, is untrue. At least for me. I run the leaked 2.2 and my WiFi is always on at home, my data connection is never active. I check this by dialing *3282# and hitting send.
ScottyNuttz said:
Unless you've changed the settings, however, when your phone's screen it off it switches back to 3G to handle data.
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When I have wifi switched on I lose around 5 to 10% an hour. With it off I lose 1 to 2%. I don't have anything set to sync differently via wifi. I only have a few apps that sync data and those are set to do so every 4 hours or so.
I have tried leaving it both on and off overnight to test this and every time I've left it off I woke up with a full battery. If I leave it on I have to charge again in the morning.
When I'm going out I turn wifi off so that my phone isn't constantly searching for signal.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

miztaken1312 said:
This however, is untrue. At least for me. I run the leaked 2.2 and my WiFi is always on at home, my data connection is never active. I check this by dialing *3282# and hitting send.
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In the Wi-Fi advanced settings (Hit Menu when in the normal wi-fi settings), there is a Wi-Fi Sleep Policy (which specifies when to switch from Wi-Fi to mobile data)
By default, my device was set to 'When screen turns off'. the other options were 'Never when plugged in' or 'Never', I switched mine to 'Never'. You should notice that when you turn your screen on, the wifi icon doesn't show up right away. Of course, I'm on 2.1, so this may be different in 2.2, but check it out.

For me, I get no cell signal in the building at work so I need to keep wifi on. If I turn it off my battery drains fast from the 3g radio constantly trying to lock on a signal.

It depends in the quality of your 3G connection, but all things equal I have seen that using WiFi instead of 3G does save battery, when the WiFi is connected of course. Anytime a radio is constantly searching for a signal or trying to hold a weak signal, power usage tends to go up.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

ScottyNuttz said:
All things being equal, Wi-Fi uses less power than 3G. Wi-Fi radio waves don't have to go as far, so they're easier to generate. When Wi-Fi is on, 3G is off, so you'll save power if you're actually transferring data.
A lot of programs will initiate data transfers by themselves when connected to Wi-Fi though, so perhaps that is why some will notice higher drain when Wi-Fi is on.
Also, if Wi-Fi is left on and you are on the move, your battery will drain since your phone is constantly searching for available networks.
Unless you've changed the settings, however, when your phone's screen it off it switches back to 3G to handle data.
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Check out Y5 Battery Saver.
This app turns your wifi on/off based on the cell towers that you are on. You just connect to wifi, enable the app, and it remembers what cell towers you were on while you were in range of that wifi location. as soon as you are off of those towers, it turns off wifi. to add new wifi locations, just disable the app, connect to the hot spot, and re-enable the app.
This gives you the best of both worlds. you get to save battery while you are using wifi and when you are out of range it doesn't continually search for new wifi networks to connect to.

ScottyNuttz said:
In the Wi-Fi advanced settings (Hit Menu when in the normal wi-fi settings), there is a Wi-Fi Sleep Policy (which specifies when to switch from Wi-Fi to mobile data)
By default, my device was set to 'When screen turns off'. the other options were 'Never when plugged in' or 'Never', I switched mine to 'Never'. You should notice that when you turn your screen on, the wifi icon doesn't show up right away. Of course, I'm on 2.1, so this may be different in 2.2, but check it out.
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Whenever I turn my screen on, my wifi icon is right there. No delay in it showing up. I don't remember ever changing the sleep policy when I updated so I believe this is the default behavior for 2.2

drwx said:
Check out Y5 Battery Saver.
This app turns your wifi on/off based on the cell towers that you are on. You just connect to wifi, enable the app, and it remembers what cell towers you were on while you were in range of that wifi location. as soon as you are off of those towers, it turns off wifi. to add new wifi locations, just disable the app, connect to the hot spot, and re-enable the app.
This gives you the best of both worlds. you get to save battery while you are using wifi and when you are out of range it doesn't continually search for new wifi networks to connect to.
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+1 on Y5. There are a few other apps in the market that claim to do the same thing, but I think Y5 is by far the easiest to set up and works really well. Nice little utility so you don't have to keep remembering to turn off the wifi manually when you are out of range.
Now if I could just find a app that does the same for my bluetooth when it is near my car....but that I think is much harder to do without it actually polling.

Related

Losing Wifi everytime!!!

What is with this? I 've gone through several HTC phones on the EVO and everytime I lose my wifi. Anyone can help?
When do you lose the Wi-Fi?
I use the wi-fi in my house and it will maintain a constant signal.
UNLESS
It goes to sleep mode, then it turns off the wi-fi as well.
Whenever I bring it out of sleep, it always has to re-connect.
I don't know if there is some registry setting you can set to keep wi-fi turned on.
I think the risk is that it will drain the battery much quicker though.
I'm using the MAPL build 2.60 beta for a Dash 3G and the battery life is incredible.
You can make it stay on by going to: Comm Manager>Settings>WLAN Settings>Power Mode and unchecking the "Auto turn off..." box. And yes, it does suck the battery like a vampire and makes the phone HOT! You can also adjust how long it will stay on for after LCD OFF.
Wifi question
Hi, before i drive myself mad, I am convinced that my phone uses gprs for data, not wifi. And my bills seem to agree with me.
When I use things like MyPhone, either connected to my PC or connected to my wifi at home, it seems to appear on my bill as a data charge, which would indicate that it is using the network??
Am I right, wrong or stupid? Any help greatly appreciated.

Which uses more power, Wi-Fi or 3G?

This may sound like a bit of noob question but please hear me out. This is my first Android device and I'm coming from a iPhone 3G. I am having much worse battery life than I expected, even compared to a 2 year old battery in my iPhone. With the iPhone it was possible to disable 3G and just use EDGE to increase battery life, but EDGE is unacceptable for me. I also found that turning on WiFi seemed to increase battery life rather than running on 3G all the time, since I am always near WiFi. It seems like running two radios would use more power than running 1 but that was not my experience. I rationalized that by assuming the 3G radio had to broadcast its signal a much longer distance than the WiFi and therefor used more energy. So the more the iPhone used the lower power WiFi radio for data the better. Are my assumptions correct? Which radio uses more power? With my iPhone I left 3G and WiFi on all the time and never thought twice about it, at the end of the day I would have about half a battery left, with this Captivate I can barely make it through a day. I saw a suggestion in another thread to adjust the advanced WiFi setting to never disconnect WiFi to improve battery life, that person seems to make the same assumptions I have. Please let me know your thoughts. Thank you.
wifi uses less power then 3G does. When you turn on wifi and there is a network that you can connect to 3G will turn off.
Glad my assumptions were correct. So it would make sense then that if you were at a place where you knew you couldn't get WiFi it would save power to turn it off so it would stop searching. Do you agree that going into WiFi Settings -> Advanced -> WiFi Sleep policy and change "when screen turns off" to "Never" would help? So that all background data goes over wifi and not 3G?
nbarsotti said:
Glad my assumptions were correct. So it would make sense then that if you were at a place where you knew you couldn't get WiFi it would save power to turn it off so it would stop searching. Do you agree that going into WiFi Settings -> Advanced -> WiFi Sleep policy and change "when screen turns off" to "Never" would help? So that all background data goes over wifi and not 3G?
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Interesting, I have no "advanced" option under "WiFi Settings".
Push the menu button while in thet WiFi settings page and go to advanced.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
WiFi always being on wastes even more battery. Phone calls and texts still have to go through 3G.
kitsuneracer said:
Push the menu button while in thet WiFi settings page and go to advanced.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
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DOH!
Thank you!
That is the only inconsistency with android - when to look for more menus via the menu key.
spyz88 said:
WiFi always being on wastes even more battery. Phone calls and texts still have to go through 3G.
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I think it also depends how much data you are using. If you are streaming music or video - the battery should last longer with WiFi doing it - even if 3G is on.
If you are not doing much data, then the act of having 3G and WiFi on is counterproductive.
spyz88 said:
WiFi always being on wastes even more battery. Phone calls and texts still have to go through 3G.
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why? couldnt it just use regular edge for phone calls and text?

wifi sleep policy too sleepy on Sidekick with GO2

I don't really know if this is peculiar to Glorious Overload (which I've been running for a week or so) or is maybe a kernel problem on the Sidekick 4G.
I want my wifi to stay connected when the screen turns off. I've tried setting the wifi sleep policy to both "never" and "never when plugged in" with limited success. Seems to sometimes stay on and sometimes not. When it gets into the "sometimes not" state, the only cure I have found is rebooting the phone. Other than that, I haven't yet caught a pattern to it.
Anyone have any info or suggestions?
(For those wondering, I want wifi to stay on so that I can use the quite nice "AutoAir" app to turn off my 3G/4G data connection [to save battery] when I'm connected over wifi. And I want that because I'm trying to use "Groove IP" to do all my calls as VoIP, which is somewhat better over wifi when it's available.)
(For those who don't know how to set the wifi sleep policy, try Settings > Wireless and network > Wi-Fi settings. Then hit the menu button and select "Advanced".)
Well, I checked my advanced settings, and mines was on never. I know it's woring because I download a lot of crap, esp via torrent clients. And once I have wifi on, it doesn't use 4g anymore. When I turn it off, 4g comes back. Mind you, I don't use and switcher apps or anything of that matter.
Quite odd that you're having a problem, are you stock GO2?
Sent from my Sidekick 4G running PDT's Glorious Overdose.
Yes, stock GO2.
For me, the behavior is intermittent. Sometimes seems to stay on, but sometimes seems to "forget".
There seem to be a zillion "fix your wifi" or "keep your wifi on" apps in the market, so I am trying a few of those now. (Slow going due to the intermittent nature of the problem I'm trying to solve.)
I noticed at the end of your post that u want to turn off your data and keep your wifi on to save battery, but with our device having wifi on uses more power than data. Mainly because our data and our cell signal are on the same radio, so by turning off data you really are doing nothing, because your cell service is still using the radio, but now that you've turned on wifi you now have the cell/data radio on and your wifi radio on. Really the fact that our cell and data are in the same radio is great because it really cuts down on battery use. So there you go. Learn something new everyday. please thanks this post if you didn't know this or if it helped you.
Sent from my Kindle Fire using XDA
You're right ... I didn't know that.
The other reason I want to keep the wifi on (apart from my faulty reasoning about battery life) is that VoIP is generally better over wifi. It's easy to get that arranged for outgoing calls, but the phone is generally napping for incoming calls.
I may have to rethink my whole strategy for this.

Real Cause of battery drain/wake lock in MJ7/MK2 and fix

I am posting this as it is very hard to wade through information in forums. I'm hoping the following will be useful to those, who like me, experienced battery drain caused by Android Wake Locks after upgrading to MJ7 / MK2.
I am 100% certain the battery drain in MJ7/MK2 is caused by connecting to WIFI networks in environments that have multiple AP's. i.e. once WIFI roams from one AP to another the battery drain starts. All my testing confirms this - consistently. I have actually tested being connected to one AP in a multiple AP environment for a long period and observed no wake locks on Android OS. Yet as soon I move to another location (i.e when I make it roam) the wake lock and battery drain starts. All this rubbish about clearing cache, factory resetting, nobbling your phone and so on are all stabs in the dark - It's the reboot that temporarily fixes it so people mistakenly put two and two together. So, if you use WIFI in a large building with multiple AP's try forgetting the network and not connecting to WIFI with multiple AP's. If you have already connected to a SSID with multiple AP's reboot your phone because once the battery drain starts it does not seem to stop until you reboot. You don't have to disable WIFI at all as scanning does not cause the wake lock. I have tested this thoroughly and so far I have not had any battery drain since not connecting to SSIDs with multiple APs. I can also back this up as I can create battery drain at will by simply connecting to a WIFI environment with an SSID distributed over multiple AD's.
My battery life is again fantastic and I am happy now that I know the cause.
Pretty poor testing by Samsung/Google as I see in past versions of Android Roaming has been an issue.
mongoose3800 said:
I am posting this as it is very hard to wade through information in forums. I'm hoping the following will be useful to those, who like me, experienced battery drain caused by Android Wake Locks after upgrading to MJ7 / MK2.
I am 100% certain the battery drain in MJ7/MK2 is caused by connecting to WIFI networks in environments that have multiple AP's. i.e. once WIFI roams from one AP to another the battery drain starts. All my testing confirms this - consistently. I have actually tested being connected to one AP in a multiple AP environment for a long period and observed no wake locks on Android OS. Yet as soon I move to another location (i.e when I make it roam) the wake lock and battery drain starts. All this rubbish about clearing cache, factory resetting, nobbling your phone and so on are all stabs in the dark - It's the reboot that temporarily fixes it so people mistakenly put two and two together. So, if you use WIFI in a large building with multiple AP's try forgetting the network and not connecting to WIFI with multiple AP's. If you have already connected to a SSID with multiple AP's reboot your phone because once the battery drain starts it does not seem to stop until you reboot. You don't have to disable WIFI at all as scanning does not cause the wake lock. I have tested this thoroughly and so far I have not had any battery drain since not connecting to SSIDs with multiple APs. I can also back this up as I can create battery drain at will by simply connecting to a WIFI environment with an SSID distributed over multiple AD's.
My battery life is again fantastic and I am happy now that I know the cause.
Pretty poor testing by Samsung/Google as I see in past versions of Android Roaming has been an issue.
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Funny thing is that when i am using mobile data the drain is worse, So I'm pretty sure this is not the main issue man. Also, I have a Mobile 'WiFi' router. Only me has WiFi connection in my entire hostel. So I don't really think it's the issue. Good finds tho! It will definitely help someone. Cheers!
Agree with stanley, this is not the only cause.
39089665568
vndnguyen said:
Agree with stanley, this is not the only cause.
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Agreed. There are many things that will cause elevated use. But Im talking the rapid drain that occurs when you're not using the phone. Ever since taking the action I describbed my battery life has been excellent. Eg 94% after 14 odd hours with no use. And, I'm still connecting to my home wifi. Beforehand it could be below 60% with no use and this is the real problem people are talking about. Hope that makes sense.
Actually it's the opposite. If you set up your modem to have a separate AP for the phone and isolate it from the rest of the network, you'll have much better battery life on wifi because you'll stop your phone from waking up by broadcast packets.
aydc said:
Actually it's the opposite. If you set up your modem to have a separate AP for the phone and isolate it from the rest of the network, you'll have much better battery life on wifi because you'll stop your phone from waking up by broadcast packets.
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I don't get it. What am I supposed to do exactly?
aydc said:
Actually it's the opposite. If you set up your modem to have a separate AP for the phone and isolate it from the rest of the network, you'll have much better battery life on wifi because you'll stop your phone from waking up by broadcast packets.
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What about unicast traffic? i know the Client Isolation sort of "VLAN"s every client associated, just wondering if that might affect client to client communication?
Good point btw, im also wondering how many services wake the damn thing up, waking up over network is more an enterprise workstation scenario...to me it sounds like HotSpot 2.0 services being active, but i have not enabled it.
HS2.0 can let client and AP sort of talk without associating.
Nazty111 said:
I don't get it. What am I supposed to do exactly?
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Most modems have a sort of 'guest mode' or allow you to open another access point and isolate it from the rest of the network. If you connect your phone to this guest access point or isolated access point, your phone will reach internet without problems, but will not reach the local network through the router. Nor will any other device on the network reach your phone.
Most of the problems with Wifi draining battery, like wifi wakelocks, occurs because devices on the network keep sending packets to the phone waking it up. With the method I describe above, you will isolate your phone and the phone will remain in deep sleep, significantly increasing battery life.
aydc said:
Most modems have a sort of 'guest mode' or allow you to open another access point and isolate it from the rest of the network. If you connect your phone to this guest access point or isolated access point, your phone will reach internet without problems, but will not reach the local network through the router. Nor will any other device on the network reach your phone.
Most of the problems with Wifi draining battery, like wifi wakelocks, occurs because devices on the network keep sending packets to the phone waking it up. With the method I describe above, you will isolate your phone and the phone will remain in deep sleep, significantly increasing battery life.
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This is very true. Back on my old GNex i used to have crazy wifi wakelocks and I couldn't for the life of me figure it out. I never figured it out, actually. But I am positive it is one of the two PC's on my network that are broadcasting packets across the network, waking my phone up. I haven't had time to extensively test the wifi wakelock in the environment i've previously encountered it in to see if it still applies, but since I haven't changed anything regarding any of the two computers involved on that network, I'm positive I will have the same wifi wakelock issue when I get back and test. Is there a way (besides using Shark) to see what programs are broadcasting packets across the network?
But to get back on topic, I am experiencing battery drain connected to ONE router with ONE AP. I am in an apartment building with several other routers nearby, though. Maybe they are broadcasting packets somehow that the kernel is interpreting and keeping the phone awake? However it seems as though the Android OS bug keeps coming back for everyone no matter what, even in airplane mode.
Wifi has evolved a lot the last decade, not just by technology standards but into integration as well. carriers use them as small cells, we'll see them more often in the future (malls, stadiums, etc), and HS2.0 adds to make it a bit more seamless, they call it offload, taking your data needs through small wifi cells rather then the macro cells (3g, 4g), hence offload.
my point is that they would have never invested in that if the wifi chips inside consumer products were not efficient enough, so nearby APs shouldnt be a problem at all. But im still puzzled for what would one need the waking up process through wifi?
If Wifi is the general bugger, then somebody throw an eye on the Passport service, thats the consumer name for HS 2.0 services.
PS, tested AP Isolation on my sh!tty WRT120N, no difference unfortuantely.
Will there be a future update from Sammy or will we get Kitkat directly
Sent from my SM-N900 using Tapatalk
Just a follow up. I have still had no battery drain since avoiding connecting to wifi networks that use multiple APs. Now, i only connect to wifi networks where i know there is only one AP. Before I stumbled across this the drain and Android os wake lock was bad, really bad, after I had connected to large wifi networks - I just hadn't put two and two together. This is more than coincidence - my testing is sound and replicable. And, this week I have been in remote areas with weak to no 3g signal and the battery life has still been fantastic and no wake locks so that sort of rules that out - Sure there is a little increase in battery usage but nothing dramatic, something to be expected and certainly not something to complain about. I have seen many claims to fix battery drain but these are just fine tuning and not addressing the major drain caused by Android OS wake locks. Clearly, there must be an issue with the wifi software driver in MJ7/MK2 and I hope Samsung/Google are aware of it. The annoying thing is getting Samsung to acknowledge the issue and take feedback.
I get wake locks even if I manually turn wifi off and only use data. When I use wifi i am connected to only one AP and I still get wake locks. The wake locks aren't apps, they are "Powermanager.wakelocks" and "Powermanager.Display" and show up as "Android OS" in battery settings.
I am still not convinced avoiding multiple AP wifi networks is the one-for-all solution for everyone.
However, I have put "wifi on during sleep" to "never," yet my phone slept maybe 50% yesterday but wifi was on 100% of the time. Why is this? Shouldn't it have turned off the 50% that the phone was sleeping?
Something is weird with the wifi module..
Sent from my SM-N9005 using xda app-developers app
EddieN said:
I get wake locks even if I manually turn wifi off and only use data. When I use wifi i am connected to only one AP and I still get wake locks. The wake locks aren't apps, they are "Powermanager.wakelocks" and "Powermanager.Display" and show up as "Android OS" in battery settings.
I am still not convinced avoiding multiple AP wifi networks is the one-for-all solution for everyone.
However, I have put "wifi on during sleep" to "never," yet my phone slept maybe 50% yesterday but wifi was on 100% of the time. Why is this? Shouldn't it have turned off the 50% that the phone was sleeping?
Something is weird with the wifi module..
Sent from my SM-N9005 using xda app-developers app
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Have you ruled out any other wifi connections? Have you tried rebooting if you have connected to another wifi network? Have you tried forgetting all wifi networks? Reboot after forgetting all networks. Then give it a couple of days with out connecting to any wifi network - just a test to confirm it is wifi related. I tend to think setting wifi to never on during sleep makes no difference - I had previously tried it too. Once the drain starts the only way to stop it is to reboot.
mongoose3800 said:
Have you ruled out any other wifi connections? Have you tried rebooting if you have connected to another wifi network? Have you tried forgetting all wifi networks? Reboot after forgetting all networks. Then give it a couple of days with out connecting to any wifi network - just a test to confirm it is wifi related. I tend to think setting wifi to never on during sleep makes no difference - I had previously tried it too. Once the drain starts the only way to stop it is to reboot.
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Yes, just last week I was on another Wifi AP about ~300km away (totally different environment) and I still had the same wake locks. I have rebooted when connecting to another wifi network. I have tried forgetting all wifi networks i have connected to, and reconnecting to them. I have also rebooted once forgetting networks. During this time I also took the liberty of doing the normal rounds of disabling location services etc. before rebooting, but nevertheless i did reboot once forgetting the network. All networks I have been connected to have been single-AP wifi networks.
I have not let it sit for a few days without connecting to any wifi networks. That's the only thing I haven't tried. However I have let it go a whole day with wifi turned off (and only data enabled), but the same wakelocks persisted. For me it's always "Powermanage.Display" and "Powermanager.Wakelocks" no matter how long i just let my phone sit around with the screen turned off. I have it right beside me so I always have visual access to the screen in case the phone wakes up on its own, but it never has. I guess I could try turning wifi off for a few days and seeing how it fares, but I doubt I will see any difference (wake lock wise).
I'm thinking something is strange with the wifi module anyway. Surely wifi should turn off by itself once the phone sleeps, right? Like I said in my other post, my phone slept maybe 50-60% of the time on a 14 hour day. That means Wifi should have been on 40-50% of that time, and off 50-60% since the phone technically should have been sleeping. Yet I can see in the battery settings menu that wifi is a solid green bar all across the 14 hours.
EddieN said:
Yes, just last week I was on another Wifi AP about ~300km away (totally different environment) and I still had the same wake locks. I have rebooted when connecting to another wifi network. I have tried forgetting all wifi networks i have connected to, and reconnecting to them. I have also rebooted once forgetting networks. During this time I also took the liberty of doing the normal rounds of disabling location services etc. before rebooting, but nevertheless i did reboot once forgetting the network. All networks I have been connected to have been single-AP wifi networks.
I have not let it sit for a few days without connecting to any wifi networks. That's the only thing I haven't tried. However I have let it go a whole day with wifi turned off (and only data enabled), but the same wakelocks persisted. For me it's always "Powermanage.Display" and "Powermanager.Wakelocks" no matter how long i just let my phone sit around with the screen turned off. I have it right beside me so I always have visual access to the screen in case the phone wakes up on its own, but it never has. I guess I could try turning wifi off for a few days and seeing how it fares, but I doubt I will see any difference (wake lock wise).
I'm thinking something is strange with the wifi module anyway. Surely wifi should turn off by itself once the phone sleeps, right? Like I said in my other post, my phone slept maybe 50-60% of the time on a 14 hour day. That means Wifi should have been on 40-50% of that time, and off 50-60% since the phone technically should have been sleeping. Yet I can see in the battery settings menu that wifi is a solid green bar all across the 14 hours.
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Well that's interesting. At least in both cases we know it's Wi Fi. I wonder if it's something if it comes down to the type of connection. Eg 2.4 vs 5ghz
mongoose3800 said:
Well that's interesting. At least in both cases we know it's Wi Fi. I wonder if it's something if it comes down to the type of connection. Eg 2.4 vs 5ghz
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It could be. Both networks I have been connected to have been 2.4GHz Wireless-N capable routers. I just find it odd that a lot of things don't add up when looking at awake times in Settings -> Battery and comparing it to kernel/partial wakelocks in BBS/WLD/CPU Spy. All of the times seem to be roughly in the same ballpark, but they never add up to correspond to each other. Surely there must be information missing in this regard.
I can confirm the WiFi issue on my N9005 but there's another one.
1. Wifi: I experienced this at my university, where we have good Wifi coverage on the whole campus. They use Radius for logging in. After using Wifi for about 15min, I had these wakelocks, which didn't stop until I rebooted the phone. Since I knew this, I haven't been using Wifi there any more. But: In the meantime, I did a factory reset and got this little stability update. A few days ago, I gave it a try again. Used Wifi at university for ~25min and hat no issues. Maybe it's gone, I will test again some day.
2. I had an app called "gentle alarm". On my GNexus, which I used before my Note 3, I also had wakelocks, but couldn't figure out what it was, since wakelock detector, better battery stats etc. didn't show more than PowermanagerService.Wakelocks/Display. So I got my new Note 3 and still had these Wakelocks - I did much Monitoring and: It was this tiny alarm app. Very funny: After having excluded every other possibility and having the wakelocks active I uninstalled the app on my Note 3 and it instantly rebooted!
Great battery life now.
Hope this helps someone. BTW: The Wifi issue on larger networks seems to be a problem not only on Samsung phones, many people are experiencing this (e.g. found similar reports for Nexus 5...).
duffmannr3 said:
I can confirm the WiFi issue on my N9005 but there's another one.
1. Wifi: I experienced this at my university, where we have good Wifi coverage on the whole campus. They use Radius for logging in. After using Wifi for about 15min, I had these wakelocks, which didn't stop until I rebooted the phone. Since I knew this, I haven't been using Wifi there any more. But: In the meantime, I did a factory reset and got this little stability update. A few days ago, I gave it a try again. Used Wifi at university for ~25min and hat no issues. Maybe it's gone, I will test again some day.
2. I had an app called "gentle alarm". On my GNexus, which I used before my Note 3, I also had wakelocks, but couldn't figure out what it was, since wakelock detector, better battery stats etc. didn't show more than PowermanagerService.Wakelocks/Display. So I got my new Note 3 and still had these Wakelocks - I did much Monitoring and: It was this tiny alarm app. Very funny: After having excluded every other possibility and having the wakelocks active I uninstalled the app on my Note 3 and it instantly rebooted!
Great battery life now.
Hope this helps someone. BTW: The Wifi issue on larger networks seems to be a problem not only on Samsung phones, many people are experiencing this (e.g. found similar reports for Nexus 5...).
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Thanks for your input. Is the wifi issue you are talking about the fact that it doesnt turn off when having "wifi on during sleep -> never" set? Or the multiple-AP issue the thread is talking about?
What stability update is it that you have received? What country are you in and what firmware are you using? Did you get this stability update while on MJ7/MK2 firmware? I haven't received any notification for a stability update OTA...
Thanks for the Powermanager.Display/Wakelock issue. I guess I will have to sift through my apps and uninstall each, one by one, to see if the wakelocks disappear. If not, there is some other issue
EddieN said:
Is the wifi issue you are talking about the fact that it doesnt turn off when having "wifi on during sleep -> never" set? Or the multiple-AP issue the thread is talking about?
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It's the issue about "multiple" APs, but I don't think that it is about the number of APs. What I have read is that there is so much traffic on those big networks, e.g. broadcasts from other devices. I don't know how it should be with your problem that wifi doesn't turn off - can you see if it's reconnecting after some standby time? If yes, then wifi is turned off during sleep, but is just not shown in statistics.
EddieN said:
What stability update is it that you have received? What country are you in and what firmware are you using? Did you get this stability update while on MJ7/MK2 firmware? I haven't received any notification for a stability update OTA...
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I'm currently on MJ7/MK2. My device is unbranded and I'm living in Germany. It came on 26th of December and was about 30MB or so.
EddieN said:
Thanks for the Powermanager.Display/Wakelock issue. I guess I will have to sift through my apps and uninstall each, one by one, to see if the wakelocks disappear. If not, there is some other issue
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It's definitely worth a try! There was absolutely no hint that pointed to this one app. I started with having a look at the battery statistics ~every 30min after a fresh reboot. After a few days it was clear that it only could be the alarm app, battery draining started only in the morning.

Data on when on wifi

Hi,
Just wanted to ask: Is there a significant difference in battery usage with the data on while on WiFi? I had read somewhere that it's best to turn off data when on wifi so that the radio doesn't keep looking for 4g signals unnecessarily thus saving battery. Has anyone tested this? But, generally, I wanted if this theory is just a hoax or if there's some meat to it!
Hoax. WiFi uses more energy than data
My phone doesn't use LTE/mobile data when WiFi is working. When I turn WiFi off, it takes a second to reconnect to mobile data network and show the icon up top. I assume it's not working in conjunction, I also believe it won't affect battery life one way or another.
If you have a very poor signal, it will most likely be searching. However turning off data won't stop this (at least I don't think it will)
steadly2004 said:
My phone doesn't use LTE/mobile data when WiFi is working. When I turn WiFi off, it takes a second to reconnect to mobile data network and show the icon up top. I assume it's not working in conjunction, I also believe it won't affect battery life one way or another.
If you have a very poor signal, it will most likely be searching. However turning off data won't stop this (at least I don't think it will)
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Cool thanks..
I don't know if turning data off will result in battery savings but I have been using Tasker to automatically turn my data off when on WiFi for the longest time now.

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