Android and AP Switching - Android General

Sorry if this has been asked before, I searched and found older threads but it doesn't appear that there are any answers to this. If I’m in the wrong forum please move the thread or point me to the correct area. Thank you
I have a Galaxy Note, Captivate, Skyrocket, and a Kindle Fire and they all have the same problem, they do not switch Access Points unless I toggle the Wi-Fi on and off.
My home has many turns and the Wi-Fi doesn’t go everywhere with a single router. I have multiple ‘Airport Express’ throughout the house that are extended via Ethernet in every room.
When I walk up the front porch I first capture my daughters AP and it locks onto it, then when I walk into the front room I’m still on her AP instead of switching off to the main room. This happens throughout the house, it never switches, and I’m constantly on a single bar of Wi-Fi.
Sorry for the novel, but does anyone have any suggestions?
TL;DR I need an automated AP switcher on my Android Phone.

Wifi-buddy sometimes lets me select an AP manually, sometimes it doesn't work...

Related

connectivity idea, curious if it is even possible

I am curious, but the only way I can think of to ask this question is to provide an example or two, so bear with me.
You decide you need directions. Fire up Google maps, click my location and it says you need to enable data...DOH!, back out to the menu (or follow the prompt), enable either GPS or Data, and go back into maps. Get what you need, and then leave Maps. Dont forget to turn the GPS or Data back off!
Wouldnt it be better if when you enter Google Maps, it would fire up the GPS or Data connection automatically? And when you back out or have a period of inactivity, disable it.
Same thing with the internet, I know Locale and others can turn on and off the wifi depending on where you are, but, for example, when I am home I rarely need wifi. However, when I open the internet it would be great if it looked for a friendly wifi signal and tried to connect if possible. That way you are always connecting the fastest possible method for your application and doing the least amount of work. If the disconnect would be an issue (since none of the programs has an exit button) maybe a variable timer could be set, or maybe base it off of inactivity.
Like I said, they are just ideas, and I have never understood why nobody (WM for example) has ever implemented anything like this. It seems like it would help conserve battery power and at the same time greatly simplify things.
When you put the G1 to sleep it shuts off the wifi connection automatically, then when you turn it back on, it reconnects to the network if you're still near it.
I have always wondered why Google Maps doesn't turn on GPS when it needs it. It does on the iPhone as far as I know. I have really wanted this to happen for awhile but I just figured Google would be the ones to add it.
rascal00 said:
I have always wondered why Google Maps doesn't turn on GPS when it needs it. It does on the iPhone as far as I know. I have really wanted this to happen for awhile but I just figured Google would be the ones to add it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I wonder why also, maybe they were in a rush or some battery issue. also iphone doesn't have gps just the cell location I usually keep that on.

Auto GPS comms switcher?

Has anyone heard or know of software that'll switch my WiFi on or off depeding upon where i am currently located using GPS? e.g. home or work? or wherever i've previously manually turned WiFi on and got a connection?
CMP
You should go for CMP - Commmanagerpro by Daniel Herrero
Its the most important program for a device running WM !!!
And I mean it.
Depending on cell towers and/or scheduled tasks it will change profiles, task and whatever you can think your device should do for you...
Exampel: My phones runs a close apps at 0100. At 0600 it reboots, turn on sound and let the alarm go. At 0730 the phone turns on and the screen becomes brighter. At 0800 a schedule starts, so IF CMP recons certain cell towers it turns on my Car profile. That one changes when I arrive at work to a work profile. Different sounds and lots more. IF my calender say I am in a meeting the screen will turn off and and sms will be sent to any that call me...
I have schedules for everyting. Nights - evening, weekend and wifi, tugging kids to bed and more....
So in short. CMP let you control whatever your device should do according to your position, the time of the day or your calender.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=299070
It has MANY details so it might take you some time to get deep with it, but from then it WILL become THE app of your device..trust me.
Thanks Martin, That looks like it does what i want, using cell phone masts is a much better idea than using GPS i guess.
However i'm put off slightly by the ugly skins and many details that will take me some time to get configured, i just want a simple background service that remembers what cell phone masts were responding when i get a successful authenticated wifi connection, and to use that information to turn wifi on the next time i'm in that area. The rest of my phone's profile such as back-light and ringtones etc i'm totally happy with managing myself as i'm not yet ready for my phone to be in control of my life! - i guess what i'm saying is the service shouldn't have any need for a configuration screen, and if it does, then it should be formatted and laid out in a standard way that doesn't look so scary or require me to identify my screen size before i download it!..
perhaps someone out there with more time on there hands than me could write this service and sell it on marketplace?!
CMP runs as a service
I couldn't resist the challenge.. i have written this as a tiny background service...
Wherever you turn your wifi on and get a connection, your phone will remember this and turn it on next time your there, also if you wander outside that 'connected' location and loose your wifi connection your wifi will be turned off until either you wander into a previously 'connected' location or turn it on manually... - turning it on manually and connecting to a wifi network will add that location etc etc... so no profiles, no config, no skins, no setup, no frills.. just plain handy.
if like me anyone is sick of wifi draining the battery when accidentally left on, or up sizing your phone bill when its accidentally left off, then get in touch and i'll slip you a copy to beta-test for me!
Cheers

[Q] Moved 30 miles away, router from that home still thinks its there?!!?

I've got a screwy situation I'm desperately seeking a resolution to... simply put, we moved, and since then my Galaxy S2 (AT&T) pulls location from wifi when connected to it, everything within the phone keeps showing up that we're still back home, 30 miles away in a different state! But simply turn wifi off and then use 3G for location, and from the same spot in the new house, everything begins to work normally...
Now here's the twist - only on certain roms does this happen. Right now, I'm running MIUI 2.3.7, build MIUI-203090. Right now, on THIS rom, everything is working as it should... wifi is on, phone connected, showing all the correct information for the correct area... by changing roms, with all the same settings selected, the phone begins showing up back in the former location, and I begin to boil. I've reset the router back to factory defaults, and the same problem exists... I'm convinced it's a router issue.... I have an HTC Inspire that I had until 2 weeks ago when I made the upgrade... I broke it out and used it to test... and I can confirm that, on certain roms, even with a totally different phone, the SAME problem results because its connecting wirelessly to the same router....
Any ideas??
I assume that you are using the same router as previously?.. A router does not necessarily re-ping its location on a regular basis and so you may very well need to update your location in the skyhook database..
http://www.skyhookwireless.com/howitworks/submit_ap.php
Midnight1970 said:
I've got a screwy situation I'm desperately seeking a resolution to... simply put, we moved, and since then my Galaxy S2 (AT&T) pulls location from wifi when connected to it, everything within the phone keeps showing up that we're still back home, 30 miles away in a different state! But simply turn wifi off and then use 3G for location, and from the same spot in the new house, everything begins to work normally...
Now here's the twist - only on certain roms does this happen. Right now, I'm running MIUI 2.3.7, build MIUI-203090. Right now, on THIS rom, everything is working as it should... wifi is on, phone connected, showing all the correct information for the correct area... by changing roms, with all the same settings selected, the phone begins showing up back in the former location, and I begin to boil. I've reset the router back to factory defaults, and the same problem exists... I'm convinced it's a router issue.... I have an HTC Inspire that I had until 2 weeks ago when I made the upgrade... I broke it out and used it to test... and I can confirm that, on certain roms, even with a totally different phone, the SAME problem results because its connecting wirelessly to the same router....
Any ideas??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Never heard of this before - will try it...
If you have Google location checked it may be using the known location when it was first detected.
Change your router wifi name. Then it may not know anything except through GPS.
Sent from my DROID RAZR using xda premium
I tried the skyhook option, but it's not real clear - either it could take affect or could take up to 7 days - ?!??
The router's wifi name has been changed - and even went as far as to restore it back to factory defaults... STILL the same result... I'm absolutely confused.
this issue is not uncommon.. eg. my mobile hotspot shows me at home no matter where i am in the USA... a router is part of infrastructure and so is a fixed location... if not then the skyhook database would not even be required.
For any changes to take affect you will need to power cycle the router... and yes, a free service may take time to resolve itself.
you're welcome
p.s. nowhere anywhere on the web is a router referred to by name.. it has a unique mac address..it is this address that is tied to your location so change all you want.. but until the db is updated you will live 30 miles away
Midnight1970 said:
I tried the skyhook option, but it's not real clear - either it could take affect or could take up to 7 days - ?!??
The router's wifi name has been changed - and even went as far as to restore it back to factory defaults... STILL the same result... I'm absolutely confused.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mystic38 said:
For any changes to take affect you will need to power cycle the router... and yes, a free service may take time to resolve itself.
p.s. nowhere anywhere on the web is a router referred to by name.. it has a unique mac address..it is this address that is tied to your location so change all you want.. but until the db is updated you will live 30 miles away
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"until the db is updated?" - I'm sorry, can you be more specific?
I have a Belkin n450+ router... how would I accomplish this?
I had been powered off all during the move, well over 24 hours - I'm confused about how to go about "clearing the db" -
if you have reported the location change to the skyhook server, you will have to wait for them to update their database (db..sorry)..
You have tried a reset, the only other suggestion other than to wait is to restore the factory firmware to factory settings.. you may need to update firmware after this and will need to reset and configure your network, but its an idea..
Midnight1970 said:
I had been powered off all during the move, well over 24 hours - I'm confused about how to go about "clearing the db" -
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just did a search for this problem and found this thread. Is this still the best solution?
Google uses many methods for its location, WiFi, GPS and Cell towers.
Remember that Google Street View car that travels around. It also tracks location and if it sees a WiFi signal it records the broadcasted name and location. If you use a Google service, phone or PC Google tracks the WiFi access point name. If it has a record of that name if knows your location. Otherwise it only knows your IP address is within a certain area of a city.
So, Google knows your WiFi routers name is at a particular address/location, then you move. Google doesn't know you moved so it continues thinking you're at your old address.
Changing the Routers WiFi name and a new IP address forces Google to relocate you by using GPS and other WiFi Hotspots it sees near you on your phone. It will then associate your new WiFi router name with your new location.
Basically but more complex than that.

Notification delays, orange icons, and poor data connection

My apologies if this has been posted elsewhere. I found a loosely related thread on google's support forum, but nothing here.
Bought a Nexus 5 and I've been trying out Straight Talk ATT and I've been noticing these problems, most likely all related:
I've been getting notification delays for push data services. Namely, my work email(exchange) and gmail. Sometimes the notification won't even come through. I'm up to a half hour on my last one, still waiting on it. SMS works just fine. Haven't tested MMS, particularly because I don't get many of those. The data connections does work though. I can manually load pages just fine, if a bit slow at first like the ping is astronomical. Almost makes me think it's establishing a connection each time.
When I check the color of the wifi or cellular connection icon, it's frequently orange. Most of the time it will quickly resolve itself to white in the few seconds it takes to check it. From what I understand, orange means it's having trouble talking to google services? This shouldn't affect exchange notifications.
I'm getting poorer connections quality than I expected. I live in Ithaca and while my home has poor Verizon connection(so I expected similar from ATT), I've barely found any place at work or the mall that can hold ANY LTE signal or a decent HSPA signal. HSPA speed tests give me under 0.5mbps up/down, while the only LTE test I've been able to run gave me 2.5/1 up/down.
The aforementioned thread on google's forums mentioned flashing 4.4.0's radio apk, has anyone else tried this?
Which APN setting affects the data part of the connection? Is it just the APN type?
Bump.
I'm starting to wonder if my problem is exacerbated by my current postpaid VZW phone getting data notifications much quicker. I'm suspecting that Straight Talk has a lower priority on ATT towers, thus why my data notifications take up to minutes sometimes. Anyone know of a way to confirm this?
Always On Push Notifications android app
I am not sure if anyone is following this thread anymore, but I switched to StraightTalk about a month ago, and have been experiencing huge delays in my google voice notifications as well (among other things). I've tried several different apps to get this resolved, but none have worked for me... so I decided to write my own. It was published to the google play store this morning (Android 2.3+ currently). If anyone sees this, please try it out, and let me know what you think.
It's called "Always On Push Notifications". I can't post a link right now because this is my first post on these forums though.
maucer said:
I am not sure if anyone is following this thread anymore, but I switched to StraightTalk about a month ago, and have been experiencing huge delays in my google voice notifications as well (among other things). I've tried several different apps to get this resolved, but none have worked for me... so I decided to write my own. It was published to the google play store this morning (Android 2.3+ currently). If anyone sees this, please try it out, and let me know what you think.
It's called "Always On Push Notifications". I can't post a link right now because this is my first post on these forums though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What fixed it? I find I have to archive my old messages/call logs for it to not lag.
MrObvious said:
What fixed it? I find I have to archive my old messages/call logs for it to not lag.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure what you mean, but I was noticing similar issues with my Nexus 5 on ST using ATT towers. While on LTE at the office, my connection was always great, but if I wasn't actively using my phone, my cell signal would go orange, and all of my notifications were significantly delayed. Furthermore, even trying to browse the internet with an orange signal would just idle and sometimes would not complete at all.
The app I wrote attempts to prevent this by simply keeping your connection active. It does this by manually sending out a heartbeat using the Google Cloud Messaging service approximately every interval that you define in the app. This helps keep your notifications flowing. On top of that, the application will also make a very small data request (~60 bytes), to help prevent the APN from timing out your connection.
I have found that those two things are enough to fix the issues I have had with StraightTalk.
maucer said:
I am not sure what you mean, but I was noticing similar issues with my Nexus 5 on ST using ATT towers. While on LTE at the office, my connection was always great, but if I wasn't actively using my phone, my cell signal would go orange, and all of my notifications were significantly delayed. Furthermore, even trying to browse the internet with an orange signal would just idle and sometimes would not complete at all.
The app I wrote attempts to prevent this by simply keeping your connection active. It does this by manually sending out a heartbeat using the Google Cloud Messaging service approximately every interval that you define in the app. This helps keep your notifications flowing. On top of that, the application will also make a very small data request (~60 bytes), to help prevent the APN from timing out your connection.
I have found that those two things are enough to fix the issues I have had with StraightTalk.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That answered it. It must be a StraightTalk thing. Weird.
New observation on this problem:
- GMail notifications not arriving
- When I check I see that the WiFi icon is orange
- Phone is still connected to the internet, I can browse, but icon remains orange and no notifications arrive
- Only when I disconnect/reconnect Wifi does it recover
I also discovered that the WiFi icon actually turns orange at the moment that Google tries to send me a notification. It can be fine for hours before that.
It turned out that this only happens when I have the cellular radio turned off, by turning on Airplane Mode and then turning WiFi back on. With the cellular radio on and connected to the network, even with Mobile Data turned off, everything is fine with WiFi.
I think it's an authentication bug with Google Services. Somewhere in the message notification sequence it tries to either authenticate your phone or perhaps locate it via the cellular network, and if it fails then the connection to Google Services is flagged as faulty. The failure could be caused by having the cellular radio off, or perhaps by being in a bad reception area.

[Q] How to use public (open) WiFi everywhere EXCEPT at home?

Dear community, please help me. I'm going insane over this issue...
In my town there are several free & open WiFi spots to which you can connect without password. My problem is that this free WiFi is also within reach from my apartment and I want to make my phone & tablet to prefer my domestic closed&encrypted WiFi. I'm perfectly aware of the possibility to set WiFi-priorities. Problem is: those are only used when searching for a new connection. If my devices are connected to the public WiFi, they will never switch to my private one unless the connection breaks or I disable & enable WiFi in Android.
Right now, my rather silly "workaround" is to always delete the public WiFi from the list of known WiFis when I'm at home and re-add it when I go outside. But this procedure is getting quite annoying. I want Android to use this WiFi, just not when I'm at home...
I can't be the only one with this problem. Is there any way? Root and/or Xposed based solutions would be okay too....
I already tried the app "WiFi Prioritizer" from Google Play and it came pretty close to what I was looking for, unfortunately its background process was killing my battery.
What version of Android your phone and what the tablet has?
Στάλθηκε από το GT-I8190 μου χρησιμοποιώντας Tapatalk
Currently my Samsung i9100 runs AOSP NeatROM (Kitkat 4.4.4) and my Nexus 7 (2013) runs CleanROM (Lollipop 5.0.2).
It shouldn't matter though. I'm looking for some kind of universal solution that could work on any Android version... :-/
From what I have read and understood, your problem is that when you want to connect to a specific network (your home network) you can't because your device scans and connects to the '' free'' ones simply because you were connected to them before or you are still connected to one. From what I know and also have worked for me, is to simply tap on the network you want to connect each time(an analogue should pop up and ask whether to ''forget' the tapped network or to connect to it if you are already connected to another one.). Also I don't know if a module exists for this purpose on xposed framework.
Maybe there's another way to do it, but since I don't have bought the app (it's called IF BY IFTTT) I can't tell if it does or doesn't do what you want. What it does is that makes selected actions automatically by running in the background. I think that it can do almost ''anything'' (like to upload the latest photo you took from gallery to Instagram without your actions).
I hope I helped
No no, I can connect to my home network manually, that's not the problem.
My problem is that Android doesn't do it automatically, when it is within reach and the phone is still connected to another (the free) network.
What Android SCHOULD do is automatically drop the connection to the open Wifi, as soon as my higher priority home network is within reach.
I didn't said that you can't connect to your home network, I simply said that it doesn't seems to do it automatic. I have also prioritised my network preferences and still my phone doesn't connect to the first one if it is not disconnect from the other (by the way the two networks I have tried it to are my home ones). In conclusion in my opinion this option is where you want to connect first, not for changing the connection automatically based on the received signal(although it does if you completely lost the signal to the connected source). Probably in your case the free Wi-Fi is close enough to you and your phone or tablet doesn't disconnect from it which in my opinion is perfectly fine since my phone does exactly the same.
Oh sorry, maybe I misunderstood you before.
But yes, you summarized it completely correct. Only that this behavior is not perfectly fine for me, as I'm sick and tired of being connected to open, slow and unencrypted connection at home
I have the impression that Android's WiFi management is pretty bad
You can try the app that I mentioned earlier but I am not sure if will do what you want. I suggest get in touch with the developer and ask him. I am happy I helped.
PS.1 If I helped don't forget to use the thanks button as it helps me and lets community know that I have contributed.
PS.2 I don't take credit for the app, I just suggest it because I think it may work.
Have fun
Thanks for your help, I will try the app later today, it sure looks interesting. My only fear is that it will be a battery killer.
EDIT: This app didn't really do the trick for my needs... I'm back to always deleting the open WiFi out of the list of known WiFis... Too bad that there doesn't seem to be a good way to do what I need

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