I just switched to the tmo $30 plan and setup Tasker to determine when I'm home. I do this by triggering when my phone's Bluetooth connects to the home phone. This turns on my WiFi so that any data is not against my 5gb. I typically leave my BT on all day. So when I'm in the car or come home o don't think about it. I was wondering if BT on all day consumes more battery then maybe triggering my location? Any thoughts.
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The Bluetooth is low energy so it just being on is not going to use much battery. But I am not between the 2 which would be better.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
Why not have tasker determine your location by what radio cell you are connected to? Unless you are on airplane mode, then you will always have this on anyway, so absolutely no danger of any additional battery drain
I used to use llama to turn on/off wifi based on what cell tower(s) I was near. Then I tried to just leave wifi on all the time and disabled llama and noticed no battery difference really.
I used to do the same thing for GPS back in the day with older versions of Android but now I just leave those on all the time.
I don't use triangulation because when near my house I might not always be on the same tower. For me BT works well. Just wondered if anyone new the battery drain difference. My profile turns off the WiFi when away from home.
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dbldown768 said:
I just switched to the tmo $30 plan and setup Tasker to determine when I'm home. I do this by triggering when my phone's Bluetooth connects to the home phone. This turns on my WiFi so that any data is not against my 5gb. I typically leave my BT on all day. So when I'm in the car or come home o don't think about it. I was wondering if BT on all day consumes more battery then maybe triggering my location? Any thoughts.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk 2
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Depends on what else you've got running. If you're running other location-based services, then there probably isn't a huge difference. If you've cut other location services, then your phone will expend more energy looking for your location. This also depends on where you are during the day. If you are in large buildings, etc., where GPS signal doesn't come in, then there will be a cost.
BT is not a big drain, so that trigger is probably fine, battery-wise.
Things tend to get more complicated when you have multiple sites to link WiFi (i.e. home WiFi, work WiFi, etc.), where location-based triggers might be of more benefit.
Related
From a battery perspective, should I use wifi? Most of the time i'm at home or at work where I have wifi. I also have good lte coverage at both. Speed aside, will I save battery by not using wifi or not?
You'll definitely save battery by using wifi when you can connect. I love the speeds over lte, but it is definitely a hog...
i also had boost of battery using WIFI
Using unlimited data plan makes me to consider using 4g, but I found that Wifi consumes much less battery.
Use wifi. The battery savings are huge.
yes i cant stress enough, wifi saves enormous amounts of battery so use it when ever possible. the difference is like night and day.
Compared to 3G
I've been leaving my wifi off since I have unlimited data and the 3G is pretty fast in my area, no 4G yet.
I've had pretty good battery life lately using only 3G, I'll have to do a few tests and see which one and I'm a fairly heavy user I'm approaching 4GB this month and none of that is tethering
3G or Wifi
Tested watching a streaming video of 22 mins
on 3G I lost 13%
on wifi I lost 8%
Wifi wins, of course standby is probably different, if 3G vs wifi loses this badly I'd have to imagine LTE vs Wifi is a slaughter battery wise
Actually I found something interesting...
For some reason, even when I am home using Wifi, the battery drains faster than I thought. Where I live is like a strange signal spot. If I turn off my WiFi I can see my TBolt constantly switching between LTE and 3G, sometimes it stucks on 1xRTT for a while then goes right back to switching between connections. If I am at work (downtown LA) where the LTE is pretty well covered, I still use WiFi at the office, the battery BARELY drain at ALL.
My theory is that even when WiFi is active, the phone somehow STILL does the LTE/EvDO switching on the background does draining the battery.
If somehow the devs or VZW can tell the phone to STICK to EvDO/1xRTT instead of going back and forth with the LTE while WiFi data is on, it'll solve the problem.
Also just FYI, I have the latest radio and BMAF 1.5 remixed.
SteveDusa said:
Actually I found something interesting...
For some reason, even when I am home using Wifi, the battery drains faster than I thought. Where I live is like a strange signal spot. If I turn off my WiFi I can see my TBolt constantly switching between LTE and 3G, sometimes it stucks on 1xRTT for a while then goes right back to switching between connections. If I am at work (downtown LA) where the LTE is pretty well covered, I still use WiFi at the office, the battery BARELY drain at ALL.
My theory is that even when WiFi is active, the phone somehow STILL does the LTE/EvDO switching on the background does draining the battery.
If somehow the devs or VZW can tell the phone to STICK to EvDO/1xRTT instead of going back and forth with the LTE while WiFi data is on, it'll solve the problem.
Also just FYI, I have the latest radio and BMAF 1.5 remixed.
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Click to collapse
pretty much correct. at least on the gsm side, when i connect to wifi at home, i can no longer see if the phone is on 3G or EDGE. but it definitely switches back and forth to those networks, while staying on wifi, you just dont see the icon switching, but its definitely happening. i dont see why cdma and 1x would be any different.
if this is the case then why don't you just turn data off when you are on wifi.
^_^_^'s tbolt
EEdaesung said:
if this is the case then why don't you just turn data off when you are on wifi.
^_^_^'s tbolt
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You are absolutly right! How come I never thought of that. Will do that when I get home tonight.
Thanks for the tip!
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
Better yet get juice defender and automate it . Its very good app. Right now it says I'm almost adding fifty percent on to my battery.
I seem to be bucking the trend here, but LTE is working better for me than wifi. I usually have a good signal, so that's part of it.
The other part is that my wifi may be eating more juice than normal because the TB and my router may not be playing nice together. Ever since I added the TB to the network, I've had to reboot the router every coupla days. Before the TB, it was solid weeks on end.
Has anyone who is still having trouble on with batter on wifi set their wifi sleep policy to "Never" sleep? Mine is set to this and if I am home most of the day I will lose very little battery through out the day.
I believe by default the wifi is set to turn off after a period of time or when the screen is off so during this time I believe you are actually reverting back to using the vzw network. To turn wifi to always on go to settings>wireless>wifi settings>hit menu>advanced. The sleep policy is at the top, change sleep policy to never. This my reduce battery while not connected to wifi so I always use the power control widget to turn my wifi off completely while I am away from the house.
shovelheadhd said:
Has anyone who is still having trouble on with batter on wifi set their wifi sleep policy to "Never" sleep? Mine is set to this and if I am home most of the day I will lose very little battery through out the day.
I believe by default the wifi is set to turn off after a period of time or when the screen is off so during this time I believe you are actually reverting back to using the vzw network. To turn wifi to always on go to settings>wireless>wifi settings>hit menu>advanced. The sleep policy is at the top, change sleep policy to never. This my reduce battery while not connected to wifi so I always use the power control widget to turn my wifi off completely while I am away from the house.
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Click to collapse
Oh yeah this is very important, set wifi sleep policy to never greatly increases battery life. Otherwise it switches back to 3g when screen goes off and drains way more battery. This is very important to set this otherwise you wont see the increase.
Is strongly recommend switching to cdma only if yore gonna use WiFi and plan on saving your battery. Otherwise what's the point. I personally don't even bother using WiFi just use LTE only mode. I'm getting better speeds than most WiFi connections using my LTE.
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Title says it all.
Sent from my HTC Inspire 4G using XDA Premium App
Sure does not.
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Not even comparable... data takes up tons of battery
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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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Click to collapse
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...
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App
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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Hi,
I am trying to get a clear idea on the battery consumption of N5 on Wifi, LTE and E. If the purpose is to be battery friendly, which one (LTE, Wifi, Edge) should I left my phone on most of the time?
Thank you,
Well id say not WiFi! I use Wi-Fi at home and battery life is OK, it actually depends on how much you use it. I'm usually on my tablet at home and on the road my n5. Idk what E is but I'm thinking it's edge so that's probably better than LTE battery wise.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
stagius24 said:
Hi,
I am trying to get a clear idea on the battery consumption of N5 on Wifi, LTE and E. If the purpose is to be battery friendly, which one (LTE, Wifi, Edge) should I left my phone on most of the time?
Thank you,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wi-Fi is by far, the most battery friendly connection because the device only has to transmit and receive from a very short distance. Mobile data signals have to travel to the cell tower so more power is used the farther away you are from it. Less bars, more power used to communicate with the tower. LTE is best because you get that transmission completed very, very fast. HSDPA is good as well. Edge connection is very slow and makes the device hang waiting on the package to be sent and received, thus using more power in the long run. I usually set my phone to edge when I'm not going to be really using it.
Hope that helps.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
You certainly want to be using WiFi at home. I tried going data only for a couple days because it's unlimited and the battery drain especially while idle was much higher than using WiFi. This is with full signal 90% of the time.
WiFi is your friend for extended battery life. Mobile data - whether it's LTE, 3G/HSPA+ or good old Edge/2G will vary in power but it's pinging the towers for signal & cycling, so it will use more data - that is, all other things equal in terms of settings including the newer/est KitKat features.
Wifi whenever you can use it.
As far as cellular, as long as you have a decent signal, faster is always better (so the modem can download what it needs and turn back off). So use LTE if you're going to be using any data. Knock it down to edge (or off entirely) if you don't want to use data at all, or just for the occassional notification.
So Wifi is clearly the best. So when my phone is idle for a long time, let say at night, should I leave it under Edge or Wifi?
I am writing a tasker profile, so I just try to see which one is better in term of battery.
stagius24 said:
So Wifi is clearly the best. So when my phone is idle for a long time, let say at night, should I leave it under Edge or Wifi?
I am writing a tasker profile, so I just try to see which one is better in term of battery.
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Click to collapse
Well you can always put it on airplane mode/turn off the mobile radio and switch on Wi-Fi after to just have Wi-Fi data. The catch is, you will not be receiving any calls or SMS/MMS while you have the mobile radio shut off... unless you're using a VOIP service.
So currently wifi kills more battery than 3g!
its been on an hour and already accounts for 13% of todays power use.
anyone know how to fix this bug?
irzero said:
So currently wifi kills more battery than 3g!
its been on an hour and already accounts for 13% of todays power use.
anyone know how to fix this bug?
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Click to collapse
this is hard but it could be many things, even other devices on your network in fact that's where I would first look, some sharing setting or some powersaving on or off setting in your router
irzero said:
So currently wifi kills more battery than 3g!
its been on an hour and already accounts for 13% of todays power use.
anyone know how to fix this bug?
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Click to collapse
5Ghz or 2.4Ghz?
Supposedly 5Ghz would drain more if you aren't close enough to the source!
Sent from my SM-G925F
2.4 and my edge has no problems
Sent from my SM-G928F using Tapatalk
Check for am app that's throwing lots of wakelocks or alarms when on Wi-Fi. Some apps think they have free reign to check in all they want when you're not using cell data.
@OP
Had the same issue beginning 5.1.1. Turned out keeping the phone only on 5GHz instead of both 2.4 & 5GHz wifi did the trick for me. Try it out if you also have a dual-band wifi router.
Sent from my SM-G920I using XDA Free mobile app
What's the best way to find out with out root
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Many Playstore apps exist to measure wifi strength & effectiveness. "Wifi Overview 360", "Network Signal Info Pro".
My Sammy S6 has a much better wifi hardware than my cheap, old phones. But my home wifi routers are the same.
Wifi transmissions are bothered by:
1) poor hardware (old, cheap phones, etc), which drains battery with weak signals.
2) radio interference rubbish between the main sender, and your wifi receiver.
3) orientation of the two aerials, in relation to each other; horizontal, angled, vertical, ... (especially if 1), 2) above are bad
4) Whether the receiver unit is facing the main unit, sideways, backwards, frontwards, etc. On poor quality hardware, this is very important.
Being very crippled myself much of my time is just lying in my (nursing) bed. My Samsung Note Pro 12.2 floats above my head, in bed. Smartphones are affected if my head gets between the unit and the main unit.
My main wifi unit is about 20 yards/ meters away, but transmitting diagonally through a thick, metal-rod reinforced, load bearing wall. So I have a hardwired ethernet cable linked to another wifi unit under my bed, getting a faster, less power-wasting signal.
I have this on my work WiFi it drains the battery really quickly even idle it is about 1% per 5mins whilst connected to WiFi. On 3/4g it is significantly less drain.
But at home I don't have the issue battery life is good even on wifi.
It'd be nice to resolve it, have had it since I got my s6 in may so following this thread closely.
I opened my own thread back then which explains my experience a bit more:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=3106313
I've just purchased an S3 and now notice that my phone battery seems to be draining a lot more than prior. Is this just the constant bluetooth connection to the S3 ?
stevep999 said:
I've just purchased an S3 and now notice that my phone battery seems to be draining a lot more than prior. Is this just the constant bluetooth connection to the S3 ?
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Click to collapse
On a similar note. Which is better on battery life stand Alone or renote connection
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cherylbaker said:
On a similar note. Which is better on battery life stand Alone or renote connection
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Standalone mode and remote connection mode are the same vis-à-vis the watch. In either case it's using it's LTE radio, doesn't matter if it's going through the network to connect to a phone (remote connection) or nothing at all (standalone)
The biggest drain on battery life is weak network signal strength. If the watch has to constantly search for a signal, it could be completely out of juice in just a handful of hours.
afblangley said:
Standalone mode and remote connection mode are the same vis-à-vis the watch. In either case it's using it's LTE radio, doesn't matter if it's going through the network to connect to a phone (remote connection) or nothing at all (standalone)
The biggest drain on battery life is weak network signal strength. If the watch has to constantly search for a signal, it could be completely out of juice in just a handful of hours.
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Click to collapse
My watch does not seem to last a day. I've heard you should get 2 to 3 days.
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My brand new Gear S3 is down 15% in 16.5 hours (0.91% per hour!) since its first full charge. Frontier, non-LTE, linked via BT to my Nexus 6P, Auto HR on, and syncing with S-Health. I'm kind of amazed.
cherylbaker said:
My watch does not seem to last a day. I've heard you should get 2 to 3 days.
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Click to collapse
Depends on how you use it. I only get a single day, and sometimes less. My watch is always remotely connected to my phone (which sits at home) so LTE is always on. Display is also always on. Both of these add great functionality but drain the battery.
If I'm outside a lot, or driving around town, it'll generally make it through the day. If I spend a lot of time inside buildings, reception is generally poor, it may not make it to lunch.
To maximize battery life, stay within BT range of you phone, disable AOD, turn off mobile networks and WiFi. Turn off location services. Or best yet, put it in airplane mode and DND. Then it'll last forever...
No such thing as two days...you're lucky if you get a whole day.