Wifi Calling & Battery - T-Mobile Galaxy Note 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Let's settle this once and for all because No one has any clear indication not even T-Mobile
Does WiFi calling use more battery (to even have it enabled) vs it not being enabled?

I would say YES. Because if you're Wifi Calling icon is showing, your WiFi is enabled. So yes, it would be using more battery. Does it mean you're day is cut in half? Most likely not.

In my experience, using WiFi uses significantly less battery than LTE. The science behind it is that the WLAN radio has significantly lower output power than the cellular modem and therefore uses less battery. My real world experience is this:
I text frequently, check FB and IG, receive push mail from 3 Exchange accounts, and spend an average of 20 minutes on the phone each work day. I do not have a desk phone or home phone.
WiFi on with calling: I can usually go to bed at 2200 with 60-70% battery remaining
WiFi on without calling or mixed in/out of office: I usually will have around 40-50% at 2200.
WiFi off (usually only happens when travelling): I usually arrive back at the hotel with 20-35%, which means I need to charge before I leave the hotel for dinner.

madmike23 said:
I would say YES. Because if you're Wifi Calling icon is showing, your WiFi is enabled. So yes, it would be using more battery. Does it mean you're day is cut in half? Most likely not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i keep hearing this misnomer that wifi uses more battery, if you have it on searching and not connecting i can see how, but if you are connected to a good wifi signal, it will be much easier on your batt than LTE
The question is does the feature itself end up using more battery?
dc/dc said:
In my experience, using WiFi uses significantly less battery than LTE. The science behind it is that the WLAN radio has significantly lower output power than the cellular modem and therefore uses less battery. My real world experience is this:
I text frequently, check FB and IG, receive push mail from 3 Exchange accounts, and spend an average of 20 minutes on the phone each work day. I do not have a desk phone or home phone.
WiFi on with calling: I can usually go to bed at 2200 with 60-70% battery remaining
WiFi on without calling or mixed in/out of office: I usually will have around 40-50% at 2200.
WiFi off (usually only happens when travelling): I usually arrive back at the hotel with 20-35%, which means I need to charge before I leave the hotel for dinner.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So wifi without wifi calling uses more battery? am i interpreting this properly?
<WiFi on with calling: I can usually go to bed at 2200 with 60-70% battery remaining>
<WiFi on without calling or mixed in/out of office: I usually will have around 40-50% at 2200.>

WiFi is the issue not WiFi calling.

masri1987 said:
i keep hearing this misnomer that wifi uses more battery, if you have it on searching and not connecting i can see how, but if you are connected to a good wifi signal, it will be much easier on your batt than LTE
The question is does the feature itself end up using more battery?
So wifi without wifi calling uses more battery? am i interpreting this properly?
<WiFi on with calling: I can usually go to bed at 2200 with 60-70% battery remaining>
<WiFi on without calling or mixed in/out of office: I usually will have around 40-50% at 2200.>
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ya it probably would use more battery. If WiFi is on but not the calling feature then it would still rely on the cell tower and modem inside the phone to send texts thus using more battery. But of course with all of this YMMV.

dc/dc said:
I can usually go to bed at 2200 with 60-70% battery remaining
WiFi on without calling or mixed in/out of office: I usually will have around 40-50% at 2200.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Who goes to bed that early?
Sent from my SM-N910T using XDA Free mobile app

masri1987 said:
So wifi without wifi calling uses more battery? am i interpreting this properly?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct, for the reason GriffenD mentioned. I sometimes turn it off when I have text issues with my girlfriend, who has Verizon now. Sometimes messages just disappear into the æther.
BACARDILIMON said:
WiFi is the issue not WiFi calling.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What issue? There is no issue with WiFi.
darekz said:
Who goes to bed that early?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
People that get up at 0630. I like my beauty rest. LOL

dc/dc said:
Correct, for the reason GriffenD mentioned. I sometimes turn it off when I have text issues with my girlfriend, who has Verizon now. Sometimes messages just disappear into the æther.
What issue? There is no issue with WiFi.
People that get up at 0630. I like my beauty rest. LOL
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The issue with WiFi is it searches /scans none stop and that drains the battery. Everyone seems to have the same issue.

BACARDILIMON said:
The issue with WiFi is it searches /scans none stop and that drains the battery. Everyone seems to have the same issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't want to argue, but that is not totally correct. Those scans are not constant, they are on a schedule, and generally have a negligible effect on battery life. They can have an impact if a user has attached their device to many networks and the device has a huge list through which to scan. Power users, I would hope, clean out their network list, making it essentially a non-issue. Once the device is attached to a network, as it would be in the instance referenced in this thread for WiFi Calling, then it scans even less often.

dc/dc said:
I don't want to argue, but that is not totally correct. Those scans are not constant, they are on a schedule, and generally have a negligible effect on battery life. They can have an impact if a user has attached their device to many networks and the device has a huge list through which to scan. Power users, I would hope, clean out their network list, making it essentially a non-issue. Once the device is attached to a network, as it would be in the instance referenced in this thread for WiFi Calling, then it scans even less often.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess my phone is bad cause I am locked in on a great signal and if I put the phone down every 30 seconds phone does a scan even if I clear all the networks. When it scans it adds thems back and continues the scan.
BAD ASS NOTE 4

Related

Battery life?

Dear all,
With a small 900mAh battery, What is the real world usage time? I mean making up to 2 hours of calls per day does it last at least 12hours before the need to recharge battery and this is assuming that 3G is on all the time. Thanks.
French network technical support say 60 hours with GPS on !!!!
I think it's joke.
Well, I've been watching the battery life on mine for a couple of days now in a reasonably scientific way and here are the early rather speculative results:
With just GPRS and nothing else on and very light use the battery drops from 100% to 80% very fast - less than an hour of light use.
Leaving it running on these settings will run it down to about 20% by the end of the working day - the drain seems to ease off aftert he first sharp drop
Powering up wifi and music for short time doesn't seem to make much difference.
Turning 3G on also doesn't seem to make the difference you would expect either.
So basically I would feel the need to take a charger with me if I left the house for the day, which will probably mean that I have to send the thing back. I've seen the coolsmartphone video review and mine isn't performing anything like that one - I would say I am loosing charge at about twice the rate.
Now the only issues that could be at work here is that I live in a lousy reception area. But could this really make such a difference?
What I would find really useful is a list of other tweaks you can make to cut power use so I can try them out. But at the end of the day it's looking like too many compromises would be needed to make this thing practical for me.
Reception would make a reasonable difference if normal network messages are being sent/received (general scans of BCCH channels, authentication with the network) - i.e. the radio isnt being used for data/voice, and only to keep registered to the network. But during those times the rest of the phone would also be in low power mode, so i would say an absolute max of 5 to 10%.
It would make a significant difference if you are transmiting data/making calls in a low reception area. I would say easily upto 20%.
It sounds to me like if you plan to use the phone much at all during the day you need a second battery. Then that turns into the hassle of how to charge the second battery every night, and i bet the desktop stand can't charge a second battery
My conclusions exactly. Impractical to say the least.
The puzzle then is why my last phone, a Nokia E51 with a 1050 mAh battery, under the same conditions, managed to last 2-3 days?
Is WM6 really that much of a power grabber compared to S60?
moonlanding said:
My conclusions exactly. Impractical to say the least.
The puzzle then is why my last phone, a Nokia E51 with a 1050 mAh battery, under the same conditions, managed to last 2-3 days?
Is WM6 really that much of a power grabber compared to S60?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Short answer - yes.
There's all these power saving features in new app processors like being able to leave the screen on while powering down the main CPU. You can use an interupt from the radio to wake up the processor etc.
Windows doesnt support half of these features, thats why find windows phones save all their power by turning the screen off. Other phones with screens just as big are alot less regimental about turning the screen off at any opertunity.
I was involved in a project once to design a smartphone and it was a really surprising how much difference there was between the windows version they suplied and an ARM version of linux.
I have HTC Touch Crouse and i have problems with battery (GPRS always on and Bluetooth) ... now with Diamond i have VERY BIG Problem. Battery Keeps less than one day ...
The experiment continues.
Disabling "GPRS auto attach" in Advanced Configuration Tool has made a big difference - still 90% after 6 hours now.
Now this is a surprise to me because I thought that you did this when you set the network seek to GSM only and not hunt for 3G. Or maybe I'm getting my GPRSs and GSMs mixed up...
Next step - leave this setting in place and turn push back on. Watch this space.
GSM digitises your voice and slots it into a time divided channel on a frequency, and marks it as voice. On the network side, it converts this back to voice and sends it on the PSTN network (for a landline call).
GPRS takes data you want to send and inserts it directly in the same time divided channel and marks it as data. On the network side the network transfers this onto the internet (or other network) through the GGSN (its essentially a router).
So GSM and GPRS use the same technology. Setting the phone to GSM only, just stops it connecting to 3g networks.
Anyway, when you turn your phone on, the tower tells it its capabilities eg GPRS. This give you a GPRS available icon. When you actually want to send data, you need to 'attach'. This is like logging into the network.
To do that you need to open a data channel and send your login details.
Normal phones will do that i.e. attach, and then go idle. The network will only log them off if they move to a new cell and do not reauthenticate.
Anyway, if you are not attached:
- When you send data, the phone will need to attach first (milliseconds delay) - unoticable.
- You will NOT have an IP address so incoming data can not reach you.
If you use pop3 with regular pull of email, it'll make less difference the more frequently you pull your email - because every time you do, the phone will attach.
If you use PUSH email, it'll make no difference because you have to remain attached (have an ip address) for push to work.
I'm sure most people didn't care to know all that but i'm sure some did!
Wow. Thanks. Impressive.
Let me try to summarise. With auto attach off the phone isn't trying to attach to the 3G network all the time which saves power. But it is also disconnected from GPRS and data networks. However this won't affect push email because it will attach when it needs to, ie when the network tells it that there is mail or I send something out. Is this right?
What about internet? Will the phone automatically attach to the data netowrks when I fire up Opera? Presumably to attach to 3G I will need to reset to automatically seek WCDMA.
moonlanding said:
Wow. Thanks. Impressive.
Let me try to summarise. With auto attach off the phone isn't trying to attach to the 3G network all the time which saves power. But it is also disconnected from GPRS and data networks. However this won't affect push email because it will attach when it needs to, ie when the network tells it that there is mail or I send something out. Is this right?
What about internet? Will the phone automatically attach to the data netowrks when I fire up Opera? Presumably to attach to 3G I will need to reset to automatically seek WCDMA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're still a bit confused i think. Ok on a phone you have voice or data. Data covers mail, internet, weather updates etc etc, voice covers phone calls.
There are two distinct protocols here, and we need to talk about them diferently...
GSM:
With GSM calls are sent over 1 timeslot and singalled as voice.
To make a call you need to have a signal, that takes a very short few messages which are sent every 20 minutes or so, or if you move around between towers. The Radio in the phone can do this all by itself without waking the phone up.
If you want to send ANY data (emails, internet, anything) you need to use GPRS. GPRS uses the same channels but inserts data into them instead of voice. Before you can send or receive any data you need to 'login' to the network. To login you need to actually open the channel and make a connection. Logging in is called 'ataching'. When you attach you get an IP address and the network can send stuff to you and u can send stuff to the network. Attaching needs to wake up the phone.
Once attached the phone can go into a sleep mode saving power, but any data send or received will wake up the phone.
UMTS/3G
UMTS is different in that everything is sent code divided. There is no 'login' or attach as such. In this mode all your voice gets converted to data and sent across.
---
With auto attach on:
If you use 3G mode, every time you switch between a 3G and GPRS area the phone will atach (GPRS) again, this will drain power.
Every time you move out of GPRS and come back into GPRS the phone will attach, even if you have nothing to send.
With autoattach off:
The phone will only attach if it has something to send AND is on GPRS (no 3G available or 3g turned off)
The upside is that you save power when you move between cells. The downside is that you can't receive any data from the network untill you decide to attach.
For push email for example you would never end up detaching as it would hold the connection open.
Anyway i hope that clear, but i'm quite sleepy so it might not make any sense lol
That makes sense to me. When I get my Touch Diamond, I'm definitely turning 'GPRS auto attach' off, because I don't think I need it on.
someone1234 that`s really useful info.I guess autoattach off is the best option for me too. WHEN the phone arrives.
Thanks again senior1234. I'm getting there. But this is more complex that I thought so I've gone back and checked what really makes a difference to the battery life.
The big difference for me is having the phone band set to GSM only (phone, options). Disabling auto attach makes a difference but not as much as I thought. I had changed both of them at the same time, thinking that they were more or less the same thing. Sorry folks. Very unscientific.
But if you feel like trying these bear in mind that I don't move between cells very much and have awful reception. I'll leave it to others to explain whether this is important.
HTC told me that with the screen on full brightness and phone turned on the GPS would only last about 2 hours befre the battery died, looks like we'll need the extended battery or several normal ones!
moonlanding said:
Thanks again senior1234. I'm getting there. But this is more complex that I thought so I've gone back and checked what really makes a difference to the battery life.
The big difference for me is having the phone band set to GSM only (phone, options). Disabling auto attach makes a difference but not as much as I thought. I had changed both of them at the same time, thinking that they were more or less the same thing. Sorry folks. Very unscientific.
But if you feel like trying these bear in mind that I don't move between cells very much and have awful reception. I'll leave it to others to explain whether this is important.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GSM will use alot less power, so that is whats definatly making the difference
Why? Well.. GSM uses time division, which means the phones in an area take turns 'speaks'/'listening' with the tower. This ensures that no two phones are talking at the same time, and the tower can 'hear' what was sent. Because of this the power the phone transmits with can be controlled to be just high enough for the tower to listen, but not too high as to waste battery.
The down side of this scheme is that even if a phone has nothing to 'say', the other phones will wait in case it does. This means you're wasting bandwidth - or time that could be used by another phone to send data. Bottom line, data throughput is slower!
With 3G, all phones can talk at the same time. The data they send is tagged with a code, so that the data doesnt get mixed up. The advantage here is no time is wasted waiting for phones that may have nothing to send. The down side is that you need to be 'talking' loud enough to 'talk' over other people sending. This is why the data rate over 3G drops off really rapidly as you move away from the tower.
The disadvantages are a phone far from the tower using 3G will use more power than one using GSM because its having to 'talk' louder to get over other phones 'talking'.
Also, signals that get lost because they were drowned out by other phones have to be retransmited, which doesnt happen with GSM as much.
Yeah 3G or CDMA based channel access methods are a real power hog!
As for Auto attach you would expect it to only make a real difference if you have programs holding channels open.
With regards to low reception, it will make a significant difference because power disipation is not linear. Like all radiation it follows the inverse square law. For every meter distance the power drops of by a square of the distance.
Don't forget, when comparing uptime with other phones, with the diamond you have 4x the amount of pixels. VGA (640 x 480) devices will always chew up more Battery that QVGA (320 x 240) . This is one of the main reasons that HTC and the others delayed shipping VGA devices until now.
If you want longer battery life, you are going to have to stop using the display so often.
There is no way a vga machine can compete with a qvga machine on battery life... when all other factors are equal.
I think if you discount 3G, the battery is a little too small for the phone. With 3G its wholy inadequate.
The screen does make a huge difference, but these screens are more efficient, and HTC have used every opertunity to turn the screen off - a bit excessivly if you look at how fast it turns off when you make a call.
I don't understand why they don't use the iphone method of turning it off when the light sensor shows its dark (in a call).. i.e. the earpiece is next to your head!
moonlanding said:
The experiment continues.
Disabling "GPRS auto attach" in Advanced Configuration Tool has made a big difference - still 90% after 6 hours now.
Now this is a surprise to me because I thought that you did this when you set the network seek to GSM only and not hunt for 3G. Or maybe I'm getting my GPRSs and GSMs mixed up...
Next step - leave this setting in place and turn push back on. Watch this space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've disabled gprs auto attach and set my band to GSM. When i connect to net with opera will it still turn on 3G etc?
nokmond said:
I've disabled gprs auto attach and set my band to GSM. When i connect to net with opera will it still turn on 3G etc?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
good question.
i only use my phone for normal phone stuff ans sometimes for some internet browsing.
should i turn anything on or off?

Is there an App to switch to 2G when Idle/sleeping?

hi,
i was wondering if there is an app which will automatically switch from 3G to 2G when i turn of the display. When the phone is in my pocket there is no need for the 3G eating my battery.
that would be an amzing app BUMP BUM BUMP
It indeed would be. I'm on it.
EDIT: Then again, switching from 3G to EDGE and vice-versa is resource/battery heavy in heavy and will probably leave you without network for a while. I'm actually going to say it's not worth it. If I create it, I'll post an initial version up here for you guys to decide (no 3G frequencies for me).
Edit: it seems as though there's nothing in the api about switching network state. Looks like a root app (if it's even possible) would be required..
Edit2: This is probably impractical. For example, if you answered a call, you would be disconnected from the call immediately. Besides, the G1 is rated as having more sleep battery life under 3G than GSM.
How does being on 3g even waste battery when your on idle? what Syncing with gmail? i would think the constant switching would waste more battery
I guess you could do it with Tasker. I got that app in ADC2 and it's amazing what you can do with it.
I guess it would be very impractical if you would get disconnected everytime you answer a call from a sleep state. I havent compared the battery consumtion between 3G and "g yet, but i imagine you could save quite some. m not only talking about the Synching, but mainly Chat clients which run in the background. There is no need for them to run over 3G.

3g vs 2G battery life - way too varied

I have a ATT type Nexus One (not Tmobile), unrooted, with latest froyo.
The life of the battery in 3G mode vs. 2 G mode is astonishing...pretty ridiculous.
I'm searching but can someone tell me if there's been any fixes or advancements in regard to this problem?
When at home I use wifi as much as possible. I leave it on 2G but really, I can't take the slow speeds of 2G, but 3G setting is suuuuuuch a drain on the battery that it seems unreal.
i've had nokia's and more in 3G, my wifes iphone is 3G... and all of them had nearly more than double the battery life.
I hate the voice quality of 2G, I'd love to be able to just leave at 3G, but it's merely hours before it's nearly drained set on 3G. it's got to be a problem (and one that hopefully can be fixed).
Why would 3G setting be sucking THAT much power (decent-strong signals too here)?
Love my nexus1 and I'll live I guess but this problem...it's a bit much.
Any news on this issue, or other things I can consider or change/try to help this? (3G)
thanks
Set your WiFi sleep policy to NEVER. Even thought you're using WiFi at home, whe nthe screen goes off the WiFi shut off and 3G kick in.
Menu>Settings>WiFi settings>Menu>Advance>WiFi sleep policy>Never.
baseballfanz said:
Set your WiFi sleep policy to NEVER. Even thought you're using WiFi at home, whe nthe screen goes off the WiFi shut off and 3G kick in.
Menu>Settings>WiFi settings>Menu>Advance>WiFi sleep policy>Never.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh very sorry, I should have said I did set this to never and saved changes.
In fact, I think I've set it 1000x now btw, over some time it STILL always disconnects from wifi (might be router disconnecting though, perhaps I should set an IP manually to solve this??).
GPS and BT are always turned off until needed as well (used very rarely anyways btw).
But when I'm away from home for example, I turn wifi off and test the difference2G vs. 3G and the difference is waaaaay too much, 3G just CHEWS at the battery no matter strong signal or medium.
I find it hard to believe 3G really has to eat up that much battery when set compared to 2G on a Nexus. A little bit to nominal ...sure, but not like this (say like 4-6 hours if i left it 3G for a day with little usage).
What's really happening here? Nothing from google/HTC on this matter?
Heh, i get just the opposite... out in the farmland of west toledo, im getting 2G but typically GPRS and that rapes my battery where as 3G i could go on standby for days if i didnt touch it...
What radio are you running? if your phone is constantly looking for a signal then that may be your problem...
I have the same issue on 3g. Home on WiFi is ok but when I go out during the day on 3g it just kills my battery.
The reason is because android OS keeps the data session open at all times where other OS's close it down when not in use. It's just the nature of how they designed android.
As a test, one day turn off your data connection but stay on 3g and see how good your battery life is. This is how some other OS's work normally.
It's a trade off we have to make for being always connected on android.
For example voice actions need to reach out to Google's servers to work. So in the interest of speed of having to open the data session each time, the OS just keeps data open on hand at all times. But that kills battery quicker.
That's what I've found anyway.
JHaste said:
Heh, i get just the opposite... out in the farmland of west toledo, im getting 2G but typically GPRS and that rapes my battery where as 3G i could go on standby for days if i didnt touch it...
What radio are you running? if your phone is constantly looking for a signal then that may be your problem...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's because the phone is always on the lookout for a 3G signal, if you know you aren't going to get one, just set it to 2G only and your battery life will massively improve.

power consumption of 3G vs. WiFi

Hey all,
assume that I have 3G flatrate with no extra cost. I wonder myself, if WiFi or 3G consumes more power of my battery? If WiFi would consume more power, than I would switch to permanently use 3G also at home.
Hope to get some helpful answers from the pro's here.
Thanx
3G, by far.
3g>wifi>2g
Sent from my DROID3 using XDA
Sloop said:
I wonder myself, if WiFi or 3G consumes more power of my battery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
3G consumes more power of your battery than WiFi.
thanks to all. So I will keep WiFi enabled at home
It depends on CDMA or GSM. CDMA is pretty battery efficient and IMO Rev. A EVDO is the best for battery. If you have a strong 3G signal where you live and get good speeds then you may get better life than wifi, but that is rare. More than likely wifi will be better. Now on GSM 3g will be worse but EDGE will be amazing.
Sent from my XT862 using XDA
MrObvious said:
It depends on CDMA or GSM. CDMA is pretty battery efficient and IMO Rev. A EVDO is the best for battery. If you have a strong 3G signal where you live and get good speeds then you may get better life than wifi, but that is rare. More than likely wifi will be better. Now on GSM 3g will be worse but EDGE will be amazing.
Sent from my XT862 using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right on. Signal strength is the real key. If your phone is constantly polling on 3G to get a signal lock, it'll drain the battery quickly. With a decent signal, it doesn't drain as fast. Same goes for Wi-fi. With a good signal, definitely better if you're downloading a lot of data as it takes much less time. However, if you're out of range or at the edge of it, it struggles to keep a signal lock and wastes battery. So, if you're at home just lounging around, have a strong 3G signal and aren't downloading much, it's best to go with 3G. If you have a bad signal, or download a bunch, go for Wi-fi. It's more just a balancing act than anything to get the best battery life. Also, make sure the wifi is turned off when you're not connected, or it will be constantly searching for a connection which also will lead to battery drain.
linuxgator said:
Right on. Signal strength is the real key. If your phone is constantly polling on 3G to get a signal lock, it'll drain the battery quickly. With a decent signal, it doesn't drain as fast. Same goes for Wi-fi. With a good signal, definitely better if you're downloading a lot of data as it takes much less time. However, if you're out of range or at the edge of it, it struggles to keep a signal lock and wastes battery. So, if you're at home just lounging around, have a strong 3G signal and aren't downloading much, it's best to go with 3G. If you have a bad signal, or download a bunch, go for Wi-fi. It's more just a balancing act than anything to get the best battery life. Also, make sure the wifi is turned off when you're not connected, or it will be constantly searching for a connection which also will lead to battery drain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nah, not in my experience. I live in an area which is well-blanketed with EVDO 3G, I literally have never been anywhere in the normal course of work or home that has less than 4 bars and 3G lock. Also, my house is covered with wifi, not as thoroughly but plenty to maintain a connection wherever I am in the house, and full signal in the rooms where I spend the most time for sure. Also, until recently, I had wifi at work, they just locked me out of it in fact (because they're facists).
In my experience, I always get FAR BETTER battery life using wifi over 3G as much as possible, even though I have great 3G signal strength 100% of the time and not-so-great wifi coverage. It seems like that wasn't the case with other smartphones I've owned in this same situation, with both Verizon and AT&T in the same locations and with roughly the same coverage (much worse with AT&T, though, of course.) But, with this Droid 3 running the stock ROM rooted, just a few apps like IM and BluetoothDUN frozen, with great 3G and less-great wifi coverage, I always get much better battery life from a day of being connected to wifi versus a day being connected to 3G.
Now, I manage my wifi switching very well too, though; I use Timeriffic to turn mine on and off every work day on a schedule, meaning it's never searching for wifi networks unless I'm geographically in a place where I know there is one I have the connection credentials for. If I left it on searching (and not connected to) wifi all day, I'm sure I'd get a battery life hit, which if I wasn't paying attention like I do would look like wifi eating the battery.
Ciao!
You may have a good wifi router. Mine sucks so that may make a difference. We have a Motorola SBG900 modem and I am always losing signal.
Sent from my XT862 using XDA

Better Battery life on LTE/HSPA+ than WiFi

Hey all,
Does anyone else notice that they get better battery life while on LTE/HSPA rather than on WiFi? I decided to leave my WiFi off yesterday to see how well the phone does while using the GSM radios. To my surprise, the GSM radios were more efficient. I also noticed that on the stock battery app there were way fewer instances of the phone being "awake". With 11hrs off the charger,1.5 hour of SOT, 45 minutes of music I had 73% battery left. To me this is solid battery life. With the same exact routine and WiFi on I have about 65% battery left. Not a huge difference but enough to where I don't feel the need to juice up during the day if I am going out at night. I'm doing the same thing today to see if it is an anomaly but so far it looks like it is the same as yesterday. Anyone else seeing this?
Variables:
Stock, unlocked, not rooted.
brightness set to 1/3
T-Mobile $30 plan.
This is in NYC which has great T-Mobile service, that being said the bars in the battery life menu are "yellow" indicating the signal is "ok"....mostly because the testing was done indoors.
Google Now enabled.
GPS set to battery savings
Scanning always available (in wifi settings) turned off.
Greg Tolan said:
Hey all,
Does anyone else notice that they get better battery life while on LTE/HSPA rather than on WiFi? I decided to leave my WiFi off yesterday to see how well the phone does while using the GSM radios. To my surprise, the GSM radios were more efficient. I also noticed that on the stock battery app there were way fewer instances of the phone being "awake". With 11hrs off the charger,1.5 hour of SOT, 45 minutes of music I had 73% battery left. To me this is solid battery life. With the same exact routine and WiFi on I have about 65% battery left. Not a huge difference but enough to where I don't feel the need to juice up during the day if I am going out at night. I'm doing the same thing today to see if it is an anomaly but so far it looks like it is the same as yesterday. Anyone else seeing this?
Variables:
Stock, unlocked, not rooted.
brightness set to 1/3
T-Mobile $30 plan.
This is in NYC which has great T-Mobile service, that being said the bars in the battery life menu are "yellow" indicating the signal is "ok"....mostly because the testing was done indoors.
Google Now enabled.
GPS set to battery savings
Scanning always available (in wifi settings) turned off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree. I just turn off wifi, use LTE only.
But I have to turn on wifi when I download something or update, I have limited data plan :crying:
If I have unlimited data plan, I will completely turn off wifi
Same here today. All day with data (tmobile) and had wifi off. Was getting better SOT on data vs wifi.
Is there a way to enable/disable WIFI automatically based on location? through an app or native os function?
This probably had something to do with the n5 having only one main antennae for cellular connections. The phone isn't connected to LTE and gsm at the same time, just LTE and switches back to gsm when a call comes in. Therefore when only connected to a cellular network only one radio is on. In contrast with Wi-Fi on that is another radio consuming power. Someone correct me if this is incorrect.
I've noticed this recently but my situation is because when I was on wireless I was getting a lot of wlan_Rx_wake wakelocks. I obviously wasn't getting it when on LTE alone. I've managed find the issue on my network at home . now I have to figure out what the issue is on my hotspot. My phone has been sleeping like a bear in the winter now. I imagine a lot of people are probably getting a lot of these wakelocks. I wonder what makes this phone susceptible to it and not the other nexus devices.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4
shiz222 said:
Is there a way to enable/disable WIFI automatically based on location? through an app or native os function?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This app is pricey but amazing.
shiz222 said:
Is there a way to enable/disable WIFI automatically based on location? through an app or native os function?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tasker does the same and it is way cheaper.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
there's a wifi bug that is supposed to be fixed in the next update which is probably 4.4.1
-Cupper- said:
This app is pricey but amazing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Soldier 2.0 said:
Tasker does the same and it is way cheaper.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
10 bucks is ridiculous. I found Llama that does practically the same thing (if not identical). I've set it up to disable WIFI as soon as i leave "home" and enable it when i get to "work", as well as set up other actions (quite mode after midnight etc) within the profile.
and its free
rooted, ART, franco kernel , all LTE (Hong kong). light usage: facebook, chrome web browsing, whatsapp only. no games
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
shiz222 said:
10 bucks is ridiculous. I found Llama that does practically the same thing (if not identical). I've set it up to disable WIFI as soon as i leave "home" and enable it when i get to "work", as well as set up other actions (quite mode after midnight etc) within the profile.
and its free
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're comparing lama to tasker specifically, llama does about 10% (being generous) of what tasker does. Although there's a lot of learning to be done.
I'd pay 100 Bucks for tasker
-----------------------
Sent via tapatalk.
I do NOT reply to support queries over PM. Please keep support queries to the Q&A section, so that others may benefit
Well the nexus5 utilises envelope tracking when ring on LTE. Maybe it's doing its job... http://androidcommunity.com/nexus-5-getting-battery-boost-from-qualcomms-envelope-tracking-20131101/
>^·^< Sent From Meow LG G2
An interesting question in this forum post but does this not really depend on the strength of the wifi/LTE signal? For me on wi-fi at home I can easily get 6 hours+ SOT. On a normal day with a mix of LTE & Wi-Fi I generally after between 4 and 5 hours SOT. My wi-fi signal at work is stronger than the LTE signal so I generally use the strength of the signal as a rule of thumb as to which will provide better batter rather than just the signal itself.
shiz222 said:
Is there a way to enable/disable WIFI automatically based on location? through an app or native os function?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, I just made this app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sdev.autofi&hl=en
Basically uses GSM/CDMA and GPS Locations to automatically turn on/off your Wi-Fi. The app is for free.
Note, this is my first app, so if app crashes please submit the report so that I can fix it.
Leaving my phone over night with no wakes showing it will lose 3x as much battery idling with the screen off then on WiFi.
This was using "turn WiFi off during sleep" option to test if I could further minimize over night battery loss. I lose about 3% over 8 hours of idle, but on my data connection it lost 9%.
When the WiFi turns off the Data connection turns on, and vice versa. So only one is only ever being used at one time.

Categories

Resources