• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help smart actions - turn on wifi by location

J

jfolliard

Member
anyone figure out a way to have smart action turn on wifi by location? I'd like to have it auto turn on wifi when I arrive at home but it seems the location trigger requires wifi to be on when setting it up, then when you go to actions to enable wifi, it's greyed out because I guess it's already on.

Is there a work around ??????
 
jfolliard said:
anyone figure out a way to have smart action turn on wifi by location? I'd like to have it auto turn on wifi when I arrive at home but it seems the location trigger requires wifi to be on when setting it up, then when you go to actions to enable wifi, it's greyed out because I guess it's already on.

Is there a work around ??????
Click to expand...

Not sure, but the battery you burn by running GPS to determine when you are home..may be worth the extra 2 clicks to manually turn on wifi and turn off data. :cool: I had to use the time of day to make it work..8-6 data...7+wifi at home.
 
I couldn't get it to do this; so I ended up using time for my triggers. It is not perfect; but for me good enough. Basically in the morning I have it turn on wifi and celluar data off (for office use) and about an hour before I normally leave I have it revert.
-
I suppose location might be nicer (not sure how much power gps burns) but gps doesn't work in the building anyways (though celluar data is accurate enough as a location indicator).
 
I leave wifi on all the time. I only turn it off via an action triggered by being placed in the car dock. That's almost pointless because it's getting charged, if it's in the dock but I figured better to have it off at that time. Battery life is great.

I also use the wifi at home and work to TRIGGER things like turning off BT, GPS, Cellular data, etc.

GPS doesn't eat a lot of battery unless it is actually in use. It can be on but nothing using it and it really won't use much battery. But I typically only have it on while in the car.

Today after 6 hours, 31 minutes and change - I'm still at 80% battery
 
Just leave WiFi on all the time. And select wifi off when screen off option. You don't need smart actions for this.
 
jfolliard said:
found it, thanks - must be new! now does it turn off wifi when you leave the designated location?
Click to expand...

Turns on when you are within so many miles off your location and turns off after the same amount of miles from your location. You can have more than one location also. Works well for me triggering my smart actions.
 
Interesting thread. Verizon wifi auto on new to me too. Am trying it with Smart Actions which turns off 4G when wifi connected. It will be interesting to see if leaving GPS on all the time (necessary right?) will save more battery than leaving wifi on all the time. My time in between wifi locations was not great, so I could see it not necessarily being an improvement.

EDIT - My 100th post and it seems I've graduated from "Junior Member" to "Member". Woo hoo!
 
Agreed on GPS. Seems any power savings would be negated using location based triggers, if GPS needs to be on for the function to work.
 
jrowlings said:
Interesting thread. Verizon wifi auto on new to me too. Am trying it with Smart Actions which turns off 4G when wifi connected. It will be interesting to see if leaving GPS on all the time (necessary right?) will save more battery than leaving wifi on all the time. My time in between wifi locations was not great, so I could see it not necessarily being an improvement.

EDIT - My 100th post and it seems I've graduated from "Junior Member" to "Member". Woo hoo!
Click to expand...


I don't know about Verizon Wifi Auto On but Juice Defender has a similar feature that turns off the wifi when you are away from an area, but it only uses network location and not the GPS function. I could see that working here as well.
 
eeraider said:
I don't know about Verizon Wifi Auto On but Juice Defender has a similar feature that turns off the wifi when you are away from an area, but it only uses network location and not the GPS function. I could see that working here as well.
Click to expand...

I stopped using juice defender, while it did save some battery it really seemed to interrupt (by design) my signal.
 
eeraider said:
I don't know about Verizon Wifi Auto On but Juice Defender has a similar feature that turns off the wifi when you are away from an area, but it only uses network location and not the GPS function. I could see that working here as well.
Click to expand...

I stopped using juice defender, while it did save some battery it really seemed to interrupt (by design) my signal. (at the worse times)
 
jrowlings said:
Interesting thread. Verizon wifi auto on new to me too. Am trying it with Smart Actions which turns off 4G when wifi connected. It will be interesting to see if leaving GPS on all the time (necessary right?) will save more battery than leaving wifi on all the time. My time in between wifi locations was not great, so I could see it not necessarily being an improvement.

EDIT - My 100th post and it seems I've graduated from "Junior Member" to "Member". Woo hoo!
Click to expand...

I turn gps off with smart actions and the Verizon wifi auto on still works.
 
Helloneumann said:
I turn gps off with smart actions and the Verizon wifi auto on still works.
Click to expand...

what are your triggers?

seems like verizon's switch would rely on the degree of accuracy only given by gps... no?


i stopped using juice defender because it would was not operating properly after our last system update. it will no longer load the aosp helper file. when last i checked, this had not yet been resolved.
 
jrowlings said:
what are your triggers?

seems like verizon's switch would rely on the degree of accuracy only given by gps... no?


i stopped using juice defender because it would was not operating properly after our last system update. it will no longer load the aosp helper file. when last i checked, this had not yet been resolved.
Click to expand...


I use my home wifi to trigger -gps off, screen brightness 0, cellular data disabled.

I think Verizon's switch uses cell towers.
 
jfolliard said:
newbie here - so with cell off and wifi on does that mean you can't receive or make calls witht he device?
Click to expand...

No, the only thing you can't get are mms messages until you turn cell data on. When I get a mms, I just turn cell data on, download it then turn cell data off. I dont get many mms so it's not a big deal for me.
 
jfolliard said:
newbie here - so with cell off and wifi on does that mean you can't receive or make calls witht he device?
Click to expand...

It depends on what you mean by 'cell'. If you mean data, then you can still make and receive calls, but no Internet connection is present.
 
I'm also wondering why this isn't an option in the smart actions. I work for a school district that has wifi, but it's very filtered. So I was hoping to just turn the WiFi on when I'm at home. I guess time based alerts is the best...
 
Keeleon said:
I'm also wondering why this isn't an option in the smart actions. I work for a school district that has wifi, but it's very filtered. So I was hoping to just turn the WiFi on when I'm at home. I guess time based alerts is the best...
Click to expand...

Verizon has a separate app which turns on wifi at the location you configure using gps. I have it set to turn on when I get home. Works great. It's called Verizon Wife Auto-ON.
 
jfolliard said:
Verizon has a separate app which turns on wifi at the location you configure using gps. I have it set to turn on when I get home. Works great. It's called Verizon Wife Auto-ON.
Click to expand...
Does anybody find it massively ironinc that they use Google Location services, NOT VZW location services, for their own app?!

I'm fairly excited about this app. I'm looking forward to seeing if it is a battery hog or not, and how accurate the location is. Also, what the CEP is--does it turn on in my driveway, or does it turn on/off a mile from my house? Either way, it will do me some good as there are different times I leave the house during the week, and get home, so not having to worry as much about wifi is pretty dang cool.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom