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WiFi vs. 4G Battery Drain on GB

4g/3g will always use more battery than wifi, but if you leave wifi on when it's not connected then it will drain your battery because it is constantly searching for a connection. I have trained myself to turn wifi on as soon as I walk in the door at home and turn it off as soon as I leave. Takes some getting used to but once you get in the habit it works out good
 
I believe you can setup smart actions to turn on and off your Wi-Fi, I don't use it for that so I'm not 100% sure.

Also, 4g uses more battery because its powering your 3g&4g radios...

Poor 4g reception can kill your battery life.... I know lol. At my house I get 2-3 bars of 4g, and my battery on my maxx can drain realty fast on bad days lol.
 
I set smart actions to turn wi-fi on when I am at home, but I haven't noticed if it shuts it off when I leave. Doesn't wifi need to be on though in order for smart actions to work?
 
Yes it does.. so it seemingly defeats the purpose lol.. as I said, I don't use said for that.. I use my power control widget to toggle my Wi-Fi... its there and its easy..
 
thisisnascar said:
You're saying that WiFi uses less battery than even 3G? You sure about that?
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As long as it is connected to a wifi access point then yes, WiFi is the least amount of battery use. When I'm home on the weekend and connected all day to wifi I get an easy 2-3 hours more battery life than if I were out and about it all day.
 
carracerz14 said:
As long as it is connected to a wifi access point then yes, WiFi is the least amount of battery use. When I'm home on the weekend and connected all day to wifi I get an easy 2-3 hours more battery life than if I were out and about it all day.
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Good to know. Thanks.
 
Apparently, I have a very poor 4G connection at work. So, I use wifi. However, according to the app CPU Spy, the phone spends very little time in sleep mode. Most of the time is spent in the 300MHz cpu mode. Yes, wifi is active (blue) and 4G is not (white). The battery drains much faster than normal.

If I use the app LTE On/Off to force the phone to 3G mode, then the phone spends most of the time in sleep mode. Wifi is still on and active. The battery drains very slowly.

So, even with wifi active and 4G not, a marginal signal will still cause it to use more battery than expected.

This does not happen at home where my 4G signal is strong.
 
Yeah weak 4g signal is a killer for battery.
On one half of my house I get 2-3 bars if 4g so it's ok, on the other side I get 1-2 bars of 3g or no signal at all. I live in a weird area, as soon as I'm out of my subdivision I have full 4g
 
carracerz14 said:
Yeah weak 4g signal is a killer for battery.
On one half of my house I get 2-3 bars if 4g so it's ok, on the other side I get 1-2 bars of 3g or no signal at all. I live in a weird area, as soon as I'm out of my subdivision I have full 4g
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But what seems strange to me is that even with wifi on and active, a weak 4G signal still drains the battery. It keeps the phone awake rather than letting it go into sleep mode.
 
94lt1 said:
I believe you can setup smart actions to turn on and off your Wi-Fi, I don't use it for that so I'm not 100% sure.

Also, 4g uses more battery because its powering your 3g&4g radios...

Poor 4g reception can kill your battery life.... I know lol. At my house I get 2-3 bars of 4g, and my battery on my maxx can drain realty fast on bad days lol.
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This works pretty good most of the time
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vzw.wificonnect&feature=search_result#?t=W10.
 
MasterGadgets said:
This works pretty good most of the time
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vzw.wificonnect&feature=search_result#?t=W10.
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I'm assuming Smart Actions would work too, although I don't use that either. The problem that I have with any of these "smart" or "automated" programs is that I always wonder if they're using more power than what they save. For example, with this Verizon WiFi tool, it has to be performing a query every so often to know that you left the configured location(s). Is that query, that's occurring over and over and over again, actually using more battery than what you'd consume by managing this manually?
 
CharlieD said:
But what seems strange to me is that even with wifi on and active, a weak 4G signal still drains the battery. It keeps the phone awake rather than letting it go into sleep mode.
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I'm assuming that's because mms still goes through 3g/4g so it has to keep that connection active in the background even though you're not using it. If you have a 3g toggle that works you could always force it to 3g at work and stay on wifi
 
carracerz14 said:
I'm assuming that's because mms still goes through 3g/4g so it has to keep that connection active in the background even though you're not using it. If you have a 3g toggle that works you could always force it to 3g at work and stay on wifi
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Yup, that's what I do. I use the app LTE On/Off to switch to 3G mode. Sure would be nice if there was a way to do it through the phone settings or if I could do it with a smart action.
 
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