3G vs wifi: battery life?

[jayochs]

i'm giving it another go now, this time with wifi ALWAYS on. howarmat, how long was your phone unplugged there when u had only 39 or so % awake time with 100% wifi time?

 

[howarmat]

7 hours maybe

 

[jayochs]

ok, i'm now at 11 hours unplugged. i'm at 62%, 7 hours awake. out of the 11 hours, wifi was on for 5. before this, my awake time was 29% at about 5 hours since unplugged. hmm...i went to partial wake lock usage, android system is in the lead, but it's not at like 100% or anything hmm

 

[howarmat]

if might be your wifi is not playing nice. what security are you using?

 

[jayochs]

what's the one with the long ass codes that you can't make your own? wep i believe? it's not wap i don't think...but i can make it that, and create my own password. what's yours set at? also, should i maybe do a static ip? right now, i'm at 8% left, phone awake for ten hours (70%), up time is 15 hours....screen on for only 2 hours 50 min...wifi used 16% of the battery (on for 8 hours) and cell standby is highest at 29%, then android system at 25 then idle at 22...hmm. idk man, my wifi keeps my phone awake and i have all full strength wifi here...also, partial wake usage, highest is android system...and the blue bar isnt even a quarter of a way up...

 

[jayochs]

and today, with wifi on 100% of the time, unplugged for 1h 42 min...android system using 94% of battery, cell standby is 2%, wifi is 2% and phone idle is 2%.....

phone awake time: 1 hour 41 minutes, 99%.....wifi on time, 1 h 42 minutes, 100%.

so yeah, by keeping wifi on, my phone definitely will NOT sleep. i don't get this at all.

 

[Deleted User]

I'll just give my own personal experience with this issue. I unplug my phone from the charger right when I leave for work in the morning, usually around 815am. I leave work around 430pm. At first, when I was leaving 3G on the whole time, my battery would be sitting around 55-65%, depending on how much I used it. Doing the same tasks over wifi, my battery percentage usually is around 80-85% by the time I leave work. I've been strictly using wifi at work for the past couple months, and always experience the same thing. Hope this helps out somebody.

 

[slinky317]

Make sure you set the WiFi sleep policy to "Never" (in the advanced settings in the Wireless & networks menu), otherwise it'll just shut off and go back to 3G after you put the phone to sleep.

 

[jayochs]

yeah man ...i'm doing that, and the problem is that my phone stays awake 100% o the time now because of that. idk what effect it's having on my batt

 

[AGWednesday]

There's an app in the market called Y5 - Battery Saver. I suggest it to anyone who's worried about power management.

Basically, the app turns on your wifi whenever the phone is in range of a network it's used. Likewise, it turns off wifi whenever there is no network available. You'll have to connect to each wifi network once after installing the app, but it doesn't require a GPS connection or root access and helped my battery life.

 

[howarmat]

it uses cell towers instead of GPS

 

[Kodros]

Settings -> Wireless&Networks -> Wi-Fi Settings -> Menu -> Advanced
There you will see the WiFi Sleep Policy and the default setting is Never.

Actually, the default setting is for the WiFi to turn off shortly after the screen turns off.

Settings.System | Android Developers

WIFI_SLEEP_POLICY_DEFAULT

Value for WIFI_SLEEP_POLICY to use the default Wi-Fi sleep policy, which is to sleep shortly after the turning off according to the STAY_ON_WHILE_PLUGGED_IN setting.


The fact that there is even an option to turn off WiFi when not in use indicates that WiFi is the bigger battery drain. There is also an option to keep the WiFi on when plugged in, which is even another indicator that it drains more.

 

[euph_22]

Actually, the default setting is for the WiFi to turn off shortly after the screen turns off.

No. The default ON THIS PHONE is NEVER. I just checked on my 4 day old Replacement Incredible.

Just because the Android OS has a setting labled BLANK_BLANK_DEFAULT doesn't mean that that is what the setting is out of the box for EVERY version of Android on EVERY phone. In fact, I believe that in this case "DEFAULT" means not "NEVER" or "NEVER WHILE PLUGGED IN".

Also, there is an IDENTICAL setting for 3G data (enable always-on mobile data). And in fact, that one is far easier to find, which suggests that you're meant to turn off Mobile Data first.

EDIT: OH, welcome to the forums! Nice to have you.

 

[howarmat]

Actually, the default setting is for the WiFi to turn off shortly after the screen turns off.

Settings.System | Android Developers

WIFI_SLEEP_POLICY_DEFAULT

Value for WIFI_SLEEP_POLICY to use the default Wi-Fi sleep policy, which is to sleep shortly after the turning off according to the STAY_ON_WHILE_PLUGGED_IN setting.


The fact that there is even an option to turn off WiFi when not in use indicates that WiFi is the bigger battery drain. There is also an option to keep the WiFi on when plugged in, which is even another indicator that it drains more.

you are making an incorrect assumption, sorry