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

Help Toggle wi-fi on/off

JBentleyR

JBentleyR

Android Enthusiast
I have installed a widget on my home screen for quickly turning on/off mobile data and keep this turned off whilst at home. As far as I can tell, this came with Battery Guru.

I'd also like a similar widget for quickly turning on/off wi-fi connection. I can, of course, do this under 'Settings', but this requires a PIN (in addition to the screen lock PIN, although I use the same numbers), but I'd like something I can use instantly from the home screen. I'd like to limit my wi-fi usage to my home, and deny any connections via w-fi whilst out and about.

I presume that the only way I can achieve this is to download an additional app. However, I understand that some of these are unreliable or come with adverts.

Can anyone please advise the easiest way to do this, or recommend a suitable app?
 
Swipe down on your status bar with two fingers to bring up the quick settings panel and then tap the wifi tile.

Or add the "power control" widget to your home screen which has a wifi toggle on it.
 
I use Power Toggles.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.painless.pc

It's a folder on my home screen. I added what I wanted to control.

a3yhegej.jpg
 
happydundee said:
If you already have Battery Guru installed, use the 4x1 widget.
That has a WiFi toggle, as well as others.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I did try this for a while, but it takes over too much of the home screen and you can't remove items that you don't use.

I'd like to thank all of you who have offered your advice, but I think Power Toggle is the one for me.
 
I have Power Toggle installed but since I started using Wifi Location Toggle, it does everything for you, you don't have to do anything once you add your wifi locations to it.

Power Toggle is a pretty good app also. Good luck with whichever one you use.
 
If you don't want to install anything, you can do what @brian706 said... Swipe down with 2 fingers on the notification bar. But you don't have to open up the wifi settings to turn it off. Just long press the wifi icon and it will toggle it off or on.
 
JBentleyR said:
Thanks. That looks just the job, and appears to be very adaptable too.

And no ADS!
Click to expand...

Why not use the built-in power widget which is already included on your Nexus 5? That's what I use, and it's straightforward and works great for me.

Thanks. I did try this for a while, but it takes over too much of the home screen and you can't remove items that you don't use.
Click to expand...
OK, never mined then, if 4
 
alanzer said:
If you don't want to install anything, you can do what @brian706 said... Swipe down with 2 fingers on the notification bar. But you don't have to open up the wifi settings to turn it off. Just long press the wifi icon and it will toggle it off or on.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I just tried that, but my Avast AV programme inserts a PIN request before you can do that. The app I downloaded avoids that.
 
@Wrend

Quote: "Why not use the built-in power widget which is already included on your Nexus 5? That's what I use, and it's straightforward and works great for me."

Thanks. I hadn't noticed that. It looks rather like Power Toggles too. Is it adaptable in that you can change the buttons to include what you like?

(NB: I tried to use the 'Quote' button to include your message, but I just got a 'quick reply' screen without your message included. Gremlins in the site software, I suppose!)
 
Not that I know of, but I like having quick access to toggling the other things on and off as well and changing brightness levels from auto to something more specific I might want at the time.

I've gone the route of grouping apps by type and having four folders on my home screen for the different types I use and then have phone, text, work e-mail, and Gmail on my bar at the bottom. It's been kind of a tradeoff between having a clean looking home screen and a more functional one. I eventually opted for the latter.

Screenshot_2014-01-19-13-25-29.png
 
I use a app called "WiFi OnOff" by Curvefish from the play store, standard sized icon, doesn't take up space on the screen and works, just my 2 cents.
 
charliecc said:
Does no one use widgetsoid, it never seems to get mentioned on these threads. As well as standard widget toggles, you can add a toggle bar to the top of your notifications (make sure to set it to always be at the top, and set the icon to battery indicator).

You can add a whole host of toggles and the look and feel is very customisable.

Here's a screenshot: http://androidforums.com/attachment...3087-ask-me-anything-about-nexus-5-screen.png
Click to expand...

Again, that looks and sounds similar to Power Toggles.
 
I find GreenPower very good for WiFi/3G on and off. It works with the screen on Off and if WiFi can't be found 3G will take over.
 
nebler said:
I find GreenPower very good for WiFi/3G on and off. It works with the screen on Off and if WiFi can't be found 3G will take over.
Click to expand...

When out and about I have been turning Wi-Fi off and using 3G only, on the grounds that I have been under the impression that connecting to an unknown Wi-Fi can compromise security. Is this the case?
 
Never had a problem with that. Green power looks for a known WiFi connection, if none found will switch on 3g. Then all goes off again with the screen. If you need 3g on all the time while screen off then you can choose that too.
 
JBentleyR said:
When out and about I have been turning Wi-Fi off and using 3G only, on the grounds that I have been under the impression that connecting to an unknown Wi-Fi can compromise security. Is this the case?
Click to expand...

Connecting to unknown WiFi network *can* be dangerous - if there are unsavory characters on that network. Without going into specifics, I can confirm that MITM attacks are certainly possible by users on the same LAN. Whether it impacts you or not depends on what you use your phone for.

For example, if you are on a WiFi network with <person A>, and you are logged into some user forum, <person A> could (with the right tools and knowledge) impersonate you on those forums and post using your ID, without ever needing to figure out your password. This person could redirect all your web traffic to another site, and so on.
Most people either don't know about this, or don't care to do this, so in all likelihood, you are safe.

If you want to be a more secure, use a VPN client on your phone, or rely on your 3g/4g connection.

Also, recently, some retail stores look for your device's MAC ID (transmitted when you leave WiFi on - even if you don't connect to their network), to figure out how often you visit their store, and what places in the store you visit more often etc. While this in itself is probably not that big a deal, you can see where this is going.
 
Thanks JJ. As I suspected.
I'll continue to turn off Wi-Fi when away from home then. I'm not a heavy user so I don't worry about the expense of 3G.
 
Guess I'm pretty lucky/spoiled with good LTE coverage in my area, and having unlimited data with Sprint. This area isn't a well known big city type, though we are about 80 miles away from one. Some of my friends/coworkers are a little irritated with their carriers now, having seen my connection speeds.

Anyway, long story short, I don't even really bother with Wi-Fi, even though I have home Wi-Fi; no need to bother with it. That, and I am a little cautious about unknown/uncontrolled networks, but I'm in that line of work, and use my phone for highly confidential endeavors.
 
I use Llama to do this. It works off cell phone towers. So when I connect to a cell phone tower near home, it turns on WiFi for 5 minutes... if I don't connect to my home WiFi in that time, WiFi goes off (i.e. if I just happen to be driving by home).

Same for work.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom