Droid Wi-Fi question

[drhiii]

We just acquired a Droid Bionic and are learning the ins and outs. Our first fancy schmancy phone.

I have Wi-Fi in our house. I am trying to understand how the Droid Bionic utilizes Wi-Fi, and when it defers to the data plan. Obviously I want to tell the phone to whenever possible, use the local Wi-Fi network instead of the data plan. Are there any HowTos, documents, threads, that help explain how the data plan and Wi-Fi work with each other?

More importantly.... is there a way to simply tell the phone to use the Wi-Fi exclusively? I have found in email set up that I can have it use Wi-Fi onl. But I have yet to find any settings that force Wi-Fi only, or use Wi-Fi over the data plan whenever possible....?? Hopefully this makes sense. Any pointers to information or answers to above would be much appreciated... tx

 

[Mooncatt]

The good news is that any smart phone will always default to Wi-Fi if it's connected to a Wi-Fi network. You will still see the 3/4G network connected, but it's not using that for any data when Wi-Fi is connected. The only exception would be for MMS messaging, which only comes through cell data. Aside from that, you could turn cell data off and still function normally.

The Bionic does have a nice app called Smart Actions that makes changes in settings and such based on certain triggers. In it, you can set a trigger that whenever you're connected to Wi-Fi, it'll shut down the cell data and re-enable it once disconnected from Wi-Fi. This will greatly increase your battery life (especially if using 4G), by shutting down the unused radios. A couple of notes about this Smart Action: It sometimes may hang and not enable cell data after losing Wi-Fi and you'll have to manually turn it on, and you'll also have to turn it on to receive an MMS message (regular texts aren't affected).

 

[drhiii]

Wow... super reply. Thank you. For the info on Wi-Fi behavior (which I assumed worked that way as well) but also the APP which we will go slurp and learn. Really excellent response and very much appreciated.....

The good news is that any smart phone will always default to Wi-Fi if it's connected to a Wi-Fi network. You will still see the 3/4G network connected, but it's not using that for any data when Wi-Fi is connected. The only exception would be for MMS messaging, which only comes through cell data. Aside from that, you could turn cell data off and still function normally.

The Bionic does have a nice app called Smart Actions that makes changes in settings and such based on certain triggers. In it, you can set a trigger that whenever you're connected to Wi-Fi, it'll shut down the cell data and re-enable it once disconnected from Wi-Fi. This will greatly increase your battery life (especially if using 4G), by shutting down the unused radios. A couple of notes about this Smart Action: It sometimes may hang and not enable cell data after losing Wi-Fi and you'll have to manually turn it on, and you'll also have to turn it on to receive an MMS message (regular texts aren't affected).