Wife's phone using 20-40MB data at random times late at night. We have WiFi at home, though. (??)

[HunterKen7]

I am checking our data usage and I notice that sometimes late at night her phone uses 20-40MB of our plan data. This is weird because we have a WiFi connection here at home. It should always be using WiFi data, right? Any ideas on what to check? Could the WiFi turn off at night? If so, what the heck is downloading 40MB of data. It has happened a handful of times this month.

 

[Dogs OfWar]

Go to Settings, Wifi, click the three dot menu, Advanced and then see if "Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep" is set to always.

 

[yuiness]

I've noticed that if I have "Sleep mode" on in the Power settings, my phone will disconnect from wifi during long periods of inactivity. When I wake the phone back up, the data connection usually comes back faster than the wifi connection. Maybe the phone is sleeping the wifi radio and then having to use data when it has to perform one of its scheduled syncs or something during the night? You can always try turning off the "Sleep mode" setting to see if it resolves the problem.

 

[Gator352]

I think yuiness hit it on the head. Wifi connection is timing out and it auto switches to cellular radio causing it to use your data. Your router by default also may have it set to time out during long periods of inactivity, so check that also.

Also, tiered data plans suck which is why I'm glad I'm with sprint. It may be slower but at least I can consume data till my heart explodes and not worry about overages......just sayin'!

 

[howie]

I've found the same thing. I'm set to stay on wifi.
You must be on AT&T?

 

[Jnorton2724]

Turn off mobile data at night.

Sent from my Nexus 4 via Android Central App

 

[KoukiFC3S]

Can you check the data usage settings to see which apps are using all the data?

It's accessible in settings, more and data.

Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk 2

 

[Scott Kenyon]

Pro tip: buy some NFC tags and set the one for your home to turn off mobile data and turn on wifi. They're pretty inexpensive, save you a lot of toggling, and will solve this problem you're having.
My setup is three tags: home, work, car. When I leave for work, I tap the tag in my car, which disables wifi, turns on bluetooth, turns on gps, turns on mobile data, and launches Pocket Casts. My Ford Fusion has Sync, so when I start my car my podcasts play automatically.
The work tag turns off bt, gps, and puts my phone in vibration only notifications. Since wifi is already off, and mobile data already on, I don't need to toggle them again.
When I arrive home, the tag on my nightstand turns off data, gps, bt, and enables wifi. I actually got one of those plastic desk calendars and ripped the paper off of it, then affixed the NFC tag to it. I can just set my phone on there until I need it.
Just an idea for you folks who are having this issue. The tags I use have made my life a little easier. I hope something so simple can help you as well.

Sent from my HTC One using Android Central Forums