DO NOT USE "Best Wi-Fi performance"!

[crxssi]

WARNING: DO NOT TURN ON THE "Best Wi-Fi performance" setting!!! On the Evo LTE, it will DESTROY your battery life by consuming tons of CPU and keeping the CPU awake all the time, regardless of if you are using the phone or not. This has nothing do to with other settings such as "Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep" (which I have set to "Always" with no problem). I have tested this several times now, and believe this bug has probably bitten other people too.

With the setting on, you will notice a battery drain of 200 to 300% faster. Under power-> battery use you will see unusually high "Android OS" percents. When clicking on that, you will see high "CPU total" and very, very high "Keep awake" times..... in fact, the "Keep awake" time will almost mirror your on-battery time.

After searching high and low, I can find no definitive explanation of exactly what that "Best Wi-Fi performance" setting really does, anyway. The word "performance" is meaningless- could be bus speed, chip speed, negotiated speed, battery impact, awake times, connect times, transmit power levels.... just about anything. Hopefully HTC/Sprint will fix this or at least disable the option if it cannot be fixed.

UPDATE: Do read other postings below, but this problem has been confirmed by several other users. It has also been reported to HTC, who claims it is "expected" behavior but recommend it is only used temporarily, for short times when you need a boost in WiFi range.

UPDATE 2: I have no confirmation if this is fixed or still broken after the Jellybean update. However, I have to assume it is still broken unless I hear otherwise.

 

[541rrhse]

Interesting, my phone is nearly charged right now. I've been getting 13hrs - 17hrs, it will be interesting to see the difference with this setting. WiFi download speeds are unaffected on my home network with "Best Wi-Fi performance" turned off.

 

[crxssi]

Interesting, my phone is nearly charged right now. I've been getting 13hrs - 17hrs, it will be interesting to see the difference with this setting. WiFi download speeds are unaffected on my home network with "Best Wi-Fi performance" turned off.

I can't say this bug will affect everyone.... yet. It might be the type of WiFi being used, or a combination with some other setting. But it is certainly something to seriously consider if one had it turned on (the default is that it is off).

Threads for other ICS devices seem to indicate "Best Wi-Fi performance" seems to make no "performance" changes that anyone can detect, anyway.

 

[midmofan]

For those looking to check/change this you need to:

-click on "settings"
-click on "wifi"
-hit the "three-dot" menu button on the upper right of the wi-fi page
-Click on "advanced"
-then you will be on the page where you can click on or off the "best wi-fi" feature. It warns you btw that it may consume more batter.

 

[k000]

Where is this blessed setting ?

 

[crxssi]

Where is this blessed setting ?

See posting right above yours. But if you never turned the setting on, there is no need to look for it. It is off by default. Of course, if you have a memory like mine, it might not hurt to check it anyway

 

[crxssi]

It warns you btw that it may consume more battery.

Yes, but I bet in the minds of 99.9% of people (myself included), that would mean a few percent per day, or a tad bit more while downloading big files, or something like that. Chopping the battery life to a third of what it was, on a not even being-used phone, that is a whole other league of whacked!

My analogy: Button on dashboard of car says "Super performance mode!" then has a disclaimer "may increase safety gas usage." You press button and notice no change at all, except a few dozen miles later, your full tank of gas form that morning is completely gone.

 

[KSmithInNY]

I'm still unclear on the exact functionality of this setting. Does it implement a min connection quality for wifi where as if wifif connection < 10% immediately switch to native network until wifi connection > than 10%??

 

[Mikey47]

Just a guess, but I bet "best wifi" means if you are in range of several wifi networks that you have defined within your phone it will connect to the one with the strongest signal. It would make sense that something like that would consume more power as it is constantly having to check signal strength.

 

[KSmithInNY]

Just a guess, but I bet "best wifi" means if you are in range of several wifi networks that you have defined within your phone it will connect to the one with the strongest signal. It would make sense that something like that would consume more power as it is constantly having to check signal strength.

I'll bet someone out there thinks it's the best thing ever but personally i think it's an unnecessary feature, that wasn't in demand by consumers like 100% battery notification, and now that little gem introduced a bug.

When i worked on projects i always picked my battles. Spending hours adding a feature one person wanted, but the complexity of adding it had a higher risk than reward .... sorry friend.

 

[gmtom1]

I'm having the same problem as the OP. only 12 to 15 hours on battery, with about 10 to 11 hours awake time under Android OS. I had the wifi best performance turned on. Just turned off now and with 100% charge. Lets see if it makes a difference.

Sent from my EVO using Android Central Forums

 

[KSmithInNY]

Ironic, we used to spend time into slowing down (longer ring delay, improved battery) or speeding up (quicker ring pickup but more battery) the rate at which radios polled for info (EXAMPLE .... MAN THATS OLD!!). Now here comes HTC adding another radio polling, even when that radio is in use. LMFAO Like i said I'm sure it's the bees knees to someone and maybe one day when the code is vetted it will become an addition into android source rather than an HTC proprietary thing.

As long as they made it optional, cool by me!

 

[crxssi]

I'm still unclear on the exact functionality of this setting. Does it implement a min connection quality for wifi where as if wifif connection < 10% immediately switch to native network until wifi connection > than 10%??

If anyone really knows, they aren't telling. My searching finds either nothing, tons of people also wondering what it does, lots of speculation, or conflicting explanations with no sources cited.

 

[crxssi]

I'm having the same problem as the OP. only 12 to 15 hours on battery, with about 10 to 11 hours awake time under Android OS. I had the wifi best performance turned on. Just turned off now and with 100% charge. Lets see if it makes a difference.

Make sure to let us know.... you will know pretty quickly. I still need verification.

 

[charlesspivak1]

Just FYI, I have the 3VO (soon to be upgrading to E4GTE next week) and I agree turning on "Best WiFi Performance" wrecks the battery life like no other. Don't know if that's an Android thing or an HTC Sense thing, but I'll be monitoring this thread to find out any input.

 

[dtreo]

Yes, but I bet in the minds of 99.9% of people (myself included), that would mean a few percent per day, or a tad bit more while downloading big files, or something like that. Chopping the battery life to a third of what it was, on a not even being-used phone, that is a whole other league of whacked!

My analogy: Button on dashboard of car says "Super performance mode!" then has a disclaimer "may increase safety gas usage." You press button and notice no change at all, except a few dozen miles later, your full tank of gas form that morning is completely gone.

My analogy: Button on dashboard of car says "Super heated seat mode!" then has a disclaimer "may increase underseat temperature." You press button and notice no change at all, except a few dozen miles later, your PANTS ARE ON FIRE!!

 

[crxssi]

Just FYI, I have the 3VO (soon to be upgrading to E4GTE next week) and I agree turning on "Best WiFi Performance" wrecks the battery life like no other. Don't know if that's an Android thing or an HTC Sense thing, but I'll be monitoring this thread to find out any input.

I cannot find the "Best Wi-Fi performance" setting on the Evo 3D...

 

[KSmithInNY]

Anyone checked the manual (not the quick reference guide) I dont want to download the PDF since you guys all have them close by presumably.

 

[bc2k]

If I don't have that set on, my phone keeps dropping its wifi connection. I've seen it with more than one router over the last week. Son in law's phone stays connected no problems, and he has the performance setting off, and much better battery life than I get. So the setting definitely seems to (1) work and (2) suck power like crazy.

 

[KSmithInNY]

I cant find jack but as i kept searching i did think of what it could be doing which would explain the battery waste. Is there somewhere for you to type in a static IP? Because basically you'd be telling the phone that IP is your prefered network meaning as long as the wifi radio is on, it will frequently poll for that IP. If it finds it it will drop whatever connection and switch to your best wifi network. If it doesnt find it nothing appears to happen except it polls again 30 seconds later.

So if that doesnt make sense im suggesting you can tell the phone you're favorite wifi network to connect to and anytime the wifi radio is on it's looking. Probably handy in a setting with multiple signal repeaters, all sharing the same network name, only distinguised by their unique IPs.