Basic Battery Tests with Wifi, 4G LTE Data, and No Connections

Yilun808

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May 8, 2013
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I've heard the different theories about how battery consumption behaves with wifi connections vs mobile data, etc. The consensus seems to be that mobile data, especially 4G LTE will drain more battery than wifi connections. This is assuming that you're staying in one spot (like your home) with a consistent wifi connection hotspot and that your phone is consistently connected to the same wifi connection at all times.

So I just ran a simple test - I had my phone connected to my house wifi for 1 hour with no other apps or connections running and power saver on. My phone was in sleep mode during this time. 1 hour later, I unlocked my phone to checked the battery and it had dropped 4% just being connected on wifi alone.

Next test, I had my phone connected to 4G LTE mobile data with the same settings for 1 hour. Battery only drained 1%.

I tested again with no data connections turned on whatsoever (basically airplane mode) for one hour and the battery also only drained 1%.

So just by this simple pedestrian test, it seems that having the phone (at least the HTC One) connected to wifi will drain more battery than being connected on mobile data.

Can anyone explain or confirm this?
 

ksavaiano

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May 8, 2012
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In your settings the phone comes standard with "turn off data after long periods of inactivity" so it probably turned off LTE after 10 mins since it sat for an hr. But thats just my 2cents

Sent from my HTCONE using Android Central Forums
 

Yilun808

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May 8, 2013
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That's actually a good point. I'm not having any luck finding where that setting is. Can anyone help direct me there?

*Nevermind, found it* [edit]
 

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