DO NOT USE "Best Wi-Fi performance"!

[hounddogdaddy]

I have been trashing my EVO3D since I got it due to the battery life. I have just un-selected this setting (apparently set by default) and even in the last hour it seems to have made a big difference. I am interested to see what kind of changes it will bring me on a regular usage day.

Sent from my HTC EVO3D, oh God I need a new phone!

 

[charlesspivak1]

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

Sorry took me a bit to be able to respond, and I know at least 2 others mentioned their 3VO's, so I'll elaborate a bit.

And btw, the setting in question on the 3VO is located at: Settings>Wireless & Networks>WiFi settings>hit menu button and select Advanced>second line down.

I did a bit of a test, not hyper accurate of course, but just to see, and for sake of this example I have a stock non rooted 3VO. So I turned on the Best Performance setting, and then stared at my battery percentage. Call me crazy but I actually sat there staring at the phone for about 30+ mins (doing a few other things of course besides phone activities) but constantly turning the screen on about once a minute. Sure doing that in itself would give a tiny bit of drain to the battery over 30+ mins, though I didn't keep the screen on that long each time. But I swear...about every 5 +/- minutes, the battery percentage would go down 2-4 points, not doing anything but turning on the screen, having cleared the memory, no apps open and I don't have a whole lot of notification type things going on besides maybe Gmail (in which I got none during that time). Then the moment I took off the setting for Best Performance, this behavior stopped. At that point I did do some things on the phone (browsing mostly, or news apps) for maybe another 30+ mins and the points only moved about 2-3 in that whole time. Then finally after that, I turned the screen off for another 30 minutes...checked it again and it had only moved 1 point.

I'm not a rocket scientist but...you do the math. So Crxssi I think you are onto something with this being a bug or at least a functionally negative resulting setting. I leave it off of course on the 3VO and will do the same next week when I purchase the E4GLTE.

 

[crxssi]

Sorry took me a bit to be able to respond, and I know at least 2 others mentioned their 3VO's, so I'll elaborate a bit.

And btw, the setting in question on the 3VO is located at: Settings>Wireless & Networks>WiFi settings>hit menu button and select Advanced>second line down.

Thanks, I feel stupid now... I am already so used to the Evo LTE, I forgot about the damn physical menu button It is actually in the same place as on the Evo LTE.

I have been trashing my EVO3D since I got it due to the battery life. I have just un-selected this setting (apparently set by default) and even in the last hour it seems to have made a big difference. I am interested to see what kind of changes it will bring me on a regular usage day.

On my Evo 3D, the setting was off, and I am pretty sure I have never touched it before. So I don't think being "on" was the default setting.

 

[541rrhse]

Since changing this setting it has made a dramatic difference for me. I'm still going on this charge with over 24hrs of use, 40% remaining.

 

[TenshiNo]

Before and after reading all your posts I still firmly believe this simply increase power of your WiFi radio hence a bit more battery usage

I think joshua is exactly correct here. I read, at some point, that the setting (on the 3vo, anyway) was intended to "boost" the transmit power of the WiFi radio providing better performance under *certain* conditions, such as being on the edge of range of a router, or in an area with a lot of WiFi signal "overlap". With a transmission source like this, the only way to "boost" power is to increase the voltage to the radio chip, so the extra battery drain makes sense. It could also be turning on/off other settings that normally help prevent the WiFi from running amok and killing the battery.

There is a standard "transmit" power standards that all radio's have to conform to (FCC standards and whatnot in the States) and I'm guessing this option might let you "over clock" the WiFi radio to exceed this standard "just a little" to get better performance when you're in the fringe radius of a WiFi router.

All of that said, it's not a huge deal. I agree that HTC needs better documentation, but "off" is the default setting, so I don't see it as something that warrants a *ton* of concern. Just turn it off and know that, if a friend ever asks you about their horrible battery life, you check and make sure they didn't turn it on.

Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil.

 

[crxssi]

I think joshua is exactly correct here. I read, at some point, that the setting (on the 3vo, anyway) was intended to "boost" the transmit power of the WiFi radio providing better performance under *certain* conditions, such as being on the edge of range of a router, or in an area with a lot of WiFi signal "overlap".

That might have been the *intent* with the feature, but that is not the total result. The result is that in addition to whatever other mysterious thing it was intended to do, it is keeping the phone awake 100% of the time, which really has nothing to do with boosting the transmit power. What you would expect with the indented side behavior is that it might use a few more percent power when you are actively using the WiFi a lot.

All of that said, it's not a huge deal. I agree that HTC needs better documentation, but "off" is the default setting, so I don't see it as something that warrants a *ton* of concern. Just turn it off and know that, if a friend ever asks you about their horrible battery life, you check and make sure they didn't turn it on.

And yet it *is* a big deal because it is so horribly broken. Many people, myself included, had no idea the feature was broken and was causing the battery to drain at 300% of normal on an otherwise idle phone.

 

[icebike]

I don't think it's that simple, I think there has to be something else going on.

Otherwise 100% of us would see a solid blue line under the awake header in the stock battery use graph when we turn on best performance option.

Yet we don't.

Sent from my HOX

 

[bc2k]

And yet it *is* a big deal because it is so horribly broken.

That was my experience as well. Having it set 'on' was the only way I could keep the phone from frequently dropping active wifi connections, yet this should-be small power/setting change does something undesirable and drives "Android OS" power consumption ridiculously high.

The good news: I went back to BB today and swapped phones. So far - half day - the replacement seems to have zero problem staying connected to wifi, and battery usage is significantly less than with the original phone.

 

[crxssi]

I don't think it's that simple, I think there has to be something else going on.

I never implied it was a simple problem, only simple to diagnose- look at the "keep awake" time.

Otherwise 100% of us would see a solid blue line under the awake header in the stock battery use graph when we turn on best performance option.

Yet we don't.

Well, since you don't have the Evo LTE, I assume the "we" you are talking about is other people?

But yes, I have noticed that there appears to be no relation between the blue bar graph under "Awake" in Power-> Battery Use-> History Details and the amount of time reported as "Keep awake" under Power->"Battery Use-> Android OS.

If you don't believe me, I have screen captures to prove it See the attachments below which show the three important screens after 9 or 10.5 hours (can't remember which on that test) of "Best Wi-Fi performance" turned on...

 

[hounddogdaddy]

Wow, after un-selecting this on my 3D it is like a totally different phone! Although I still cannot get through a full day without re-charging I no longer need to charge 3 or 4 times per day. I wish I had known about this a year ago when I got the 3D

Sent from my HTC EVO3D, oh God I need a new phone!

 

[icebike]

I never implied it was a simple problem, only simple to diagnose- look at the "keep awake" time.



Well, since you don't have the Evo LTE, I assume the "we" you are talking about is other people?

But yes, I have noticed that there appears to be no relation between the blue bar graph under "Awake" in Power-> Battery Use-> History Details and the amount of time reported as "Keep awake" under Power->"Battery Use-> Android OS.

If you don't believe me, I have screen captures to prove it See the attachments below which show the three important screens after 9 or 10.5 hours (can't remember which on that test) of "Best Wi-Fi performance" turned on...

Ok, you have to believe the chart, and not the keep alive time reported in Keep awake" under Power->"Battery Use-> Android OS.

Why?
After a full nights charge, I took it off the charger and read some emails for 15 minutes. Then I checked value inder Android OS, and it reported 1 hour and 45 minutes. Clearly that number isn't reporting what you think it is.

And the value reported under Android System is totally different than under android OS. So how did you decide which to believe?

I think the chart is correct. The Android OS one clearly can't be right since it reports over an hour of keep awake in 15 minutes of use on a full battery.

Maybe its measuring wake since power on?

Sent from my HOX

 

[crxssi]

Ok, you have to believe the chart, and not the keep alive time reported in Keep awake" under Power->"Battery Use-> Android OS.

I believe both, I just think they mean different things.

[...] The Android OS one clearly can't be right since it reports over an hour of keep awake in 15 minutes of use on a full battery.

Maybe its measuring wake since power on?

No, because when I turn off "Best Wi-Fi performance", most of the time it doesn't even SHOW the "Keep awake" time under "Android OS" because there is essentially zero. Other times it will show, but it will be a very small number, maybe a few seconds.

 

[541rrhse]

After changing this setting, I went from a light-medium day of usage with a best of 17hrs to still going 1d 20hrs 31min with 10% remaining. 3G web browsing at a minimum, WiFi most of the time.

 

[UTnick]

This may be a reason it is an option. It may not be a bug. It may just be something we shouldn't be using right now.

Sprint: A Better Network is Coming | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

 

[crxssi]

This may be a reason it is an option. It may not be a bug. It may just be something we shouldn't be using right now.

I refuse to believe this behavior is expected and not a bug. I suspect it was never even tested properly. No way would they allow a setting like this to decimate the battery and label it with "may consume more power". That is like shooting someone point blank, five times in the knee with a gun and saying "may cause discomfort".

 

[Kurt85]

Wow, huge difference after turning that off. Instead of being about dead after 12hours, I'm still at 50%. This was a huge help to me.

 

[icebike]

I refuse to believe this behavior is expected and not a bug. I suspect it was never even tested properly. No way would they allow a setting like this to decimate the battery and label it with "may consume more power". That is like shooting someone point blank, five times in the knee with a gun and saying "may cause discomfort".

I'm with you, it's got to be a bug. Because it makes very little difference on my International version HOX whether its on or off.

I don't have an 802.11N router, and maybe that is the difference.

Those of you who are seeing a huge difference, please post back what protocol your router is running. Maybe we can pin this down a bit.

Sent from my HOX

 

[crxssi]

I'm with you, it's got to be a bug. Because it makes very little difference on my International version HOX whether its on or off.

I don't have an 802.11N router, and maybe that is the difference.

Those of you who are seeing a huge difference, please post back what protocol your router is running. Maybe we can pin this down a bit.

I don't have an N router, either. So I don't think that is the root cause.

 

[AppleR112]

I'm not "Techno-Brained", but, I do have a linksys E3000, an 802.11N router. The only thing that I have noticed is that each time our 2 Evos LTE access my network,and/or, when the phones go to sleep, they stop " the platform service" from running, aka, my network mapping software crashes...Of course there's no answer from Cisco and Pure Networks - the software developers...

 

[crxssi]

OK, I reported this to HTC and got exactly the expected response. First they asked a lot of totally irrelevant questions (meaning they obviously didn't read what I wrote or comprehend what I wrote). But I wasted time answering them. Then I got the typical "it is not a problem" type response:

Thanks for getting back to us. While I understand that you feel using Best Wi-Fi Performance uses too much power, it specifically says that it may do so under the option to turn it on or off. Having this turned on allocates more power to the Wi-Fi radio and its resources to increase performance. This option using more power is not considered a problem and is a result of the way this feature is designed to work. If you have any other questions or concerns, feel free to let me know. Thanks for being an HTC customer and taking the time to contact us.
​

I responded thus:

It says it "may consume more power", not "it WILL consume tons of additional power". That option has been available on previous phones and did not cause THIS type of major power drain. Adding additional power to the WiFi radio might account for a 1% or 2% total additional power drain, it should not account for a 250% to 300% additional total power drain on the phone! To top it off, having the option "on" doesn't seem to improve "Wi-Fi performance" at all, anyway. We are not really sure what it is supposed to do because it is not properly documented anywhere.

Something is not right and this is going to cause additional support problems for HTC and confusing, horrible times for customers, as it did for me. People will turn that innocent-looking option on, without much thought, and then start noticing major power problems and not understand why it is happening and maybe not remember turning the option on. Further, the major drains are reflected in the power logs as "Android OS" not as "WiFi". I have attached the two screens showing what it looks like with the option on for almost 9 hours. It simply cannot be normal that the option would cause "keep awake" times that are that high- that has nothing to do with "allocating more power to the Wi-Fi radio".

I really do not think this problem should be dismissed without further investigation/consideration and request the problem be escalated. I will be happy to provide more information and details. Thanks​