Does WiFi help or hurt the battery?

[slinky317]

So I noticed that whenever my phone goes into "sleep" mode, the Wifi shuts off, and then comes back on when I wake the phone up. Does that mean that when the Wifi is on it uses more battery? I'm willing to sacrifice the speed Wifi gives if it means getting more life out of the battery. Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[bigslam123]

It depends. If you get a weak 3G signal where you have a good WiFi connection then switching to WiFi will help your battery. I just leave it on all the time. When there is no WiFi available it uses almost no power. It's not like the Cell radio where it is constantly using energy to search for a tower.

 

[howarmat]

if wifi is on, it IS still searching for something to connect too. So if not using it, shut if off.

and wifi uses much less power than the 3G radio so use wifi whenever you can

 

[AlpineM3#AC]

if wifi is on, it IS still searching for something to connect too. So if not using it, shut if off.

and wifi uses much less power than the 3G radio so use wifi whenever you can

What do you think is the percentage battery usage rate if the WiFi is left on? Anything significant?

Howarmat, I remember you from the Crackberry forums, what up dude!

Fully jumped ship or are you still hanging on to your S2?

 

[dmoney17]

Also, remember to set your wi-fi sleep policy to "never". That when you are connected to a wi-fi source the phone will not kick you over to 3G if you haven't used the phone for 15 mins. This helps with battery too.

To set your wi-fi sleep policy go to settings --> wireless & networks --> wi-fi settings --> press menu button --> advanced --> wi-fi sleep policy.

 

[iowabowtech]

...wifi uses much less power than the 3G radio so use wifi whenever you can

Yep.

What do you think is the percentage battery usage rate if the WiFi is left on? Anything significant?

Can't say a % without it just being a guess but I can run waaaaay longer when on WiFi most of the day as opposed to the radio.

 

[novacellx]

What do you think is the percentage battery usage rate if the WiFi is left on? Anything significant?

Reference link to my post in the, Battery life not lasting? Your fix is in here .

Basically even with a low-good quality Wi-Fi signal, I figure it uses less than half of what 3G does. Without the Wi-Fi actively sending/receiving it seems to use even less, as little as 20%.

I have not seen any loss of functionality with 3G "Mobile network" disabled and Wi-Fi enabled instead. Still can send/receive calls, messages and anything with higher data needs goes onto Wi-Fi.

 

[NIKSTORM]

This is my first WiFi phone and I seem to be connected to WiFi a lot. Will my data usage go down now cause I'm not on the network?

 

[novacellx]

Yes, if you have access to Wi-Fi and use it more often than the data service. The other benefit would usually be the increased speed.