To Airave or not to Airave...

[akarol]

Hello again fellas!

I'm one of those unfortunate bastards that live in a cell phone reception black hole. No carriers work inside my house (tried Verizon, T-Mobile, and MetroPCS). Sprint came to my rescue by offering me free Airave service, which seems to solve my problems indoors. However, as most of you know, nothing good in life is free. I seem to be sacrificing battery life drastically by relying on data over Wi-Fi for my calls. Can anyone relate? The phone will last me over a day if I don't talk much on it, but this is a phone after all, and I intend on using it as that. So, I ask you, how much drain do you get while talking on the phone over their regular network? I do 90% of my talking while at home, so it's hard for me to fairly compare. I am willing to talk mostly outside the house if I can conserve battery life significantly, as I don't have much time to keep charging the phone (busy man here).

Thanks in advance...

 

[clafountaine]

your battary is going to die anyways if you get poor / no cell reception in the house becuase it will always be searching for a signal, which will kill the battary pronto!

 

[frank828#AC]

huh? the airave doesnt transmit a wifi signal.

the new airvana airave unit provides voice service(through your home internet connection) and also will give you 3G data.

your phone will react the same as it would outside in a high signal area.

 

[frank828#AC]

also with the airave service, i believe they have an option for unlimited calls through the airave for a small additional fee.

 

[akarol]

huh? the airave doesnt transmit a wifi signal.

the new airvana airave unit provides voice service(through your home internet connection) and also will give you 3G data.

your phone will react the same as it would outside in a high signal area.

Indeed. Figured this out today actually. I've been getting the great reception with Wi-Fi turned off. Seems like it's better to leave Airave going as it does cause the phone to hunt for signals that much.

 

[mvpilot172]

I have one @ my house (also a black hole of cell reception) works great even in my basement now. Got the device for free and a $5 credit each month from Sprint. It gives a great signal plus with WiFi your covered in your house and out back for voice and data.

 

[crash0515]

Hello again fellas!

I'm one of those unfortunate bastards that live in a cell phone reception black hole. No carriers work inside my house (tried Verizon, T-Mobile, and MetroPCS). Sprint came to my rescue by offering me free Airave service, which seems to solve my problems indoors. However, as most of you know, nothing good in life is free. I seem to be sacrificing battery life drastically by relying on data over Wi-Fi for my calls. Can anyone relate? The phone will last me over a day if I don't talk much on it, but this is a phone after all, and I intend on using it as that. So, I ask you, how much drain do you get while talking on the phone over their regular network? I do 90% of my talking while at home, so it's hard for me to fairly compare. I am willing to talk mostly outside the house if I can conserve battery life significantly, as I don't have much time to keep charging the phone (busy man here).

Thanks in advance...

You may want to invest in a bluetooth and charge your Evo as needed. Thats what I ended up doing I got the Jawbone Icon and it works great....

 

[akarol]

Ooohhh... sadly I didn't think of that. I did get a cheapo Motorola BT set from RS (only way I could keep my $20 credit for a later day with refund ). I might have to forget that and just use the damn thing.

 

[bubbatex]

Yes, really, if you are talking more than a few minutes at a time on a EVO, you need a BT headset!

 

[Rudementry]

Lol BT headsets are silly and for businessmen trying to seal some deals. On a more serious note, I'd say go with the airrave. I don't really think the negatives (if there are any) outweigh the positives. I mean.. What are your other options?

 

[caseydietz]

We have an airave at our house, as we also live in cell signal purgatory. It pretty much saved our service with Sprint, my wife couldn't be happier because it let us get rid of our land line. The 40/month save was my justification for the evo

 

[Yourdogsdead]

I wanted to get an airave, even though I have decent enough service in my house. Just thought it would be cool to use.

 

[akarol]

Trust me. You don't want to rely on it. The range is worse than you'd expect. :/

 

[st]

I have been using an airave for over a year and you use less battery because your phone does not have to work for the signal. I am always full bars anywhere in my house. Plus you are home, how hard is it to keep charged up?

 

[st]

Lol BT headsets are silly and for businessmen trying to seal some deals. On a more serious note, I'd say go with the airrave. I don't really think the negatives (if there are any) outweigh the positives. I mean.. What are your other options?

Ugh ya nothing I love better than holding a brick up to my head. Bluetooth headsets are great and free your hands up to be productive in realms other than just business. In addition, your phone next to your head effectively kills any other function you might want to perform while on the phone. Really let's face it, your need to NOT look like you care about commerce is wasting a lot of what this phone is about. Hey don't look now but your skinny jeans are sagging, oh I forgot, that's a good thing? hmm

 

[dwhitman]

I've been pretty happy with our Airave; we're in a black hole, and the Airave gives me 4 bars throughout our house, and even out in the yard.

One weird side effect is that location services get a bit messed up, even though the Airave actually has a GPS to report to the dispatcher if you make a 911 call.

But as far as YOUR phone is concerned, your location is that of whatever Sprint server your Airave tunnels to over the internet. In Central PA, that turns out to be somewhere in New Jersey, about 4 hours away by car. So at home, my beautiful Sense weather widget is kinda worthless.

 

[PurpleGuitar]

I use an Airave at home with our two Sprint phones, and we're perfectly happy. Five bars everywhere in the house, and perfect call quality. The only downside is that it only provides 1x data speeds, so I use my Wifi router for data.

 

[dullgeek]

Indeed. Figured this out today actually. I've been getting the great reception with Wi-Fi turned off. Seems like it's better to leave Airave going as it does cause the phone to hunt for signals that much.

I'm confused by this. I have an airave at my house and when I'm home I use wifi pretty much exclusively for data. This combination allows the battery in my Pre to go a *LOT* longer than airave w/o wifi.

I'm considering switching to the Evo. Does the Evo use more battery when on wifi vs not?

 

[akarol]

Personally, I haven't seen anything concrete to support this theory, but I am leaving my Wi-Fi off all day today to see if I get anything better than yesterday where I managed it when in good Wi-Fi areas and got about 18 hours (with over 2 hours of phone calls).

 

[milominderbinde]

We have an Airave at home and it's great. We have almost no signal without it.

Here's the Sprint Airave link:
AIRAVE