which wifi policy setting is everyone using?

[Flyboy1100]

15min, Never plugged in, or Never?

i have it set to 15min, and i am pretty happy with the battery life so far, it is better than my Pre so i am happy, but a little more would be nice too

yes, i have seen the tips that say to use Never, but i am curious as to what everyone is actually using

 

[Gekko]

Never.

 

[mhespenh]

Never. I live in a bad signal area, so I want to use the 3G connection as little as possible while home- the WiFi radio uses much less battery out here.

 

[RayStinkle]

Never. That gives better battery life. If not, the phone switches back to 3g which drains battery much faster. I've tested it and only lost 11% in 12 hours with WiFi set to never. But battery drops much more if you allow it to switch back to 3g via the WiFi sleep policy set incorrectly.

 

[ovE]

What? None of those options are in the wifi settings area.

 

[solo1]

What? None of those options are in the wifi settings area.

Settings ... Wireless .. Wi-Fi ... (press MENU) ... Advanced ... Wi-Fi Policy.

 

[Brett636]

While I can see the point of setting it to never, I find it annoying that when a very weak wifi signal exists the phone tries to latch onto it despite the fact that its a useless connection. For example, in my yard my EVO can pick up my wifi signal, but it is so weak that I can't do anything with it and am forced to turn off wifi if I try to listen to streaming radio when I mow the lawn.

 

[rockdawg]

Your best bet is to have it set to 'Never' unless you are rarely or never around a hotspot (in which case you should just turn off wifi altogether). Your phone's wifi radio uses less power than the 3g radio so it's easier on your battery to connect to wifi rather than 3G. Even if it's a weak wifi signal versus a strong 3g.

Brett636 - The setting being discussed here doesn't affect your scenario. This is the wifi SLEEP policy. It only comes into play when you aren't using any data services. And obviously, if you aren't using any data, you don't care if the data connection can actually transmit data. You only care about using the method that consumes the least power. Your problem comes from having wifi turned on at all. Now, if you turn off wifi then obviously the wifi sleep policy is not used and it doesn't matter what it's set to.

If you spend a lot of time using data on your phone, and most of that time is in areas that have poor wifi connectivity, then I would just leave wifi off. Otherwise, I would leave wifi on and disable it the times I need to use data in those problem areas and reap the benefits of the longer battery life.

 

[Flyboy1100]

Thanks I will try out never

what about if you have the mobile data always on option disabled, then could you let the wifi sleep after 15min?

 

[Torx]

okay, im still not understanding this whole wifi policy thing.

what should my setting be if im at home i want to connect to my wireless router instead of using the 3g? im mostly at home using wifi.

but if im out and about, to use the 3g/4g

 

[rockdawg]

okay, im still not understanding this whole wifi policy thing.

The wifi sleep policy setting tells Android when to let the wifi radio go to sleep. Much like your PC or laptop has a setting telling it when to go to sleep after a certain amount of inactivity, Android can put the wifi radio to sleep after the screen shuts off the the phone (indicating inactivity). When it does this, your phone will connect via 3G for the purpose of checking mail, Facebook and other activities depending on your phone is set up. The problem is that the 3G radio in your phone is a bigger power user than the wifi. So it's usually better to set it to Never, so the wifi stays on even if you're not using your phone.

When I had an HTC Hero, it was set to 5 minutes by default. When I found out about the setting and changed it to Never, my battery life improved noticeably. My EVO however, had it set to Never by default as did my wife's. So I'm assuming Android or HTC saw the error in having it set to on by default and changed the default to Never on 2.1.

what should my setting be if im at home i want to connect to my wireless router instead of using the 3g? im mostly at home using wifi.

but if im out and about, to use the 3g/4g

Don't over think this. You should know that if you have wifi enabled, but there is no wifi network to connect, then Android will revert to 3G. So you're best bet is to leave wifi enabled and set the wifi sleep policy to Never.

 

[Flyboy1100]

i have it set to never tonight, over the last 6 or 8 hours, it has only decreased around 10% and that is with a live wallpaper, and sending probably 15 texts and using google maps for about 15min