WiFi: Turn it on... turn it off, and again... it gets to be a drag :-(

[Mike_47]

I'm wondering if some Nexus 4 owners leave the WiFi on all the time, except at night? Turning it on and off several times per day to save battery time, is a real pain in the ****. Thanks

 

[B. Diddy]

Have you tried it yourself? Although keeping wifi off is something I usually suggest to save battery, I've never compared battery life head-to-head with wifi on constantly and with it on only when needed. It might not be a big enough difference to matter for some people. If you try it, let us know what you find!

 

[N4Newbie]

I'm wondering if some Nexus 4 owners leave the WiFi on all the time, except at night? Turning it on and off several times per day to save battery time, is a real pain in the ****. Thanks

Mine is on 24x7. It is always connected when at home, always when I am in my office. When in other parts of the building I work in Wi-Fi drops in and out as I move between areas covered by different access points (or no coverage at all). If it matters, I have "Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep" set to Always, and "Avoid poor connections" is checked.

Have you tried just leaving it on and seeing how you make out?

 

[fernandezhjr]

I keep WiFi on 24/7 myself. I get good battery life, so I haven't tried any comparisons with turning it off at times. I don't think there is much battery drain for the availability checks it does.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

 

[zorak950]

It's easy to test; just leave it on for a few days and see what happens to your battery life. Personally, I doubt it makes much difference.

 

[boss.king]

My WiFi is on all day every day. I still get 20-24hr battery life with 5+hours of screen time. Have a look at Qualcom Battery Guru.

 

[GadgetGator]

I'm wondering if some Nexus 4 owners leave the WiFi on all the time, except at night? Turning it on and off several times per day to save battery time, is a real pain in the ****. Thanks

Why turn it on and off manually? This is Android afterall so there are other options. You could always try automating things a little with something like Llama or Tasker.

 

[Captainbob767]

Wifi uses very little battery. Leave it on all the time unless it is off when I am out of range of wifi.

 

[AussieAndroid]

I use an app called smart wifi toggler. It essentially seems to do what was previously very difficult to do with tasker.

It learns your wifi access points and takes their location (using mobile towers), then will toggle wifi off when you're away, and automatically turn it on when you get close so it can connect.

 

[N4Newbie]

I use an app called smart wifi toggler. It essentially seems to do what was previously very difficult to do with tasker.

It learns your wifi access points and takes their location (using mobile towers), then will toggle wifi off when you're away, and automatically turn it on when you get close so it can connect.

So, doesn't that mean that it is constantly working in the background in order to monitor your location? Are you sure that this is less battery-intensive than simply leaving Wi-Fi enabled all the time?

 

[jaredsutter]

According to GSam Battery Monitor, keeping wifi active 24/7 is typically responsible for 2-3% of my battery usage. To put that in perspective, if your phone typically lasts 24 hours keeping wifi off all the time, you might lose 30 minutes if you keep it on. Not worth it to me unless I really need it to last longer than usual.

 

[RumoredNow]

So, doesn't that mean that it is constantly working in the background in order to monitor your location?

If you have location services enabled it is doing this already...

 

[AussieAndroid]

So, doesn't that mean that it is constantly working in the background in order to monitor your location? Are you sure that this is less battery-intensive than simply leaving Wi-Fi enabled all the time?

My understanding is that the app uses less power monitoring mobile towers than it does leaving WiFi enabled monitoring for WiFi networks.

I haven't noticed any battery drain. I can't say for certain it saves me any though. I get through the day as it is. But I do feel better knowing my WiFi isn't on if I don't need it.

 

[Mike_47]

Thanks to jaredsutter above, I'm now monitoring my Nexus 4 battery with Gsam Battery Monitor. The Screen and various Apps are the primary users of battery time. There's very little drain from the WiFi.