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3G vs WiFi when at home - which uses less power?
There was a similar thread on this but it got no real answer. I'm just wondering which uses less power when not really doing anything, idling I guess you could call it. The only data being transferred would be incoming email and whatever other background data traffic might be going on.
I purposely did not charge my phone last night. When I went to bed it had 40% battery left. I had wifi on, and when I woke up today the battery had 15% remaining. This was only about 8 hours of idle time. I don't think the battery should be used up that quickly while doing nothing (no syncing, all apps closed).
I had guessed this was because I left wifi on. I'm going to try this again tonight and turn off wifi to see how the battery is used overnight.
Anyone else have any thoughts on this?
Last edited by alm; November 13th, 2009 at 10:04 AM.
If you have wifi on it might but it is not good to keep it on when no wifi networks are available. But wifi does use way less battery then 3G so if you have it, use it.
__________________ So I'm guessin' there's questions that need addressin' like how he fresh in the adolescence and wreckin em' Rules & Guidelines, Zero Tolerance Policy.
When you turn on WiFi, do you have to do anything to tell the phone to not use 3G while WiFi is on? Pardon me if this is posted elsewhere, but the answer might be handy in this thread.
When you turn on WiFi, do you have to do anything to tell the phone to not use 3G while WiFi is on? Pardon me if this is posted elsewhere, but the answer might be handy in this thread.
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from my observations, no. When I turn on wifi, the icon seems to take the place of the 3G icon. So maybe the phone only allows one on at a time?
I bet 3G uses more power because it's got to transmit further, WiFi will only go a few hundred feet but 3G goes all the way to a cell tower. So it's little transmitter needs more power to transmit.
If you have wifi use it. It iis not dwitched to save verizon money, its switched to save you money. 3g takes out of your data and the overages are killer. Point is, wifi is fast, will save you power, and will save you money
If you have wifi use it. It iis not dwitched to save verizon money, its switched to save you money. 3g takes out of your data and the overages are killer. Point is, wifi is fast, will save you power, and will save you money
for those with the unlimited data plan(which I am sure most people got), does it really save us money?
If you have wifi use it. It iis not dwitched to save verizon money, its switched to save you money. 3g takes out of your data and the overages are killer. Point is, wifi is fast, will save you power, and will save you money
If all you are doing is web browsing and the occasional download, you will never come close to the 5GB cap of Verizon's "unlimited" plan. Personally for me, there is no need for WiFi. Browsing is super fast on 3G so i just have WiFi turned off permanently.
If you have wifi use it. It iis not dwitched to save verizon money, its switched to save you money. 3g takes out of your data and the overages are killer. Point is, wifi is fast, will save you power, and will save you money
Again, you're wrong.
The unlimited phone plan is just that, unlimited. The 5G "limit" you heard about is specifically for TETHERING ONLY.
If someone wants to do a test, turn on WiFi and 3G and leave the phone sitting around doing nothing for a long time. Then go and check the Battery Use and see what uses more (Wifi or Cell Standby). That should be a good indication of what uses more power.
I'd do it, but I don't think I can leave my Droid alone for a long time without using it.
I'm going to do a test. I'll run pandora for an hour on a fully charged battery then recharge and do it with 3G. I know the sample size is kinda small but maybe it will produce some kind of result.
From my experience and this is true with most phones as well as the Droid WiFi is much more battery hungry than 3G. Reason being that a WiFi connection is active at all times even when you aren't streaming anything a 3G connection is less battery intensive when it is actively streaming content.
Part one of the test is done. Here are the usage stats after 1hour of Pandora One streaming with the volume on the lowest audible setting over wireless:
Top 5 Battery Users
Mediaserver 58%
Wi-fi 20%
Phone Idle 8%
Cell Standby 6%
Android OS 3%
90% Battery Remaining
Part Two of the test. Here are the usage stats after 1hour of Pandora One streaming with the volume on the lowest audible setting over 3G:
Just as I expected, I need a larger sample size but so far it seems like 3G is better on the battery. A 4% increase in Phone Idle/Cell Standby with 3G but the Wifi used 20% more. The thing is, 20% more of what? I don't know how many mAH were used so I need a larger sample to get a more accurate result.
I'll see if I can get a 4 hour sample tomorrow. I can't go much over that as Pandora will time out after 5 hours and I don't want an interruption.
Last edited by wsbsteven; November 13th, 2009 at 04:21 PM.
On my HTC Magic I can stay on 3G all day and the battery lasts , If I'm on WiFi the battery drains real quick and according to the Power manager it drains alot....
__________________
Don't worry I have not abandoned you AF, I've just been VERY BUSY
Stop posting anecdotal evidence. In MY experience, red cars are faster than blue ones.
But srsly guys, someone put some numbers on this to settle it. Doing your own tests willnot settle the issue. I'm sure someone knows the answer and has statistical evidence to back it up.
I would definitely think that considering you never actually turn off 3G it would take more power to run the WiFi, but perhaps it's a matter of how much more work the 3G receiver has to do when working with data.
WiFi uses LESS battery power, do a simple google search on the issue and you can see. Would anyone like me to post a few links that I found?
Quote:
Originally Posted by iPhone 3G wikipedia
six hours of web browsing on Wi-Fi or five on 3G
Quote:
Originally Posted by XDA-Developers Forum
I have owned many pda's and pda's/phones and battery life with wifi has always been pretty poor. But man does 3G eat up the battery waaaaayyy more than wifi. Here's a test I did streaming shoutcast and using TCPMP as the player.
3G- With screen off and streaming constantly I get 1 hour of streaming and the battery is already at 50%.
WiFi- With the same options as above I get 1 hour of streaming and battery goes down to 80%.
Last edited by CRPercodani; November 14th, 2009 at 09:17 AM.
really, WiFI should be slightly more efficient. It has sleep mode just like 3G. Wakes up as needed. Data plan or not I use WiFI when I can. Faster and less port blocks, and likely more private. 3G is plenty fast enough for my needs but the WiFI is under my control and not watched by the Stazi.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CRPercodani
WiFi uses LESS battery power, do a simple google search on the issue and you can see. Would anyone like me to post a few links that I found?
I could definitely see this when running something with constant bandwidth needs. It would be interesting to see a *day* of just weather updates, browsing the web here and there, maybe a news widget and see what a day of constant wifi being on vs. 3G which is only used a few times throughout the day. My guess is that wifi is going to show a significantly higher draw since its on when the device is doing nothing.
I really think the answer is going to be based on how you use your device throughout the day. If you are streaming audio over the web constantly then wifi makes sense. If you are just hitting the data here and there throughout the day, I'll bet you'll see turning off wifi would make a difference to the positive. I personally have wifi on while I'm at home.
Or, perhaps each device has its own way of changing power usage of these items based on set parameters.
Last edited by MicroNix; November 14th, 2009 at 09:34 AM.
70% Battery Remaining (seems like it was barely 70% as a couple minutes of charging off the pc made it 80%)
The results aren't much different than the 1 hour test, wifi used a little more power and mediaserver used a little less. I had some issues during the test with Pandora deciding not to play another song 2-3 times which required reloading the app. I worked as fast as I could to keep it from skewing the results.
The 3G test was clean, I didn't have any interruptions in my audio and I didn't have to turn on the screen at all. One thing that I noticed is that I had Wifi using the widget and 3G using the program which loads album art for each song. That may have increased the draw on the battery. I will retest the wifi again with the pandora app running later but as of right now, wifi is better with the battery during continuous usage by a good margin.
Last edited by wsbsteven; November 15th, 2009 at 04:25 PM.
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70% Battery Remaining (seems like it was barely 70% as a couple minutes of charging off the pc made it 80%)
The results aren't much different than the 1 hour test, wifi used a little more power and mediaserver used a little less. I had some issues during the test with Pandora deciding not to play another song 2-3 times which required reloading the app. I worked as fast as I could to keep it from skewing the results.
I'll get to the 3G test later today if I can.
yes, please keep us updated. i would like to see some actual real world results once and for all. although, i have been reading everywhere that wifi uses less battery than 3G.
The main thing is that the Droid/Verizon 3g is fast enough to keep the wifi off most of the time. Unlike the iphone, in which you want to turn the wifi on whenever possible as ATT data is so slow in NY area. So I am finding that the battery lasts a good long time keeping wifi and gps off for everyday use.
Cell standby is just that, standby. I have been looking into this issue for the past few hours and what I have found is that with a CDMA device you can't actually turn the 3G radio off like you can with a GSM device. On my G1 I can actually switch from just EDGE to EDGE and 3G, but with the DROID you don't have that option.
1. If there is wifi, it will connect to wifi and use it over your 3g.
2. Unlimited has a 5gb data limit. You can go over your unlimited plan. Tethering is not yet available (legitimately) from Verizon. You can go over on your unlimited plan. I asked these questions at Verizon when i bought the phone.
Fact is: Wifi is faster. Wifi wont use data, unless you download. Wifi uses less resources. Nothing more to it. If you have wifi, use it.
Im not saying 3g is bad. I have to use 3g at school and it works great, but my data racks up faster (although still relatively slow). You can view your data usage on "my Verizon" app.
No quixand is right about WiFi, you would have to have it TURNED ON for it to connect. It doesn't magically turn on just because a network is in range. I am sitting next to my D-Link and my DROID is in my hand......nope it definitely isn't "prioritizing" WiFi over 3G.
And for the 5GB cap, I had a heated debate about this a few weeks ago and turned out to be wrong. Read EVERY TOC/TOS on VZW's site and you will see they don't mention ANY 5GB cap, or any cap for that matter, for either the Email and Web for Smartphone or Unlimited Data. Now if you used a massive amount of GB every month they could flag you, but, they don't have any cap mentioned on any legal documents.
Then why (from the posted tests) is the amount of cell standby and Phone Idle higher while using 3G only than Wifi? Sure if you look at the term "Cell Standby" you would assume it was just that, Standby. I'm not 100% sold on it being what it says it is. I didn't say without a reasonable doubt that it was 3G power usage but I'm not going to let the circle say it's a square until I investigate it more.
This needs to be looked at objectively so we can put this to rest.
2. Unlimited has a 5gb data limit. You can go over your unlimited plan. Tethering is not yet available (legitimately) from Verizon. You can go over on your unlimited plan. I asked these questions at Verizon when i bought the phone.
Fact is: Wifi is faster. Wifi wont use data, unless you download. Wifi uses less resources. Nothing more to it. If you have wifi, use it.
If there were a limit, the My Verizon page would track it with a cap, just as it does all of the other services. None of the fine print even indicates that there is a limit. This was hashed on on Crackberry last year.
Wi-fi isn't faster if it's not connected to the internet, or uses some sort of internet connection slower than 3G (i.e. dial up).
Then why (from the posted tests) is the amount of cell standby and Phone Idle higher while using 3G only than Wifi? Sure if you look at the term "Cell Standby" you would assume it was just that, Standby. I'm not 100% sold on it being what it says it is. I didn't say without a reasonable doubt that it was 3G power usage but I'm not going to let the circle say it's a square until I investigate it more.
This needs to be looked at objectively so we can put this to rest.
I do agree, I'm not positive it is or isn't 3G but all I use is 3G and the cell standby hasn't gotten very high at all. Making a educated guess I would think it would climb a lot higher then 12% if it was including 3G, I will ask a friend who still uses a G1 if he has cell standby and something else to indicate data usage.
The Motorola Droid - the first ever Verizon Android Phone - exploded onto the mobile market with an incredibly successful ad campaign that brough Android to the masses. With a huge and vibrant touchscreen, solid metal body, full QWERTY keyboard, 5M... Read More
3G vs WiFi when at home - which uses less power?
It was an employer decision, but when I blasted through the limit on day one we saw how silly it is.
