Question about wifi signal indicator on Samsung galaxy tab

[mystic7]

I hope this is the right forum. I was just wondering about the wifi indicator symbol. Its the four bars in a V shape one. When I have a strong signal I have four blue bars. But sometimes the bars are a light gray, as opposed to dark gray for no signal. What does that mean? Also, sometimes there are these two arrow shaped green symbols next to the indicator. What does that signify?

 

[Unforgiven]

I hope this is the right forum. I was just wondering about the wifi indicator symbol. Its the four bars in a V shape one. When I have a strong signal I have four blue bars. But sometimes the bars are a light gray, as opposed to dark gray for no signal. What does that mean? Also, sometimes there are these two arrow shaped green symbols next to the indicator. What does that signify?

I think that the difference between blue / grey (if I am reading it correct, you have the same signal strength, but the bars are grey) is that blue means you have a connection to google servers (for syncing email, app updates, etc) and grey you do not. The arrows just signify that there is active data transmission happening. You could be loading a web page or maybe email is syncing, that type of thing.

Hope that helps!

 

[jerofld]

I had always been under the impression that blue meant full connection to the internet (it may be that it actually tries connecting to a Google server to verify this). Grey means that it has connected to the wifi router, but can't establish connection to it's internet reference point.

Every Android device I've used has had a similar wifi behavior, so you posted in the right place But if you want some more specific information for a Galaxy Tab, there is a Galaxy Tab subforum:

Samsung Galaxy Tab - Android Forums

 

[Unforgiven]

I had always been under the impression that blue meant full connection to the internet (it may be that it actually tries connecting to a Google server to verify this). Grey means that it has connected to the wifi router, but can't establish connection to it's internet reference point.

Every Android device I've used has had a similar wifi behavior, so you posted in the right place But if you want some more specific information for a Galaxy Tab, there is a Galaxy Tab subforum:

Samsung Galaxy Tab - Android Forums

Maybe you are correct about blue / grey for wifi but I see it on the 3G signal strength sometimes too. I actually never had the blue / grey until I updated my D2 to CM7 (a year ago maybe and on that it was green/grey for Gingerbread) so I would have to really dig back in time to where I saw the explanation.

 

[Unforgiven]

Maybe you are correct about blue / grey for wifi but I see it on the 3G signal strength sometimes too. I actually never had the blue / grey until I updated my D2 to CM7 (a year ago maybe and on that it was green/grey for Gingerbread) so I would have to really dig back in time to where I saw the explanation.

Looks like we both correct, this is from the 2.3.4 Android User Guide (note: Green is not important as many roms and skins choose different colors, so I would focus on colored / grey)

Network status icons turn green if you have a Google Account added to your phone and the phone is connected to Google services, for syncing your Gmail, Calendar events, contacts, for backing up your settings, and so on. If you don’t have a Google Account or if, for example, you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network that is not connected to the Internet, the network icons are white.

edit: I was thinking about this and have come to the conclusion that you are probably more right . I can only remember seeing grey 3G symbol at the same time as a grey WIFI symbol. It would make sense that they would be grey at the same time. Android connects to wifi and tries will use that for its default data connection. If the router is not connected to the internet, then the both the 3G and WIFI go grey. Below are the tests I did to confirm this.

On my daily driver: Got home and let my GNex connect to my WIFI and both were blue. I unplugged the cable from the modem and they both went grey.

On my inactive D2 (no 3g): Connected through WIFI, both are blue. When I disconnected internet from the router, both turned grey. Now with the router reconnected and both blue again, I turned off WIFI on the phone and then had only 3g signal but in grey.

So I guess only in the rare case (outside of an inactive phone) that you would have grey signal bars while not connected to WIFI would be carrier infrastructure is not talking to google servers or the google servers themselves are down. Only other thought is if maybe you don't sync anything to google, but that would mean no market, so that is even more unlikely.