What's the point of Wi-Fi?

[runtnc]

What's the point of turning on/using Wi-Fi? Does it save battery or suck battery life?

 

[morganpants]

i keep mine on constantly and havent noticed a "SEVERE" inpact on battery life. but i dont have 3g coverage at my house so it could just cross each other out on battery life

 

[Nabraham]

Do you not have wifi at your house? Wifi speeds smoke 3g speeds so why not have it on when there is a network available? Like the above poster, my get 0 to 1 bar of 3g coverage in my house so it's easy for me to just keep wifi on.

 

[wildtouch83]

i keep mine on all the time as well. When i am in my house i use wi-fi and any other place i use 3g. wi-fi is much faster than 3g.

 

[xAusTiN]

Well let's see, if you're in an area where you get no 3g coverage but you have WIFI, there you go. Plus WIFI is faster than 3g most of the time. I use WIFI whenever I can because it uses up less battery than 3g.

 

[runtnc]

Ok, so mixed reviews on what it does to your battery life, but the main point is that the browsing speed is considerably faster than 3g. That's really all I wanted to know, I'll have to turn mine on sometime and test it out. Thanks everyone.

 

[LexusBrian400]

It only helps your battery life if you have the "advanced" options checked in wifi to "never sleep" this means, when you have wifi on and your phone is sleeping, after 15 mins it wont go to 3G like it usually does to sync data. It really only helps if you live in an area with poor signal quality. thats why the mixed reviews

But yeah, if "never sleep" isnt checked for wifi, its not gonna do a damn thing for ya.

 

[beedub]

How would one go about turning the "never sleep" option on? Does it require root or something? Maybe I'm blind, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.

 

[Demache]

How would one go about turning the "never sleep" option on? Does it require root or something? Maybe I'm blind, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Settings > Wireless > Wifi Settings > Press Menu > Advanced > Wifi sleep Policy.

 

[beedub]

Ah, right. I didn't think to press menu for some stupid reason.

 

[Demache]

Its tricky. I don't know why they just didn't make that part of the menu.

 

[morganpants]

lol thanks.. i thought the never sleep option never existed.. i've learned alot today haha

 

[hallstevenson]

Just curious, does WiFi automatically take priority over 3G when using data ?

 

[LexusBrian400]

Just curious, does WiFi automatically take priority over 3G when using data ?

Yes.

 

[TTupa]

Do people turn their mobile network off using the toggle when they turn WiFi on? I used to, but it looks like the new 2.1 power bar widget doesn't have the toggle. It has what I thought was the mobile network toggle (second from the right,) but that doesn't seem to turn it off.

I guess if it takes priority over mobile data, then maybe that doesn't need to be turned off.

 

[Praetorian]

There's really no point that I can see to turn mobile network off when using wifi as it goes to sleep anyways. The power savings would most likely be minimal. As far as setting wifi to never sleep I would make the argument that even though your phone is using 3g the only data being sent is the occasional sync with google, exchange or facebook so the power requirements would probably be neglegible (assuming you aren't syncing every 5 minutes).

 

[doogald]

Do people turn their mobile network off using the toggle when they turn WiFi on? I used to, but it looks like the new 2.1 power bar widget doesn't have the toggle. It has what I thought was the mobile network toggle (second from the right,) but that doesn't seem to turn it off.

I guess if it takes priority over mobile data, then maybe that doesn't need to be turned off.

No, for the very reason that when I leave my house I don't want to think about turning mobile networking back on.

There are times when I do not want to be interrupted by data notifications, so I toggle both mobile networking and WiFi off. Most of the time I have them both toggled on. Sometimes, when I know that I am going to be away from a known WiFi access point for some time, I will turn off WiFi to save some battery.

 

[Romparoo]

Thanks for the post. I forgot to get my security key and wifi reconfigured after installing leak 3 weeks ago. Up and running now.

 

[hallstevenson]

Just did a speedtest using the app from Speedtest.net...

3G: 1096k/615k
WiFi: 3180k/565k