Switching Between WiFi & Verizon...How?

[sunking]

I am currently a Blackberry Storm owner. I have pre-ordered a Droid at Best Buy and very much look forward to picking it up on Friday.

My current Storm does not have WiFi capabilities so I have not had an opportunity to play with WiFi on a device like this.

My question is how do you go about switching between WiFi (where available) and Verizon's network? After you have configured the Droid to user your home wireless network, is it a manual operation where you select the connection you want or will it automatically use a WiFi connection when available?

Thanks in advance,
Sunking

 

[cconover]

I am currently a Blackberry Storm owner. I have pre-ordered a Droid at Best Buy and very much look forward to picking it up on Friday.

My current Storm does not have WiFi capabilities so I have not had an opportunity to play with WiFi on a device like this.

My question is how do you go about switching between WiFi (where available) and Verizon's network? After you have configured the Droid to user your home wireless network, is it a manual operation where you select the connection you want or will it automatically use a WiFi connection when available?

Thanks in advance,
Sunking

This is a lot of speculation on my part, but I thought I'd at least give you some response and push this thread to the top so that others hopefully chime in too.

I would imagine that if your Droid's WiFi is turned on and you've already configured it to use your home wireless network, then it will connect when it's within range. However, I'd also imagine that it would be good practice to turn your WiFi off when you're not going to be within range of a network you use regularly in order to preserve battery.

Anybody else have input on this?

 

[johnlgalt]

My (completely uneducated but theoretical guess based upon having seen and configured iPaqs and BBs on campus as an employee of the University's IT dept) is that you can set it to notify you if WiFi is in range, but the downside would be that you'd have to leave WiFi on all the time - obviously when traveling you'd need to turn it off to save battery, but if you're in an area that it is available, and you're not moving a lot, then it may be beneficial to have on. Then, I'd say that the OS would notify you that a signal is in range and ask if you'd like to switch over to using the signal.....

now, what would be optimal would be to have an app written so that if, using the GPS, your ground speed is above X mph, then your WiFi gets disabled automatically. Perhaps even using the accelerometer? Then, if you're stationary (or relatively stationary, as I suppose one would want to be able to walk around a little bit when using WiFi) it would enable the WiFi and search for signals.

Now, even better would be to enhance said app to that if nothing is found it would shut down WiFi again until a 'significant' distance had been covered and / or the GPS / accelerometer reported that a great distance had been covered in a short time and now the phone was stationary again, and test again....

Of course, this could become a hassle if you're in stop and go traffic, but a configuration would allow you to disable automatic checks by manually enabling 'driving' mode, permanently disabling the WiFi....

Heh - I have envisioned a pretty hefty app, eh? Well, at least Google has now released the SDK update to support development for A2.....

 

[cconover]

That's an interesting idea for an app...have WiFi automatically disable when it enters car mode.

It would seem that the only way to get a solid answer to this question is to wait for somebody with a Droid in their hands to try it out. Luckily, within less than a week that answer should be available (unless somebody with a press demo Droid *ahem* phandroid *ahem* could chime in on this

 

[johnlgalt]

Yeah. I was going to point to this post over in the Developer's "request an app" forum, but decided that I had better search Android Market first before I do....

 

[cconover]

Let us know what you find, for those of us still a week away from holding Android.

 

[zachd]

My HTC TP2 automatically switches to wifi (if enabled) when it picks up a familiar network, and goes back out of it when I leave the wifi signal. I would assume the same would be with the Droid. Verizons internet is fast enough for me to the point where I usually just leave the wifi off though, to conserve the battery.

 

[gthrift]

My (completely uneducated but theoretical guess based upon having seen and configured iPaqs and BBs on campus as an employee of the University's IT dept) is that you can set it to notify you if WiFi is in range, but the downside would be that you'd have to leave WiFi on all the time - obviously when traveling you'd need to turn it off to save battery, but if you're in an area that it is available, and you're not moving a lot, then it may be beneficial to have on. Then, I'd say that the OS would notify you that a signal is in range and ask if you'd like to switch over to using the signal.....

now, what would be optimal would be to have an app written so that if, using the GPS, your ground speed is above X mph, then your WiFi gets disabled automatically. Perhaps even using the accelerometer? Then, if you're stationary (or relatively stationary, as I suppose one would want to be able to walk around a little bit when using WiFi) it would enable the WiFi and search for signals.

Now, even better would be to enhance said app to that if nothing is found it would shut down WiFi again until a 'significant' distance had been covered and / or the GPS / accelerometer reported that a great distance had been covered in a short time and now the phone was stationary again, and test again....

Of course, this could become a hassle if you're in stop and go traffic, but a configuration would allow you to disable automatic checks by manually enabling 'driving' mode, permanently disabling the WiFi....

Heh - I have envisioned a pretty hefty app, eh? Well, at least Google has now released the SDK update to support development for A2.....

Check out Locale. They don't support the moving in the car thing yet but it is being worked on.

 

[CRPercodani]

Ok well Android should be the same on any phone when it comes to WiFi and this is how my G1 works. When you turn on WiFi it will search for nearby networks, the notify you of what it finds, then you enter the password and you can save the network. If you keep WiFi on it will automatically sign in to the network whenever your in range, but that hurts your battery if your not gonna use it at all. You can download a app in the market that will give you a small widget which has a on and off switch for WiFi so that you can easily turn it off and on from your home screen.

 

[johnlgalt]

Locale seems to be a lot of what I was envisioning, thanks!