Help wifi advanced settings

[edklloyd]

had a question about a few advanced wifi settings. do you have enabled or disabled either of the two following settings? first the wifi optimization. when i have this checked i do not get push notifications when the phone is asleep/locked. the name of the setting is deceiving. it does not optimize wifi, it optimizes the battery disabling wifi while asleep and/or idle for a while.

also the auto switch to mobile data setting. from my brief research this is for when your wifi signal is weak it auto switches you over to mobile data. is this really needed? once i go out of range of my wifi or turn it off, it will switch to mobile data anyway right? i can see only ever really needing to use that feature if you are streaming something while you are moving out of range of your wifi so it is not interrupted. . any thoughts?

 

[Tlicious1020]

I don't use it! I have the box checked for my WiFi to sleep when the phone is not on. Personal preference for me.

 

[edklloyd]

thats actually a different setting that the two mentioned above. that is the "keep wifi on during sleep" setting. i am talking about the "wifi optimization" setting and "auto switch to mobile data" setting. this is one thing i don't like about the android platform. there are 50 places it seems like to change the same setting or changing a setting somewhere will override or affect another one somewhere else. for instance "keep wifi on during sleep" is self explanatory. but then the "wifi optimization" setting if you have that checked disables wifi after phone is locked/idle for a while. so doesn't that override the"keep wifi on" setting? CONFUSING!!!! LOL

 

[kratos]

The auto switch between WiFi and Mobile Data happens automatically when you disconnect from WiFi, as long as you have mobile data turned on. If you do not have mobile data enabled (turned on) then you will lose all data connection when you disconnect from WiFi. This includes, but is not limited to, moving out of WiFi range, manually disconnecting, losing power to the WiFi AP.

If you have auto switch turned on (the actual setting) then it will automatically switch to Mobile Data whenever your WiFi is not performing to it's best.For instance, you have your AP in your house and you go out to your back porch. If your back porch is far enough away from the WiFi AP so that you are still connected, but have a poor connection, then your phone will automatically switch to Mobile Data, even if your WiFi connection still works. This is because you can still surf the net on very poor networks without much pain at all, but trying to stream music, video, etc will suffer horribly. Therefore, if you don't want to deal with the buffering that will come with a poor connection, then you can use this setting to seamlessly switch to a better connection (presuming your mobile connection is actually decent).

I personally do not use this because there are times at work when I will have a poor connection to WiFi, but don't want to be eating up all my mobile data allowance.

Hope that helps clear things up a little.

Kratos

 

[edklloyd]

makes perfect sense. if the "auto switch" is selected it will switch to mobile data even if still connected to wifi in instances of weak signals. thank you for the explanation. this is how i understood it to work, but your great post confirmed it for me.

 

[Tlicious1020]

The auto switch between WiFi and Mobile Data happens automatically when you disconnect from WiFi, as long as you have mobile data turned on. If you do not have mobile data enabled (turned on) then you will lose all data connection when you disconnect from WiFi. This includes, but is not limited to, moving out of WiFi range, manually disconnecting, losing power to the WiFi AP.

If you have auto switch turned on (the actual setting) then it will automatically switch to Mobile Data whenever your WiFi is not performing to it's best.For instance, you have your AP in your house and you go out to your back porch. If your back porch is far enough away from the WiFi AP so that you are still connected, but have a poor connection, then your phone will automatically switch to Mobile Data, even if your WiFi connection still works. This is because you can still surf the net on very poor networks without much pain at all, but trying to stream music, video, etc will suffer horribly. Therefore, if you don't want to deal with the buffering that will come with a poor connection, then you can use this setting to seamlessly switch to a better connection (presuming your mobile connection is actually decent).

I personally do not use this because there are times at work when I will have a poor connection to WiFi, but don't want to be eating up all my mobile data allowance.

Hope that helps clear things up a little.

Kratos

Man, you probably wrote down everything the little pop up screen says about what optimization actually does before you even use it.

As for the OP for this thread. I should have said I don't use it and think it's unnecessary. However, it will remember the best tower signal and try to always use the best one opposed to having to search for a great signal. I can optimize my phone without the help of an optimizer. I'm the ultimate optimizer.

 

[edklloyd]

last post has nothing to do with my original two questions. Neither of the settings in question has to do with picking the best tower. the first setting has to do with "wifi optimization" which means the wifi signal is weakened/disabled while the phone is asleep to save battery. the 2nd being "auto switch to data" which means the phone will automatically switch to mobile data even though your still connected to wifi (if the wifi connection is weak). this post has nothing to do with "finding the best tower". but thanks for the input.

 

[Tlicious1020]

Kratos, I was totally thinking of the Sprint Optimizer located under mobile data settings. I totally have my WiFi optimize r enabled but with the auto switch disabled. LOL

 

[jaseman]

first the wifi optimization. when i have this checked i do not get push notifications when the phone is asleep/locked. the name of the setting is deceiving. it does not optimize wifi, it optimizes the battery disabling wifi while asleep and/or idle for a while.

When you say you don't receive "push notifications" do you mean that when using this feature, and your screen is off, that you do not receive any email, or text notifications while using WiFi?

I am not sure that this is what this setting does because I use it all the time and when I am connected to WiFi and my screen is off I still receive all my regular notifications as expected. I am not exactly sure what this setting does, as in how it is saving on battery, but I think it may have more to do with not continually scanning for a better WiFi signal instead of turning the WiFi completely off when the phone is idle, or sleeping. My $0.02