wifi and airave question

[i.have.droid]

I just enabled my wifi for my home. It works perfect and I have full bars. I got my EVO a few days back and have not enabled it at all for my AIRRAVE..so I am not 100% sure if it is even being used or not.

What I do know is now that I have enabled wifi, I have full bars. With 3g, it was intermittent. I know that is data, but how do you know how your call quality is?

Calls are better and do not drop as much compared to my blackberry before.

I would love to send back my airrave and save some cash if possible.

 

[Vincent Law]

Are you sure you aren't confusing wifi signal bars with the actual cellular signal bars? They're two different icons (the wifi ones are curvy, going upwards).

That said, your EVO is probably using your AirRave anyway, unless you didn't let it. You can always unplug the AirRave for a bit and see what happens

 

[i.have.droid]

Yes I will do that. No, my signal bars are completely full now that I switched to wifi at my house. I also get youtube streaming in HD automatically now. But I will definitley turn off the Airrave and see what happens. It is just weird that I have full bars now on my reception after doing this. And the Wifi of course is a different icon, and I see that also.

 

[Vincent Law]

HD YouTube is an effect of using wi-fi. It will also enable itself if you're in 4G.

Anyway, wi-fi itself should have zero influence on your cellular signal. Data will obviously be better because you're not using cellular data.

 

[EarlyMon]

You'll find you can turn off wifi, 3G and 4G and still get crystal clear voice and reliable sms service.

I think you'll find that low signal strength on a CDMA network, such as Sprint's, doesn't affect voice quality.

Maybe it's ok to kinda think of it like digital TV - you either have the signal or you don't - and with the weakest signal, you might get some dropout (just like DTV), but otherwise, the only thing a stronger signal is getting you is a little robustness.

I often have to drive through canyon-y areas - I don't any static or poor quality, when I hit a full blind spot, I lose voice service entirely. (And I know where those 2 spots are on my drive home through the mountain desert, so I just avoid talking when passing through there.) And I've found storms don't affect me at all - until things get so bad the towers don't stand a chance for anyone with any service.

I compare that to my California co-workers on AT&T - as their signal strength drops or bad weather comes in, so does the voice quality.

FWIW - I've also pulled out the app Wifi Analyzer after all this wifi indicator talk (good simple app, I highly recommend it).

I think you'll find if you use that and Speedtest.net you'll find you're wifi speeds are pretty much the same far from the router (low signal) or right next to it - at least, it did in my cases. Also try it when you're 3G bars are intermittent vs. solid - see what you think.

[rant]And PLEASE don't get into worrying about your speedtest result numbers. They're just there to give you a relative measure for this sort of troubleshooting - nothing more.

(Why people have gotten bonkers over using it as a benchmark really and truly escapes me - it's totally illogical.)

With radio tech (including the WiMAX choice Sprint made for their 4G) these signal strengths all should just be measures of robustness, not speedometers.[/rant]

Hope that helps, post back your results and experiences.

PS - See also my widget reply to you at -

http://androidforums.com/htc-evo-4g/107114-using-sprint-network-instead-wifi-out-spite-2.html#post1072906

PPS - Vincent, I like your posts a lot. They're always dead on and seem to say what I do with a lot fewer words!!

 

[i.have.droid]

Earlymon. Very cool. I got an app called Y5, which will turn off wifi when I leave my house, and turn it on automatically when I come back.

I have wireless analyzer and it is awesome. It showed me that my router was on a busy channel so I fixed that immediately.

I truly do not understand why I suddenly have full bars at all times on my cell signal. I was going between 1 and 3 at my place and had to get an Airrave. I still got intermittent signal, until switching to wifi.

I just turned off the airrave and the signal dropped to zero. So I still need it. I wonder if the airrave works better because it is a wifi device? Who knows..regardless, I have full bars and super fast internet at my house now so I can't complain.

 

[EarlyMon]

Hey, between wifi, your TV, your house's wireless phone (probably) and who knows what else including whatever your neighbors are doing, the biggest threat to any signal is interference.

The claim is that everything is always hunky dory and everything respects its own spectrum - the truth is we often live in noisy-radio environments and the sky's the limit on goofy side-effects.

I think they've all done a bang-up job getting things to work this well.

 

[DHAndroid]

I use both at home. Airwave give me about -80db - -90db anywhere inside and outside it switches to cell towers. It saves the hell out of the battery since cell reception inside is 1 bar without it.

Wifi is also a amazing! Having both creates a cell tower at home with full signal for whatever is needed. Before the wifi phone I would see full bars for cell and when I received an email, text etc anything data the signal would drop to 1 bar to use data off the Sprint cell tower.. Not now!

However if I am home for the day I turn off wifi for about 15 minutes so it can sync with the network before unplugging it so the battery does not drain. Also do this before going out and after 15 minutes unplug it and go.

 

[i.have.droid]

ok, so dhandroid, you experience the same thing. If you have an air device plus wifi enabled on your phone, then you will operate at full capacity. That is really good stuff.

I am going to use y5 to just let it turn off and on on it's own. We shall see how that works out.

 

[DHAndroid]

Yes, the Airave is a lifesaver! If the phone has good signal it does not have to use as much power to transmit saving the battery. Same phone charged one with full and another with 2 bars on the phone together will notice the one with 2 bars will have a battery dead first. Same goes for wifi not having to use 1x/3g/4g off the cell tower compared to using the home wifi network.

If you just plugged the Airave into power and your router then its on if all the lights are blue..all calls will go through it. You will notice a short beep from your phone before it goes out. If you are in a metro area you can limit who can use it by phone # on the Sprint website. I have mine limited to my # only. Anyone else on it can only call 911. They can not receive or many any phone calls while their phone is locked on since phones think its another cell tower.

Was looking at Y5, seems it uses the GPS to determine location. Use a HTC wigit and manually turn wifi off before I walk out the door and on when I get home.

I used to use Wifi toggle which worked great & avail through the market.
Wifi Toggle Widget - Android app on AppBrain