Help WiFi Sleep Policy - what do you do?

[Cloudtech]

Hey All,

What is your take on the WiFi sleep policy -

I do like the fact that Wi-Fi can remain on all the time, but will it be a drain on my battery?

Is it better to keep the Wi-Fi to sleep on screen shut off?

I am near a Wi-Fi connection for most of the day and always at home.

Thanks!

Joe

 

[Ph8]

Hey All,

What is your take on the WiFi sleep policy -

I do like the fact that Wi-Fi can remain on all the time, but will it be a drain on my battery?

Is it better to keep the Wi-Fi to sleep on screen shut off?

I am near a Wi-Fi connection for most of the day and always at home.

Thanks!

Joe

YOur battery drain will be quicker if you leave WiFI on all the time. Wifi is a major taker of battery life. If you want to sue your wifi while the screen is off though then youll have to change it. If your plugged in or close to a power source all day then it would mean much less as you would be able to charge your phone if needed.

 

[NOSintake]

My wifi policy is set to "Never" since I'm around wifi connections most of the day. Having wifi on, actually SAVES me battery because it will use that instead of my 3G. I'm actually testing 3G today since I have a normal signal here (as opposed to work where I have almost no service). But I will say, when I set wifi to "never" and used auto brightness, my battery went from barely lasting until a full work day, to 20% left by midnight

 

[nbarsotti]

If you are around wifi all the time leave it ON. Changing my sleep policy to never go to sleep made a HUGE difference. If you are not around Wifi access points that you can use this will actually hurt your battery life. Between the GPS and poor battery life with wifi sleeping all the time I almost returned the capitavate. This one wifi change has made me decide to keep it.

 

[Simba501]

Wifi sleep - never....

Wifi uses less battery than 3g. If you have wifi set to sleep, most of the data will be pulled using 3g (since your phone's screen is off most of the time). I actually think the phone burns more resources by toggling....

 

[rlb4]

What if I am around wifi but don't use the phone? Usually when I'm at home or work I'll leave the phone on in case someone calls but rarely ever use it. Should I set it to sleep or never?

 

[Simba501]

What if I am around wifi but don't use the phone? Usually when I'm at home or work I'll leave the phone on in case someone calls but rarely ever use it. Should I set it to sleep or never?

Never....I've seen that this setting works best for people. I don't use wifi much though. 3g kills battery, even in the background....

 

[dontshakepandas]

None of the above.

I use Ultimate Juice.

It can tell if I'm in range of a known wifi connection. If I am, it always uses wifi. If I'm not, it uses 3g. This is nice because I don't have an unlimited data plan and don't want the phone using 3g for background syncing if wifi is available.

Also saves way more battery than just setting the wifi sleep policy because it shuts off the data connection completely except for 3 minutes out of every 15 minutes (these are my settings, but they are adjustable). When it turns on, it will automatically check for a known wifi connection, if one isn't found in 5 seconds, it will switch to 3g.

 

[rlb4]

Never....I've seen that this setting works best for people. I don't use wifi much though. 3g kills battery, even in the background....

Thanks. So even though I'm not using the phone and it's in sleep mode, the programs running in the background will still be downloading data. This is why I should leave it on never because wifi uses less power than 3G?

 

[rlb4]

None of the above.

I use Ultimate Juice.

It can tell if I'm in range of a known wifi connection. If I am, it always uses wifi. If I'm not, it uses 3g. This is nice because I don't have an unlimited data plan and don't want the phone using 3g for background syncing if wifi is available.

Also saves way more battery than just setting the wifi sleep policy because it shuts off the data connection completely except for 3 minutes out of every 15 minutes (these are my settings, but they are adjustable). When it turns on, it will automatically check for a known wifi connection, if one isn't found in 5 seconds, it will switch to 3g.

That sounds pretty neat. But won't the constant toggling on/off cause more battery drain as someone previously posted? Where do you get this Ultimate Juice app? I don't see it on Appbrain.

 

[NOSintake]

That sounds pretty neat. But won't the constant toggling on/off cause more battery drain as someone previously posted? Where do you get this Ultimate Juice app? I don't see it on Appbrain.

It's the paid version of JuiceDefender (which you need to have in order to use UltimateJuice). But the link to it can be found here:
UltimateJuice! - Android app on AppBrain

 

[dontshakepandas]

That sounds pretty neat. But won't the constant toggling on/off cause more battery drain as someone previously posted? Where do you get this Ultimate Juice app? I don't see it on Appbrain.

I thought of that, and you can try the free version first to see if you are actually getting better battery life or not. The free version doesn't do the wifi settings though, so it only toggles your 3g on and off.

There is also a built in feature that estimates how much longer your battery is lasting due to using the program. I'm not sure how accurate it is, but right now it is saying that my battery is lasting a little over twice as long (I'm pretty sure this is only for while the phone is sleeping).

It is hard to judge for myself though, since it is still a new phone, almost all of my battery drainage comes from me not being able to put the damn thing down. I definitely feel like my battery lasts longer than normal though, especially since I'm in an area that doesn't have great 3g signal.

In all honesty, the app would be worth the money even if I got the same or slightly worse battery life than normal. I love knowing that I'm not using up my data plan if I don't need to be. It also has the ability to turn off the data at night (you can set the specific times) completely. I like this because I can leave my phone volume up without being woken up by email notifications in the middle of the night.

 

[emuneee]

My sleep policy is set to never. When I know that I'm in range of a known AP I turn wifi on. With wifi connected my battery last a lot longer than it would if I was using 3G for data.

 

[Simba501]

Thanks. So even though I'm not using the phone and it's in sleep mode, the programs running in the background will still be downloading data. This is why I should leave it on never because wifi uses less power than 3G?

Yes, most likely you have programs that use data while your phone is "sleeping". Although, you could go disable background data, but I wouldn't go that far. I wouldn't recommend it either. And yes, that's why you should leave it on never...because wifi uses less power than 3g...

 

[Sledutah]

I have mine set to never sleep. It saves about 10% battery overnight.

 

[Jiggles]

From my experience... I have wifi set to never sleep.

In the background I have a weather app, facebook app, and sports all, all updating every 30 minutes. Put then phone down last night around 4am EST, wake up at noon to seeing the battery drop from 72% to 70%. Connected to wifi the whole time.

 

[ScaGin]

It's the paid version of JuiceDefender (which you need to have in order to use UltimateJuice). But the link to it can be found here:
UltimateJuice! - Android app on AppBrain

I use Y5 - Battery Saver (Free)
It turns Wifi on when a connection is near. I use it because I don't want to use 3G if I don't need to. I also use 3G Watchdog (Free) to monitor my 3G usage and set it for warnings when the data limit is near.

Y5 Battery Saver: Home

 

[Terry S]

I have mine and my kids set to never because we are in a wifi area at home and the first night my daughter had her phone something happened at 3:00 AM while she was sleeping that caused her to use 94 MB of data. I only have them on the 200 MB data plan since we have wifi here at home and they are told to download everything from home. That night we did not have the wifi sleep set to never and something decided to sync using 3G and use 94 MB.

 

[NoOneCanHelpMe]

Why did noone mention a 3G on/off toggle? How about u set wifi to sleep in 15 min and turn off 3G, that sounds like the best solution if u ask me

 

[Dennis_Bham]

Mine is set to NEVER sleep. I am around wifi at home and at work.

With weatherbug pro widget updating once per hour and google updating normally, I tested the overnight battery drain with wifi set to sleep with screen off and then again set to NEVER sleep. Over a 10 hour sleep period with the wifi set to sleep with screen off, my battery usage was 38 percent. With wifi set to NEVER sleep and all other conditions the same my battery usage over a 10 hour sleep period was 4%. During inactive periods near wifi, my battery usage with it set to sleep with screen off is approx 9 times greater than the battery usage when set to NEVER sleep.

 

[Cloudtech]

So, general consensus is that, WiFi on Never is generally best when trying to conserve battery life, especially when near WiFi connections for most of the day.

Anyone find any differently?

 

[nybmx]

I'm bumping this thread up because I just discovered I'm having the exact opposite effects that everyone else is. My phone has been losing battery at a rate of about 5-10% an hour. I initially thought it was because of bad reception so I switched to 2g and there was no change in battery life. I tried uninstalling apps and changing settings but nothing seemed to work. The other night I decided to turn wifi off before I went to bed and when I woke up I had only lost 2% battery. This is something I have been able to replicate constantly. When wifi is running and/or set to never sleep, I lose battery at 5+% an hour, but with it off I get great battery life.
Has anyone else experienced this? Is there something I'm missing?

Background about my phone:
Rooted + Voodoo lagfix
JH7 firmware
Beatiful widgets weather set to update every 2 hours (only widget on homescreen)
Everything else updates manually
static dark background
GPS and bluetooth off


Note: This was also happening with the stock firmware and before root or lagfix.
Note 2: With wifi on and set to never sleep, battery use indicates Cell Standby as the highest user and Phone Idle right behind it every time.

 

[sero]

mebe i'm rahtarded but i cant find the sleep on/off option?

 

[sremick]

mebe i'm rahtarded but i cant find the sleep on/off option?

See the instructions at the bottom of this page:
Data Usage - CapFAQ

 

[NJR]

Wifi Settings/Menu/Advanced