WIFI and battery life

[GraemeT]

Hi all,

No, it's not another poor battery life thread, don't worry! At home I've set my wireless router not to broadcast its SSID. My Lumia 820 tells me that adding hidden networks will decrease my battery life and deleting hidden networks will increase my battery life. I can't see how this is. I'm curious. Can anyone explain this to me? Thanks.

Regards.

 

[kevin2577]

The loss in life isn't significant, and I wouldn't worry so much. The reason it can shorten it is that with networks that are not broadcasting their name the phone doesn't know when it is there, and has to scan for it in particular far more often, even when you are not home. This scan, looking for your home network when you are out, can consume some battery

 

[Aztekker]

Hidden SSIDs are really not part of the wireless spec, and can easily be gotten around. The key is to use the modern encryptions - like WPA2

 

[GraemeT]

Thanks guys. A techie friend did say that hiding the SSID was pointless. That said, the caveat was if you are using WPA2. My router is a few years old now so only supports WPA. I'll just stick as I am. I doubt any of my neighbours are up to or would want to hack into me anyway.

Regards.