Zune Wireless Sync - are you kidding?

[cluberti]

Indeed - a WiFi radio uses a bit more power on Rx, but given it's much faster data rate and lower Tx power than most phone data GSM or CDMA radios, it will indeed use less battery power to use WiFi connectivity over a data connection via the "3G" or 4G" radio as it's Tx time and tail will be shorter due to faster data transfer.

You still need the phone's radio to connect to the carrier network for phone or text messages, but for pure data use WiFi when you have it versus the phone's radio - you will save bandwidth against your plan (if that's important to you), your data down and upload is likely to be faster (although if you're on an LTE network but have a slow home broadband connection upstream to that WiFi router or AP, this may no longer be the case), and you will indeed use less power than the phone's radio for the same data connection.

 

[shlomo80]

It's because if it didn't work when on AC, other numbnuts will be bleating that their handset/Zune ran down without them knowing. Wireless sync allows e.g. my one of Zunes to remain plugged in my car, and another plugged in by my entrance hall and have it be synced when I'm working at my PC.

 

[Seketh]

Oh c'mon, this thread is another example of all the nitpicking around the forums.

It's wireless sync, and it need AC power so your battery won't be completely consumed in the process.

/end thread.

 

[mkr10001]

it can but normally WIFI uses more...
best way to test this for your self , put your phone in AIRPLANE mod turn ON WIFI (only wifi) and see how long your battery last compare to just being connected to 3G all day. unless you live in a LOW coverage area , see notes below.

Surely that's not a fair test as the phone will disconnect from wifi anyway when the phone locks so, even though it would last longer if it didn't disconnect, it is still going to last longer anyway.

 

[canesfan625]

no...connecting to 3g uses more power than connecting to wifi...

WiFi spends a lot of time in listening state even when idle. It can use just as much power as when the screen is active. It comes down to certain variables but in a lot of cases 3G is better in standby

 

[TricBox]

At least your wireless sync works. I haven't been able to get mine to work since day one. Even Zune support is stumped right now. Been with WP for over a year and it had never worked. But I still love the phone and platform. Plus syncing with a direct link to the computer is a heck of a lot faster than itunes and my ipod touch.

 

[AngryNil]

AFAIK, this is to do with the way wireless sync is conducted - through the resource intensive background agent. It's specifically for high-bandwidth actions, and can only be executed when the phone is plugged in.

 

[mkr10001]

WiFi spends a lot of time in listening state even when idle. It can use just as much power as when the screen is active. It comes down to certain variables but in a lot of cases 3G is better in standby

If I'm at home though and my wifi is there is makes much more sense to just stay connected to wifi rather than resort to 3g and use up my data allowance

 

[N8ter]

There are almost no use cases where one would want to turn off WiFi whenever the phone's screen goes off. I can only think of 1: The phone was NOT connected to WiFi when the screen timed out, anyways.

If there is no WiFi connection, then go ahead and turn it off. If I have a WiFi connection, I will almost always lose battery life by having the phone switch to cellular automatically instead of staying on WiFi because WiFi is more power efficient in data transfers, which is where the brunt of power usage comes from. It completely overpowers any advantage the cell radio has because a dead phone is useless.

Too many obvious variables being ignored. If you're in a building the Cell Radio has to work harder to maintain a decent signal. In a lower coverage area you may only have EDGE or GPRS connection, so when the cell turns off WiFi you're wasting a ton of battery life using the Cell Radio instead of what what a perfectly fine WiFi connection. The WiFi radio doesn't have to work nearly as hard. Smartphones are constantly sending or recieving information, WiFi simply is more power efficient than the average cell radio. You get better battery life staying on WiFi.

The only time I am okay with a device automatically turning my WiFi off is if it wasn't connected to WiFi to begin with, because in the real world you almost always lose out when it does that. Even an LTE network with perfect coverage will generally drain more power than a WiFi connection. Speed comes at a price. I always prefer WiFi, and I hate hte auto-sleep non-configurable retarded WiFi policy that wastes battery life on this phone.

P.S. If I go to some buildings my HD7 gets like 3 hours battery life, chiefly because the phone forces it to use the cell radio instead of the open WiFi hotspot they have in there when the screen is off. The cell radio literally drains the battery dry. It's a bad policy. They should make it configurable. I just put my phone in Airplane mode now.

 

[Dave Blake]

There are almost no use cases where one would want to turn off WiFi whenever the phone's screen goes off. I can only think of 1: The phone was NOT connected to WiFi when the screen timed out, anyways.

If there is no WiFi connection, then go ahead and turn it off. If I have a WiFi connection, I will almost always lose battery life by having the phone switch to cellular automatically instead of staying on WiFi because WiFi is more power efficient in data transfers, which is where the brunt of power usage comes from. It completely overpowers any advantage the cell radio has because a dead phone is useless.

Too many obvious variables being ignored. If you're in a building the Cell Radio has to work harder to maintain a decent signal. In a lower coverage area you may only have EDGE or GPRS connection, so when the cell turns off WiFi you're wasting a ton of battery life using the Cell Radio instead of what what a perfectly fine WiFi connection. The WiFi radio doesn't have to work nearly as hard. Smartphones are constantly sending or recieving information, WiFi simply is more power efficient than the average cell radio. You get better battery life staying on WiFi.

The only time I am okay with a device automatically turning my WiFi off is if it wasn't connected to WiFi to begin with, because in the real world you almost always lose out when it does that. Even an LTE network with perfect coverage will generally drain more power than a WiFi connection. Speed comes at a price. I always prefer WiFi, and I hate hte auto-sleep non-configurable retarded WiFi policy that wastes battery life on this phone.

P.S. If I go to some buildings my HD7 gets like 3 hours battery life, chiefly because the phone forces it to use the cell radio instead of the open WiFi hotspot they have in there when the screen is off. The cell radio literally drains the battery dry. It's a bad policy. They should make it configurable. I just put my phone in Airplane mode now.

I'm playing the Devels advocate here and agreeing that WIFI is the better battery manager. Dispute the fact that your never going to turn your cell radio off where by making your argument mute. For the sake of argument lets say your right. Why do you think Microsoft set this up this way? Go!

 

[canesfan625]

I'm playing the Devels advocate here and agreeing that WIFI is the better battery manager. Dispute the fact that your never going to turn your cell radio off where by making your argument mute. For the sake of argument lets say your right. Why do you think Microsoft set this up this way? Go!

WiFi is not the magical data unicorn fairy that people are making it out to be. Forgetting that WiFi can use as much power in standby as screen on its not a guaranteed battery saver. It still comes down to the quality and speed of the WiFi connection. There are cases where people get better life on LTE because it's a better signal/speed than their WiFi. Its all just conditional to everyone's situation.

 

[ninjaap]

Another issue (at lease for me) is when I plug in my phone to charge it Zune opens on my laptop, even if I don't want it to. That has become an annoyance for me.

zune/settings/software/general/[start the zune software when I connect a compatible device]

 

[mkr10001]

WiFi is not the magical data unicorn fairy that people are making it out to be. Forgetting that WiFi can use as much power in standby as screen on its not a guaranteed battery saver. It still comes down to the quality and speed of the WiFi connection. There are cases where people get better life on LTE because it's a better signal/speed than their WiFi. Its all just conditional to everyone's situation.

Then why the **** can't we choose how WE want it?

 

[N8ter]

I'm playing the Devels advocate here and agreeing that WIFI is the better battery manager. Dispute the fact that your never going to turn your cell radio off where by making your argument mute. For the sake of argument lets say your right. Why do you think Microsoft set this up this way? Go!

Unless you're just daft and just want to disagree, it's pretty common knowledge that 3G/LTE drains significantly more battery than EDGE/GPRS (lots of people drop to Edge to save battery), and we all know that WiFi data consumes less battery than 3G/LTE data transfers.

That's where the big difference is. Saying the WiFi is going to be on all the time doesn't matter all that much, becuase the battery drain of the WiFi radio is not that high to begin with. Most of the battery drain in a smartphone comes from Data Transfers, the Screen, and Location Services. The fact that WiFi has much less battery drain for data transfers is what makes it superior, coupled with the fact that you get faster location triangulations when you use WiFi in conjunction with the GPS chip.

If you look at any specification breakdown, talk times on GPRS/EDGE are almost always higher than on UMTS for the same reasons, and when a phone is on WiFi the device completely avoids 3G for data and uses WiFi (which uses less battery) instead. When a device is used for streaming media (Video, high bitrate audio) WiFi is clearly superior to 3G, and also generates much less heat.

The reason why Microsoft did it? Ask Microsoft. They do rather narrow focus groups with relatively weak justifications for a lot of the changes they make in their software. I'm not here to defend what they did. I just make a choice on what products I move forward with in the future.

 

[KingCrimson]

The reason why Microsoft did it? Ask Microsoft. They do rather narrow focus groups with relatively weak justifications for a lot of the changes they make in their software. I'm not here to defend what they did. I just make a choice on what products I move forward with in the future.

I honestly don't think Microsoft put much thought into wireless sync. That's the difference between Apple and Microsoft. Apple will put in huge effort to make something like wireless sync work "automagically" and impress people. Microsoft will throw it in as an afterthought without regard to potential ability to impress people.

 

[N8ter]

WiFi is not the magical data unicorn fairy that people are making it out to be. Forgetting that WiFi can use as much power in standby as screen on its not a guaranteed battery saver. It still comes down to the quality and speed of the WiFi connection. There are cases where people get better life on LTE because it's a better signal/speed than their WiFi. Its all just conditional to everyone's situation.

Misleading. You're assumign WiFi is using a ton of power, yet provided no numbers to back up that insinuation. The power the 3G radio uses for data transfers after the phone shuts the WiFi off when it's off the charger overpowers what the WiFi uses during standby. Many of us have used Android and other devices that allow the WiFi to stay on all the time (with a setting) and have observed consistent increases in battery life going from a "Off when Asleep" Policy to "Never Sleep" just by virtue of offloading the data tasks from the Cell Radio to the WiFi Radio.

Even on devices with reputably terrible battery life to begin with.

Disingenuous, vague, and misleading.

Your argument would have more merit if you were assuming the person was always away from a WiFi hotspot and the radio was constantly searching, but that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the phone shutting WiFi off when you're connecting to WiFi in your living room, just cause...

They could have easily made it JUST LIKE INTERNET SHARING where if you aren't on a WiFi hotspot for a few minutes it automatically shuts the WiFi radio down. They can do it another way. They're already proven it with the HotSpot power management. They just didn't. It was a bad design decision, IMO.

 

[scottcraft]

I didn't think we could get two pages out of wireless sync! We have outdone ourselves, lol. It might be nice to be able to do it without plugging it into the wall, but it works quite well for me as it is. A lot of people are probably like my wife and leave wifi on all the time and plug it in for the night, so why not sync it at that time. It requires no extra actions from the phone owner.

 

[N8ter]

I honestly don't think Microsoft put much thought into wireless sync. That's the difference between Apple and Microsoft. Apple will put in huge effort to make something like wireless sync work "automagically" and impress people. Microsoft will throw it in as an afterthought without regard to potential ability to impress people.

Yes, and iOS devices can sync over WiFi without being tethered to the computer or a power cord; and, they have just as good if not better battery life than WP7 devices so I dunno where this justification comes from... It was just Microsoft trying to act like they came up with some great idea, which is nothing but a usability/battery killer especially for people in low coverage areas at the end of the day.

 

[KingCrimson]

Yes, and iOS devices can sync over WiFi without being tethered to the computer and they have just as good if not better battery life than WP7 devices so I dunno where this justification comes from... It was just Microsoft trying to act like they came up with some great idea, which is nothing but a usability/battery killer especially for people in low coverage areas.

My point is that Apple seems to put a huge amount of thought into wireless features. Their Airport Express/Airport Extreme networking devices are considered best in the industry. Then on the software side, they've got AirPlay and AirDrop. Apple doesn't make crap.

 

[N8ter]

I didn't think we could get two pages out of wireless sync! We have outdone ourselves, lol. It might be nice to be able to do it without plugging it into the wall, but it works quite well for me as it is. A lot of people are probably like my wife and leave wifi on all the time and plug it in for the night, so why not sync it at that time. It requires no extra actions from the phone owner.

I think the confusion comes from people incorrectly calling it WIRELESS Sync instead of WIFI Sync. WIFI Sync doesn't say WIRELESS, it just says it syncs over WIFI instead of USB. I guess the OP would have less of an issue if he didn't try to act like the two (WIFI, WIRELESS) were one and the same...

But the WiFi Sleep Policy is a legitimate issue...