Wi-Fi Geofencing: GREAT idea, problematic implementation

[b23h]

Drove today... it failed to turn on.

Upon coming inside I checked and the Wi-Fi was still off. I should have left it off for a while to verify to see what happened, but I did not and turned it on immediately.

 

[b23h]

walked today, it worked.

I'm going to stop daily posting of results and only post when I notice particular failures or have a lot more confidence of my results...

of course if anyone has experiences they want to post, that would be great.

 

[anon(7901790)]

I also want to incorporate an idea (and give him credit) by oryan_dunn here at WPC. What he brought up is that there may be some favorite locations in which there is no purpose in turning on the Wi-Fi. His example was that there was no Wi-Fi at his job. However as Cortana no doubt wants to know where his job is, it is listed as a favorite. So a list of toggles of Wi-Fi on or off for the individual locations listed as favorites is a good idea.

I was thinking maybe turning on at a favorite then check for WiFi, if no WiFi, then turn off. But I like your idea better.

 

[anon(7901790)]

walked today, it worked.

I'm going to stop daily posting of results and only post when I notice particular failures or have a lot more confidence of my results...

of course if anyone has experiences they want to post, that would be great.

You bring up some valid points. I've got a Starbucks as one of my favorites, but whenever I go there, I notice that the WiFi doesn't turn on. I think next time I go there I will wait a while to check to see if it turns on. What frustrates me is that I open maps and refresh my location and it still doesn't turn on. I'm wondering if the WiFi turn on function does the auto refresh and ignores when the GPS does a refresh. The shortest time you can set the auto turn on is for one hour. The GPS refresh rate is near-real-time, otherwise it would not be usable for navigation for either walking or driving.

 

[b23h]

You bring up some valid points. I've got a Starbucks as one of my favorites, but whenever I go there, I notice that the WiFi doesn't turn on. I think next time I go there I will wait a while to check to see if it turns on. What frustrates me is that I open maps and refresh my location and it still doesn't turn on. I'm wondering if the WiFi turn on function does the auto refresh and ignores when the GPS does a refresh. The shortest time you can set the auto turn on is for one hour. The GPS refresh rate is near-real-time, otherwise it would not be usable for navigation for either walking or driving.

I'll be curious as to what your results end up being. Most of the time I am finding the feature works to turn on and connect Wi-Fi at my favorite locations, but a few times it has failed. I'm really curious as to why the failures?

 

[anon(7901790)]

Well I can see what probably caused my problems on Thurs (24th). Stupid Sun!

http://news.yahoo.com/sun-unleashes-major-solar-flare-video-114126958.html

 

[anon(7901790)]

Well, I tried again. I turned off Wi-Fi about 10-15 minutes before getting to the Starbucks. I was there at least 5-10 min waiting for my coffee. By the time I left my Wi-Fi still hadn't turned on. When I got back home approx 45 min later, my Wi-Fi turned on automatically. So, I'm wondering how often the geofencing does a location check. Every 15min, 30min, or 1hr?

 

[TheGeekNextDoor]

Seems like it should work the same way as the geolocation alerts. I could be driving by a grocery store and get an alert the moment I drive by. If I drive by 2 within 5 minutes, I get alerted twice. Will have to check and see how the wifi turning back on works when I leave the house later today.

Well, I tried again. I turned off Wi-Fi about 10-15 minutes before getting to the Starbucks. I was there at least 5-10 min waiting for my coffee. By the time I left my Wi-Fi still hadn't turned on. When I got back home approx 45 min later, my Wi-Fi turned on automatically. So, I'm wondering how often the geofencing does a location check. Every 15min, 30min, or 1hr?

 

[j o e l]

I think I read somewhere that Cortana has to know whether or not a wifi service is available at a particular favorite place. If you set your work or school as a favorite location, you would have to manually connect to the wifi at those locations (and check the "Connect automatically" wifi option) at least once or even a few times in order for Cortana to associate the GPS coordinates with the wifi network. In other words, the wifi network would have to be listed in the "Known networks" in wifi settings. Wifi will stay off when you arrive at a favorite place with no prior wifi history -say Church.

As for my experience with battery use, it seems wifi becomes a battery hog when it is communicating through a weak wifi network. It doesn't seem to be a big deal if it stays on but not connected - as long as it does not continue to actively seek out wifi hotspots (keep the wifi sense and wifi hotspot autoconnect settings off).

 

[b23h]

I think I read somewhere that Cortana has to know whether or not a wifi service is available at a particular favorite place. If you set your work or school as a favorite location, you would have to manually connect to the wifi at those locations (and check the "Connect automatically" wifi option) at least once or even a few times in order for Cortana to associate the GPS coordinates with the wifi network. In other words, the wifi network would have to be listed in the "Known networks" in wifi settings. Wifi will stay off when you arrive at a favorite place with no prior wifi history -say Church.

As for my experience with battery use, it seems wifi becomes a battery hog when it is communicating through a weak wifi network. It doesn't seem to be a big deal if it stays on but not connected - as long as it does not continue to actively seek out wifi hotspots (keep the wifi sense and wifi hotspot autoconnect settings off).

I've not heard that before. It may be true, it's just something that would be best to be documented either in help or some sort of wizard for the first time you're at a new "favorite" location. I hate to remove my home wi-fi to test it, cause my password is pretty long. I appreciate you bringing this up because it could explain quite a bit.

I was thinking that the problem Tim had was that for whatever reason the location service didn't ping when he was "near" the Starbucks, and that once he actually got there it would not turn on in order to not create an issue of being unable to ever turn off wi-fi at a favorite location. However, your explanation puts a different spin on the idea.

Timothy Gernert, I hope you test his idea and please tell us what you find. That may take a few trips to Starbucks and therefore a couple of days. The first trip to set up the wi-fi as a known network and any other trip to test it as a favorite location with a known Wi-Fi.

 

[oryan_dunn]

I've not heard that before. It may be true, it's just something that would be best to be documented either in help or some sort of wizard for the first time you're at a new "favorite" location. I hate to remove my home wi-fi to test it, cause my password is pretty long. I appreciate you bringing this up because it could explain quite a bit.

I was thinking that the problem Tim had was that for whatever reason the location service didn't ping when he was "near" the Starbucks, and that once he actually got there it would not turn on in order to not create an issue of being unable to ever turn off wi-fi at a favorite location. However, your explanation puts a different spin on the idea.

Timothy Gernert, I hope you test his idea and please tell us what you find. That may take a few trips to Starbucks and therefore a couple of days. The first trip to set up the wi-fi as a known network and any other trip to test it as a favorite location with a known Wi-Fi.

I just tried this. I don't have WiFi at work, but I went ahead and added my work as a favorite place. With WiFi off and set to turn on at my favorite places, I left for lunch ~1/2mile away, and came back. WiFi didn't turn on. It's been turning on regularily as soon as I pull into my driveway at home. I'll keep an eye on it, but so far, it seems to work as Joel indicated.

This implementation seems better than manually having to toggle it for a favorite place (though it'd still be nice to have the option to explictly disable it later on for a given location).

The only thing missing is to turn off wifi automatically upon leaving a favorite place.

 

[anon(7901790)]

Tried again this morning. Didn't work when I got to the Starbucks. I turned on manually and connected to the Starbucks Wi-Fi hotspot. When I left Starbucks I turned off my Wi-Fi and noted the time (8:03 AM). When I pulled into my drive way at 8:25 AM my Wi-Fi immediately turned on and connected BEFORE I could even get out of my car. This seems to disprove the checking location at interval theory (i.e. every 15min). I will try again later this afternoon.

I also tweaked my favorites when I got home on my desktop (Win8.1) and phone.

Btw, in tweaking my favorite locations I learned that Cortana is supposed to sync what you mark as favorite locations between devices. I opened Maps on my desktop and noticed that my favorites didn't match my phone. I am wondering if this may be causing a problem though I'm not even sure if that is even relevant...

 

[anon(7901790)]

Success! Sorta... I set my favorite Starbucks as "work", and as soon as I got near enough my Wi-Fi turned back on AND connected to the Wi-Fi hot spot. So, if the favorite is "other" Wi-Fi will not turn on automatically.

Addendum: As soon as I got home, it turned back on automatically. It seems only to turn on when you have a favorite marked as "Home" or "Work." Otherwise it won't turn on when you're near an favorite marked as "Other", regardless if that place has Wi-Fi or not. Since you can only have one place marked as "Home" and one place marked as "Work", this rather limits its functionality. b22h's Idea about being able to label a favorite as having Wi-Fi or not would make this a WHOLE lot more usable.

 

[b23h]

Success! Sorta... I set my favorite Starbucks as "work", and as soon as I got near enough my Wi-Fi turned back on AND connected to the Wi-Fi hot spot. So, if the favorite is "other" Wi-Fi will not turn on automatically.

Addendum: As soon as I got home, it turned back on automatically. It seems only to turn on when you have a favorite marked as "Home" or "Work." Otherwise it won't turn on when you're near an favorite marked as "Other", regardless if that place has Wi-Fi or not. Since you can only have one place marked as "Home" and one place marked as "Work", this rather limits its functionality. b22h's Idea about being able to label a favorite as having Wi-Fi or not would make this a WHOLE lot more usable.

Yea, that's not good news at all. That is quite a limitation and a significant oversight if true. I think I'll try to test that tomorrow by deleting my apartment as home and changing it to other (just did that) and will leave my wi-fi as a known network. I'll run my typical test tomorrow and see what happens.

thank you for the feedback

 

[b23h]

http://forums.windowscentral.com/cortana/280098-2.htm#post2506372

This is a pretty interesting post by an implicit insider of how Geofencing will work in a later GDR.

 

[lcw731]

Isn't this basically Wi-Fi sense, but more complicated and convoluted?


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[b23h]

Success! Sorta... I set my favorite Starbucks as "work", and as soon as I got near enough my Wi-Fi turned back on AND connected to the Wi-Fi hot spot. So, if the favorite is "other" Wi-Fi will not turn on automatically.

Addendum: As soon as I got home, it turned back on automatically. It seems only to turn on when you have a favorite marked as "Home" or "Work." Otherwise it won't turn on when you're near an favorite marked as "Other", regardless if that place has Wi-Fi or not. Since you can only have one place marked as "Home" and one place marked as "Work", this rather limits its functionality. b22h's Idea about being able to label a favorite as having Wi-Fi or not would make this a WHOLE lot more usable.

Thanks Tim... My test resulted in failure. That is a very bad thing. The implication is that only work or home will autoconnect using Geofencing, or you have more than one "home" or "work" locations which would likely mess with Cortana. I am really surprised by this. It's my impression from the other thread that I linked to that the feature is being re-written, so with luck that issue will be addressed.

 

[b23h]

I get better battery life with WiFi turned on always. Also it will automatically connect to my carrier's WiFi hotspots with no action required from me. It also assists location services as Microsoft stores the location of various hotspots. I don't recommend specifically turning off WiFi for battery concern unless you have indeed measured that it is a factor.

As far as geofencing is concerned, it would be nice if the presence of particular WiFi networks was used to determine location. For example my company WiFi being in range is an excellent indicator that I am at work, not merely outside the building (WiFi could literally be used to pinpoint which floor of a building you are on).

That may be true in a urban area, but I am in a rural area or driving. Secondarily I am somewhat concerned about potential security issues with wi-fi (such as a potential man in the middle attack) so I am pretty interested in only having wi-fi on in particular areas. Having a more or less automated feature to turn on/off wi-fi in those user set areas is really quite attractive to me.

 

[b23h]

Isn't this basically Wi-Fi sense, but more complicated and convoluted?


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Geofencing Wi-Fi allows you to have the Wi-Fi off as a default and it will turn on and connect at locations you set.

Wi-Fi Sense means your Wi-Fi is on at all times and it connects to whatever will allow it.

Of course you could always use both settings and have the wif-fi turn on and connect using Wi-Fi sense only in certain locations.

Geofencing Wi-Fi mostly works for me right now with the exception of it not turning off when I leave "home" automatically. I will turn on when I get home, but not off when I leave. It is clear to me that the feature could be set up with some additional controls and it could be centralized so that it is easier to set it up and ensure that it is working. For my tastes Geofencing is much more interesting and useful to me than Wi-Fi Sense.

 

[b23h]

Second test with my apartment as "Other" rather than "Home" and with the network information remembered and set to automatically connect and the result is another failure.

I'd like to have feedback from other people running similar experiments, but I fairly confident in the conclusion that wi-fi geofencing only works for home or work locations and not other. That is of course super cheesy and really reduces the value of the feature. I realize that if I were to prioritize those locations where I'd want to have it on, home and work is certainly at the top. However it would be nice to be able to set other locations than just home and work.

Tim, I'd like to notate that as a comment under my submission at user voice and credit you with discovering it, if that is ok with you?