Data + WiFi

[bothfly737]

So I'm trying to figure out what is draining the battery when the phone is asleep in the house. Since I'm connected to WiFi, I still see the 4G/LTE icon, which on my Android and iPhone disappear when the phone goes to WiFi. On the Lumia 900 it is still there, under Data Connection, you can turn off Data, which makes the icon disappear, and all the services IE, Text eMial work off WiFi.
So the question is, when connected to WiFi is the Data connection suspended or is it still active causing the battery to drain.

 

[jimski]

Data connection is always active when it is turned on. When you phone is asleep, data maintains a low power connection to Microsoft's servers, so that it things can be pushed to it instantly (mail, Live Tiles, Marketplace updates). When your phone is awake, WiFi will take precedence if it is active. While your phone is asleep, WiFi will turn on every two hours to pull updates. Not sure of it does this when data is also turned on (seems redundant). But you need data on to continually get updates while the phone is sleeping.

In tests with my Surround, I found that WiFi only burned through about 3% of battery in a typical day while running in the background. Have not tested the L900 yet but expect similar results.

How is your data connection. A weak data connection will kill battery faster than anything.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[bothfly737]

Thanks,
I have a great connection since I'm using an ATT Micro Cell in my house.
Like I said I went to bed last night with 90% and woke up 8 hours later with around 40%. Nothing but 2 emails came in so something sucked the life out of the battery in stby mode. I do have Gmail set to PUSH, which could be it, but it doesn't do it that bad on my iPhone 4S.

 

[pderosa]

I also have a Microcell and after testing it out for a few days I determined that the issue is the data connection over the Microcell. It drains the battery at a very rapid rate. There are people on other Windows Phone models that report a similar battery drain when on the Microcell.

I found that if you turn off data when you are at home and leave wifi connected it will help the battery drain issue. The trade-off is that without the data connection I have found that I don't get all push notifications and updates timely.

I am interested to see if the update has any effect on this. I did the update last night and then put the phone on the charger so I did not notice either way.

 

[jimski]

Yeah. Lots of threads about MicroCells draining batteries. Tried one last year and lost my connection twice in two days. Didn't have a phone connection for 10 hours before realizing it. Returned it. 3G in the house was still weak, but WiFi made up for it. On the L900, LTE has been incredible.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[pderosa]

Unfortunately Microcell is needed at my house. I have had good luck with it other than the battery drain issue with the Lumia 900. There are a couple other phones on it in my house and they don't have any issues.

My biggest complaint with the Microcell is that there is not a lot information to be found that discusses if they are working on updates for it to fix issues, or even something that gives you a changelog when updates are made to it. Hard to know if AT&T/Cisco is aware of the problem or not.