Pros/Cons of Always on WiFi from new update.

[erzhik]

Pro: No need to wait for Wi-Fi to come back on.
Con: Massive battery hog. This is because wifi signal is constantly sends signal.

 

[EBynum]

It's been interesting reading everyone's thoughts on this. I think what I'm going to do is enable the new Wi-Fi always on feature only when I'm downloading stuff or streaming music at home, where I have Wi-Fi. Otherwise, I'll leave that feature off. For me, those are the only scenarios when the screen would time out while the phone is doing something. I don't get that many e-mails (only one account and set to check hourly) or notifications, so for me it's not that big of a deal if my data connection is used for that while the phone is locked. I don't know much about these things, but to me it makes sense that having the Wi-Fi radio on all the time, when it's not doing anything, would consume more power. When I'm out and about, I have to use my data connection since there's no Wi-Fi available (few public hotspots in my area), so, for me, it seems totally unnecessary to have the Wi-Fi radio always on. When I'm home or somewhere with a hotspot, like my local B&N, it only takes a few seconds for the Wi-Fi to connect automatically, and I don't mind waiting those few seconds. At home, the phone remembers my Wi-Fi password, so I don't have to enter it each time I turn the phone on. If I did, that would be such a pain, and I would definitely leave the connection on in that case. I'm seeing that there's really no right or wrong here; it's whatever works best for each person's particular usage.

 

[Davidkoh]

Im lazy and I don't want to turn wifi on and off and keeping it always on will consume more power, so I will just keep it off and use LTE for everything. I turned wifi on once or twice since I got my phone 3-4 weeks ago and that was to sync photos to Sky Drive, I wish they would allow us to sync photos to Sky Drive at full res over LTE, what's the use of having LTE if they cripple it like that?

 

[jasonstatham]

How does the wifi work with windows phone 7.5? thanks

 

[ammarmalik2011]

Having WiFi on all the time (like in Portico) has absolutely no effect on battery. If it is then there's something wrong with your phone.

 

[johninsj]

Pro: No need to wait for Wi-Fi to come back on.
Con: Massive battery hog. This is because wifi signal is constantly sends signal.

Not MASSIVE. A little more than LTE. Maybe.
Even four years ago the wifi chipsets used in mobile handsets dropped down to a fairly low power state when on, connected, but idle. It can't be that they've gotten worse since then.
When you start actually pull/pushing data the power drain climbs, but really it's all in the same ballpark with LTE/4G. Maybe if you were on Edge you'd be better off on the cell radio.

These things *still* have essentially 5 hours of "high drain" battery capacity (test this - play a game for an hour on a full battery... check... you'll be down 20% with 4 hours est. life left ) and it doesn't really matter what bucket you pull those 5 hours from.

About the only time it would make sense to NOT have it stay on all the time is if you're sure you're not going to have any wifi coverage. Like driving cross country, or visiting Kansas

 

[johninsj]

How does the wifi work with windows phone 7.5? thanks

Like the iPhone. On when in use. Disconnect on idle/standby UNLESS you are charging/on AC. Which is how it works in WP8 unless you flip the keep it on switch. Turning wifi off on standby is the software fix for poor wifi hardware

 

[MacDaMachine]

Having WiFi on all the time (like in Portico) has absolutely no effect on battery. If it is then there's something wrong with your phone.

It has a MASSIVE effect bro. My battery usage doubled. Instead of using 2% in 10 hours it used 4%. Thats a HUGE drain bro!
/s

 

[Mr. Brown]

I dont think it will consume more battery, before when your phone sleeps, the wifi disconnects and your connection goes back to data, so you are still using data, which does consume battery. Honestly, you dont have to be worried either way, battery will be consumed in idle mode, but very less, because you have an option to close applications in sleep mode.

Regarding the update, it is definitely welcome. It is always better for the use to have control. I have a few friends who dont use data at all. They have a 200 mb data connection, and they switch on the flight mode and use google voice and wifi. So, it was increasingly fustrating to see their wifi being disconnected when the phone sleeps.

As for myself, I use my office wifi, but can use it only after I authenticate from the browser. So every time my phone sleeps, I had to authenticate from the browser everytime.

And as I said, I would prefer that the phone uses my wifi during sleep mode than my data connection.

When the phone is actively consuming data, WiFi uses less power. When the phone is not consuming data and the WiFi radio is stuck on, it will consume more power because the WiFi radio has to be powered up along side the cell radio when in the past the WiFi radio would just power down.

 

[Mr. Brown]

Having WiFi on all the time (like in Portico) has absolutely no effect on battery. If it is then there's something wrong with your phone.

It most certainly does have an effect on battery life. Think about it, now the WiFi radio has to be powered up along side the cell radio in idle times. I do believe that WiFi uses less power when the phone is actually consuming data though.

 

[mparker]

I went from using ~20% during the day to using ~50% with wifi on. Others may well see the opposite effect - running the extra antenna costs power when not using it, but generally saves power when you *are* using it. So if you're really doing a lot of polling email, or streaming music or video, then always-on wifi will probably improve your battery life. If you aren't doing these things, then the battery benefits are much more iffy.

I'm going to run with wifi on for a month and see what it does to my data usage; I still easily make it through the day even with the increased battery consumption, and the increased use of wifi may enable me to reduce my data plan.

 

[bbhead91]

This is from last night. WiFi (always on), cell/data on, locations on. I did have plugged in prior to going to bed. Laid down and checked some sites, forgot to plug back in. I had ~20 emails this morning from various accounts. Light use since then, now down to 54% (5hrs). Not sure if this is typical.

 

[tebugg]

Pro: No need to wait for Wi-Fi to come back on.
Con: Massive battery hog. This is because wifi signal is constantly sends signal.

I would have agreed with you if you didn't say massive, that's too eccentric. WiFi always on on average saves you battery power. If you know you're not gonna be by WiFi for an extended amount of time then turn it off. But since most ppl are connected to some kind of WiFi its better to leave it on. On my gs3 which barely has a bigger battery than my 920, the WiFi is always on and I see no effects on the battery. Although there is an effect, your massive statement is not true. Charging my battery to full last night and playing on it alot already today, leaving work and comin back to work (jumping off WiFi and back on again), my battery is still at 77%. At this rate it won't die on me at all today. So please, lets not overstate things.

 

[mlm1950]

isnt how other platform works (keeping the WIFI live) and still battery performs well?

we need to see how much is the different in keeping the WIFI on vs OFF (approx comparison)

I currently have an Android phone, and leave my WiFi on always, and it barely runs down my battery

 

[Yev91]

I got 17 hours till hit power saving mode. I was home all day connected to WiFi. 20 min call, occasional browsing on Baconit and took pictures. I think it did very well.

 

[Skeleknights]

Ok I did this myself and from what I learned, WiFi really consumed battery. I have turned my WiFi off to test the theory, looks like as long you have 3+ signal bars of LTE you'll most likely have better battery life than being on WiFi all day when connected. IPhone (which I came from) saved alot of battery when connected to WiFi, but on network, it consumed greatly. Its strange how iDevices handles WiFi very well. But for Nokia, I see otherwise so instead of WiFi, Nokia can handle LTE where iPhones couldn't.

 

[johninsj]

I have had mine always on since Wednesday, and battery life for me is unchanged. it appears that it doesn't really have a one size fits all rule - try it and see...

 

[truthsforme]

Turned data off and kept wifi alive (what's the point of having data draining battery when you're on wifi, lol), streamed some podcasts the whole day, opened up a few apps for reading around - wpcentral app and rowi mostly. This thing is still alive with plenty juice left. And here's my proof.

 

[ammarmalik2011]

It most certainly does have an effect on battery life. Think about it, now the WiFi radio has to be powered up along side the cell radio in idle times. I do believe that WiFi uses less power when the phone is actually consuming data though.

OK here it is. On my iPhone 4S the WiFi is always on. I don't use cellular. When I go to sleep at night and wake up after 6-7 hours; the battery goes from 100% to around 97-96%. This is with WiFi constantly running and pushing notifications where needed. When I had a Galaxy Nexus it was the exact same situation. With WiFi on all the time the battery drain on idle was around 1% per hour.
If your battery is halving with WiFi on then it must be a serious bug in Windows Phone. Or you have some app that is constantly using the WiFi connection all the time, which it shouldn't. Again probably a buggy app.

 

[Davidkoh]

OK here it is. On my iPhone 4S the WiFi is always on. I don't use cellular. When I go to sleep at night and wake up after 6-7 hours; the battery goes from 100% to around 97-96%. This is with WiFi constantly running and pushing notifications where needed. When I had a Galaxy Nexus it was the exact same situation. With WiFi on all the time the battery drain on idle was around 1% per hour.
If your battery is halving with WiFi on then it must be a serious bug in Windows Phone. Or you have some app that is constantly using the WiFi connection all the time, which it shouldn't. Again probably a buggy app.

When you say "I don't use cellular" do you mean you have turned off the cellular data because that would explain it. If you are connected to WiFi with cellular data on it does not need to power both, but if you do not have a wifi but with cellular data on it will power more thus drawing more power. No one is claiming that WiFi will draw more power when you actually have a WiFi network that is used for transferring data. It will use more power when you use cellular data and have WiFi on at the same time. IT is the same on iPhones, I've had decently higher battery usage on my iPhones by leaving WiFi turned on when im in an area without WiFi for long times,