Battery Observations concerning WiFi

[medicTHREE]

My tests indicate that wifi consumes a significantly higher amount of battery life. Last night I browsed to 10 different websites, first on 3G, then let my phone sit for the remainder of an hour.

I then repeated this(and should have been easier on data considering the sites are now cached.) and let it sit for an hour. After each hour I examined the battery use application in settings.

The first time, under 3G, the display topped it at 46% with everything else under 9% each. The second time, Display was down to 37% and and WiFi was now listed as 26%.

Cell standby was 3% and phone idle was 4%.

let me know if you have any questions.

I intend to re run this test again tonight and will try to post screen shots if someone can recommend a good screen shot app.

 

[thelion]

Wifi will kill the battery. I don't use it unless I have to.

 

[medicTHREE]

I agree. I guess I forgot to state WHY I did this. There seems to be a lot of debate about what components consume the most battery. The number one is the display, and that is even with it all the way dimmed, all the time. I've never run wifi for more than an hour though, and think it could easily consume more in a heartbeat.

I intend to rerun this test tonight, charging completely inbetween and doing a battery pull to assure that the percentages are fresh each time. If anyone has a set of tasks they'd like to see done, I'll try.

FYI, I leave GPS on all the time and use GPS based services about 20 times a day(quick lookup of phone numbers, weather, etc) and I get at least 14 hours of battery life left.

For a great battery life widget, check out BATTERY LEFT.

Use the QR code to get it.

 

[dezymond]

the wifi is supposed to be turned on when you want to use it, not leave it on. I dunno why people complain about battery life when they knowingly leave their wifi on...of course it's going to use more battery people

 

[garrett]

the wifi is supposed to be turned on when you want to use it, not leave it on. I dunno why people complain about battery life when they knowingly leave their wifi on...of course it's going to use more battery people

i leave everything except bluetooth on and my screen set to the brightest setting and get about a day and a half out of my droid. im a pretty heavy user too... 100+ texts/IM's 30+ emails a day and a good bit of browsing (i get bored often)

from what i have read wifi uses less battery then 3g while browsing.

 

[medicTHREE]

the wifi is supposed to be turned on when you want to use it, not leave it on. I dunno why people complain about battery life when they knowingly leave their wifi on...of course it's going to use more battery people

i leave everything except bluetooth on and my screen set to the brightest setting and get about a day and a half out of my droid. im a pretty heavy user too... 100+ texts/IM's 30+ emails a day and a good bit of browsing (i get bored often)

from what i have read wifi uses less battery then 3g while browsing.

What I'm saying is my testing says the opposite. The browser uses far more power while in wifi mode. My battery drops much faster. In 1 hour it went from 100 percent, done charging to 77% on wifi using data during that time. On 3G, doing the exact same things, it was 93% (I am using "battery left" to get the accurate percentage and not just a rounded number. )

I'd like to see your uptime screen shot from the battery status page as it shows the last time it was on a charger. I honestly do not believe it lasts that long for you. It'd be valuable to see the screen shot anyways to compare.

 

[MrTommy]

So, do you have the ability to shut off 'everything' except that which makes it a cell phone? I only need cell service and bluetooth the vast majority of the time. I text and make videos a LOT of the time as well, and make calls. The rest of the nifty stuff I would be happy to turn on and off, depending on need.

Would I be happy with a Droid, given my requirements?

 

[medicTHREE]

So, do you have the ability to shut off 'everything' except that which makes it a cell phone? I only need cell service and bluetooth the vast majority of the time. I text and make videos a LOT of the time as well, and make calls. The rest of the nifty stuff I would be happy to turn on and off, depending on need.

Would I be happy with a Droid, given my requirements?

You can turn of 3G, wifi, GPS, autosync... But then you'd be paying 30 dollars extra a month for crap you don't need. You can't NOT get a data plan, so what is the point of getting a phone with a data plan if you don't need it. The display is still the biggest consumer of power that I can see.

 

[mightybrick]

I've found I get better battery life at my work with wifi on. Where I work, I don't get very good cell reception, so my droid burns through the battery trying to keep a signal. With wifi on and connected, it seems my battery lasts longer, because the droid now has a wifi connection to sync through, rather than relying on a weak 3G connection.

 

[lemodular]

I've found I get better battery life at my work with wifi on. Where I work, I don't get very good cell reception, so my droid burns through the battery trying to keep a signal. With wifi on and connected, it seems my battery lasts longer, because the droid now has a wifi connection to sync through, rather than relying on a weak 3G connection.

If you get poor cell reception, turning wifi on will not help your reception. It will use the wifi for data transfer but not for calls. Your phone will still use the same amount of power trying to connect to a tower. If you are trying to use data on a weak 3G signal, then a (strong) wifi would definitely help.

 

[lemodular]

So, do you have the ability to shut off 'everything' except that which makes it a cell phone? I only need cell service and bluetooth the vast majority of the time. I text and make videos a LOT of the time as well, and make calls. The rest of the nifty stuff I would be happy to turn on and off, depending on need.

Would I be happy with a Droid, given my requirements?

There is a built in widget on the Android (Droid) that will switch certain hardware features on or off. You will have to add Power Control widget manually.

 

[mightybrick]

I've found I get better battery life at my work with wifi on. Where I work, I don't get very good cell reception, so my droid burns through the battery trying to keep a signal. With wifi on and connected, it seems my battery lasts longer, because the droid now has a wifi connection to sync through, rather than relying on a weak 3G connection.

If you get poor cell reception, turning wifi on will not help your reception. It will use the wifi for data transfer but not for calls. Your phone will still use the same amount of power trying to connect to a tower. If you are trying to use data on a weak 3G signal, then a (strong) wifi would definitely help.

Oh, yes, I know it wont help my cellular reception, but it does relieve the burden of trying to sync email and other data usage which would otherwise kill the battery in a poor 3G area.