OMG, this is so awesome, I didn't know my droid could do this!!!

[Freezetron]

You can let it search for a connection all day and it will still be the lowest power consumption your phone uses. No point in ever turning it off.

I was gonna then whats the point of using wifi at all if it eats battery while not talking to an access point. It should just go basically idle/sleep mode like some NIC cards

 

[furbearingmammal]

Every Droid is different, every ROM is different. YMMV.

 

[born2golf]

Your standard voice calls are not over 3g or wifi, unless you are using google voice. But the minutes you are paying for thru VZW are not over 3g/wifi

your statement implies that google voice calls are conducted via the data network. That is not true. Google voice uses the data network only to setup the call but the actual call is transported on the regular mobile phone network. To be clear, google voice is not a VOIP client on your phone.

 

[furbearingmammal]

Right, which is why so many people have been surprised by HUGE minute bills because they didn't read the fine print.

 

[born2golf]

All I use is wi-fi, I have it set up and home and I rarely leave. It's blazing fast.

Most places I go have wi-fi, even neighbors.

Sorry, I cannot resist the temptation to rib you on that statement. Please forgive me in advance. But ... I'm wondering... what is the point of having a MOBILE phone if you don't ever leave your home?

Truly no offense meant, just too funny to pass up!

 

[born2golf]

CDMA 850MHz.

Ooohhh. So its the same tech from 15 years ago? Wow.... ancient

Sent from my DROIDX

perhaps, but verizon still has the fewest dropped calls in north america so....

 

[bthomp21]

what a great thread.

 

[born2golf]

You can let it search for a connection all day and it will still be the lowest power consumption your phone uses. No point in ever turning it off.

I was gonna then whats the point of using wifi at all if it eats battery while not talking to an access point. It should just go basically idle/sleep mode like some NIC cards

I agree with the original post. I used to monkey around with my wifi turning it on/off whenever I thoguht I should, but now I leave it on and haven't noticed any difference in power consumption. The same goes for my GPS radio. And to your point, I believe (and I'm sure someone will correct me), that the combined use of the wifi and gps radios to learn your locations governs when and where your wifi turns on and off. For instance. If I am not at home or office, I do not manually turn off my wifi radio, yet it shows as off anyway. I assume since it knows I am not near any known wifi connections, based on the gps location and availalble wifi networks in range.

 

[furbearingmammal]

You can let it search for a connection all day and it will still be the lowest power consumption your phone uses. No point in ever turning it off.

I was gonna then whats the point of using wifi at all if it eats battery while not talking to an access point. It should just go basically idle/sleep mode like some NIC cards

I agree with the original post. I used to monkey around with my wifi turning it on/off whenever I thoguht I should, but now I leave it on and haven't noticed any difference in power consumption. The same goes for my GPS radio. And to your point, I believe (and I'm sure someone will correct me), that the combined use of the wifi and gps radios to learn your locations governs when and where your wifi turns on and off. For instance. If I am not at home or office, I do not manually turn off my wifi radio, yet it shows as off anyway. I assume since it knows I am not near any known wifi connections, based on the gps location and availalble wifi networks in range.

Only if you have Tasker or a similar app installed.

 

[born2golf]

I am not running any tasker that I am aware of??

edit that... I AM running ultimate juice, which is probably doing that governing, right?

 

[DroidCoug]

So to clarify, keeping wifi on is a good thing. I didn't know this either. Thanks for the tip.

I do have one question though.

Does the phone need to have access to say a passworded/secure/encrypted network, or will it just hop on any wifi signal?

 

[jstafford1]

So to clarify, keeping wifi on is a good thing. I didn't know this either. Thanks for the tip.

I do have one question though.

Does the phone need to have access to say a passworded/secure/encrypted network, or will it just hop on any wifi signal?

If you are in range of a wifi signal its a good thing. If not its searching for one every 30sec which will drain your battery.

Yes you will need passwords to encrypted networks to get on those.


Sent from somewhere...

 

[born2golf]

So to clarify, keeping wifi on is a good thing. I didn't know this either. Thanks for the tip.

I do have one question though.

Does the phone need to have access to say a passworded/secure/encrypted network, or will it just hop on any wifi signal?

I have never seen my phone connect to any random unsecured network, even though I have seen them present. But I also don't recall if there was a setting I may have chosen to do this.

 

[jstafford1]

So to clarify, keeping wifi on is a good thing. I didn't know this either. Thanks for the tip.

I do have one question though.

Does the phone need to have access to say a passworded/secure/encrypted network, or will it just hop on any wifi signal?

I have never seen my phone connect to any random unsecured network, even though I have seen them present. But I also don't recall if there was a setting I may have chosen to do this.

It should auto connect to remembered networks. All availible will show though. So any you use it will remember and automatically connect when in range.

Sent from somewhere...

 

[born2golf]

So to clarify, keeping wifi on is a good thing. I didn't know this either. Thanks for the tip.

I do have one question though.

Does the phone need to have access to say a passworded/secure/encrypted network, or will it just hop on any wifi signal?

I have never seen my phone connect to any random unsecured network, even though I have seen them present. But I also don't recall if there was a setting I may have chosen to do this.

It should auto connect to remembered networks. All availible will show though. So any you use it will remember and automatically connect when in range.

Sent from somewhere...

yes, that is expected behavior of any wifi device. I thought the question was if it would connect anytime it saw an available network, even ones it was not explicitly told to connect to.