Wifi time-out OFF by default?

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So, it seems the default policy for wifi on this device is never to disconnect itself to save power. The Vibrant defaulted to whenever the screen was off. That makes the default wifi policy between these two devices vastly different. In fact, there isn't even an option on this phone to disconnect from wifi when the screen is shut down. I wonder how this will affect battery life. I may think twice about enabling wifi.

The first thing I did after connecting it to my wifi was go to the wifi advanced settings and set the sleep policy to never. I'm glad it was already off by default. It shows that someone at HTC paid attention to that small detail and how it affected battery life. It greatly helps your battery life in my experience (with the Vibrant), since it's not constantly connecting and disconnecting from wifi which apparently uses more power.

Originally Posted by Aspeds2989

The first thing I did after connecting it to my wifi was go to the wifi advanced settings and set the sleep policy to never. I'm glad it was already off by default. It shows that someone at HTC paid attention to that small detail and how it affected battery life. It greatly helps your battery life in my experience (with the Vibrant), since it's not constantly connecting and disconnecting from wifi which apparently uses more power.

Agree 100%.

Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App

Originally Posted by Aspeds2989

The first thing I did after connecting it to my wifi was go to the wifi advanced settings and set the sleep policy to never. I'm glad it was already off by default. It shows that someone at HTC paid attention to that small detail and how it affected battery life. It greatly helps your battery life in my experience (with the Vibrant), since it's not constantly connecting and disconnecting from wifi which apparently uses more power.

Really? How would that *improve* battery life? I would have it to *detract* from battery life. If I'm at home basking in my wireless network, why would I rather have the connection permanent than to have it disconnected when the screen shuts off as it does by default with the Vibrant? If what you say is true, then setting the timeout from the 15 minutes timeout, as I have it now, to full time connection (never timeouts), will actually save on battery? To me, that flies in the face of reason, but then again, stranger things I've come across.

Just hoping for a reply to the above, and perhaps someone can explain why having wifi never time-out even when the screen is off can lead to better battery life?

think about it. having to connect and reconnect everytime you turn on your screen is bound to eat up. if your screen is off its not sucking in massive amounts of data so the battery drain is at a min

Originally Posted by Lockeskidney

think about it. having to connect and reconnect everytime you turn on your screen is bound to eat up. if your screen is off its not sucking in massive amounts of data so the battery drain is at a min

Well, it's certainly not intuitive, and I am thinking about it, hence the post. In order to maintain an active wifi connection, there has to be continual pinging back and forth even with no active data connections from the device. Now, we all know that there *is* a lot of data being exchanged when the screen is off - whether it be syncing accounts, retrieving news items, emails, etc. This would all be taking place over a wifi connection by default. It is also my understanding that using your wifi radio consumes more power than your UMTS radio does. However, I'm not entirely sure of that last point.

Isn't it far more intuitive to believe (whether factual or not) that having the wifi radio powered on unnecessarily while in your pocket would consume more power than having it turn off? Even the seasoned users over in the Vibrant forums all recommend setting the wifi to turn off when the screen shuts off, which is a setting not available on the MT4G.

I'd like to believe that how HTC sets the default wifi behavior conserves power, but it sort of flies in the face of reason. I'm also of the belief that the device is set by default the way it is so that callers who use Wifi Calling can always be reached while at home on their wifi network. But, having such a wifi connection setting is actually eating up your battery life if you don't need wifi calling.

Wifi used less power that edge/g3/4g. Having it constantly on wifi with improve your battery life just because when wifi is enabled it shuts off cellular data.

Originally Posted by option94

Wifi used less power that edge/g3/4g. Having it constantly on wifi with improve your battery life just because when wifi is enabled it shuts off cellular data.

Ah, OK, well there you have it. Someone ought to tell those folks over the in the Vibrant forums then. Thanks...

Originally Posted by floepie

Ah, OK, well there you have it. Someone ought to tell those folks over the in the Vibrant forums then. Thanks...

I have. I have a vibrant. Ordered the mytouch last night.