[Q] Forcing 2G when 3G not available - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Heya all.
I'd like to know is there some android application that can control my 2G/3G settings based on a rule (something like AutomateIt, which does not do that) so that it stops my phone from trying to connect to 3G network when signal is low or lost?
Let me explain - I go twice a week to a gym which is actually in the basement of a building, and my carrier's network is very weak there, mostly no signal at all.
During those 2hrs period I've noticed that my battery drainage is larger than when I'm in the reach of the network.
Since I know that cell phones tries to log-on to the network using maximum power, and that 3G uses more juice than 2G, I concluded that my phone is trying to reconnect to 3G network when it looses signal instead of doing nothing.
Now, I don't exactly know how phones in general behave when they loose signal alltogether (I think they go from 3G down to 2G and then should go into some passive, listening-only mode, waiting for the beacon from the cell tower), but I guess that in such cases it would be better for me to force the phone to go to 2G (and keep reconnecting/listening on 2G) and later on, when it detects 3G, switch back to it.
Unfortunatelly, AutomateIt does not have radio control and I can't use it like I do at night to turn off sync and data and turn it on in the morning.
Also it does not have a rule related to network signal strength/type/whatever.
I can't use some timer app that would simply turn on/off airplane mode during that period, because I might not go to the gym sometimes, or I might simply be late or leave the gym later, so I'd still have larger battery drainage, even for a short period of time.
Many words, but I hope everybody understands my problem.
Cheers.

OK is it possible that nobody knows the answer to this?
I know that 2g/3g autoswitching should do it's job but watching my power drainage I get the feeling that phone keeps trying to force 3g and that eats the battery.
Sent from my Prime

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[Q] GS2 Constant Switching 3G/4G

So there are a few related threads but specifically what I am looking for in this one is how to hard set the phone to "stay" on 3G.
While at some venues in town the phone constantly, every minute or two, switches between 3G and 4G which is drains the battery while I am there. Within a few hours the battery will be dead from full charge.
So looking for ways to prevent 4G from activating especially when I am at these locations. There used to be a setting in the G1 that forced it to stay in 2G. So anything similar or disabling certain frequencies that might help.

[Q] Cell Standby while having no reception

I work in an office which is a level below ground in central Sydney so most of my work day I am out of reception.
Now I do venture into reception areas so every now and then so don't want to turn aeroplane mode on and off all the time.... So please don't suggest this.
With my previous phone (i8000) I didn't have such a drain on battery when out of reception all day from what I remember. I used to get really long standby times but I didn't use the screen anywhere near as much.
Now I know the phone will use more power in low reception areas because it needs to turn the sensitivity up to get clear signal. But the i9100 seems to drain much more than all my other phones I have used.
I am on stock I3 firmware with CT Root kernel. I have a high level of 44% Cell Standby with only being on for 6 hours (and out of reception for 3 of them) even though I have used the screen for 1 hour and that only shows 37% of usage. I don't remember it being this bad on H3 but to be honest I didn't really check for comparison of usage.
Is this normal? My old O2 phone on win mo used to go into a state of sleep for searching for reception when at work because it used to take a few minutes sometimes, after I got into reception zone, to realise I had reception. The i9100 seems to get it straight away which makes me think is it polling all the time I am at work and draining the battery more because it tries so hard?
Hope I made this clear.
So it appears like from research this high drain is fairly common on android devices when in no reception areas. I could understand why it would happen in low reception areas where the phone uses more power to pick up a weak signal. But why would the phone continually do this in a NO recpetion area. I thought samsung would have made the phone relaise it has no reception and only try every 5 minutes or so...
I never noticed this on my i8000 or any of my win mo phones before it. I assume they realsied there was no reception and stopped polling at full strength the whole time I was at work. This would have been indicated by the slight delay of leaving my bilding before getting messages sometimes where now its instant. But without the battery usage stats I can't compare.
I have tried to find an app that automatically puts the phone into aeroplane mode when NO signal for 30 minutes or something. And keep s turning aeroplane off every 5 or 10 minutes or so. But I have yet to find anything.
I realise there are programs that will use GPS and do it automatically but this is not ideal. I only want it to happen when I have no reception.
Any ideas of ways to fix this without me manually putting my phone into aeroplane mode when I'm in my office and remembering to take it back out when I know I should have reception? I don't want to use location based because this doesn't work when I go up one level.
Just bumping my ancient thread.
After an app that will recognised NO reception for long periods and automatically put flights mode on. Then turn flight mode off briefly every 5 minutes or so to check if reception is back.
In my office I have no reception but if I go up two levels I do. So time based automation does not suit nor does location based unless it knows what level I am on.
See above for the long story
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

[Q] Wifi vs 3g battery life on Atrix 4g

Hi,
my carrier Three UK only has a 3g network hence so switching off 3g is no possible for me. When at home I always connect to my wifi automatically using a tasker profile and my battery can last over the whole weekend with moderate use. However, when I am out or at work without access to wifi my battery can drain more than 60% in a matter of 10 hours, although I use a Tasker profile which only turns on autosync every hour for just 2 minutes. I could turn of background data completely, but to me that would defeat the point of having apps like gtalk, skype etcv on your phone.
What's your experience of battery life on wifi and 3g?
I have my atrix on Orange UK. I get round about the same battery if i have my phone on 3G and most of the time it says H. I can get much more time on wifi but not the whole weekend because i use it more heavily i guess. Although it also depends what rom your using…stock roms are pretty pathetic on battery life due to blur. I was using joker's cm9 and even though i had 3g on whole day my battery lasted 2 days.
urbik78 said:
Hi,
my carrier Three UK only has a 3g network hence so switching off 3g is no possible for me. When at home I always connect to my wifi automatically using a tasker profile and my battery can last over the whole weekend with moderate use. However, when I am out or at work without access to wifi my battery can drain more than 60% in a matter of 10 hours, although I use a Tasker profile which only turns on autosync every hour for just 2 minutes. I could turn of background data completely, but to me that would defeat the point of having apps like gtalk, skype etcv on your phone.
What's your experience of battery life on wifi and 3g?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me, much better battery life on wifi (40-48 hours in weekend on wifi vs 30-36 hours in work days on edge/3G).
When your device is connected to Wi-Fi, then it will consume less battery as it needs less 'juice' to receive data from a Wi-Fi network than a cellular network.
However, if you are on 3G, but have Wi-Fi enabled, then your phone will consume more battery than with Wi-Fi disabled as the phone frequently scans for Wi-Fi networks. The scan time is configurable and stock ROM and CM7 scan every 30 seconds, whereas Neutrino ROM scans every 2 minutes. This means that Neutrino will have slightly better battery with Wi-Fi always enabled as it scans 4x less than normal.
To configure the scan time, you'll have to edit the build.prop.
Regarding your Tasker profile, it's the same thing. Tasker needs to 'detect' when Wi-Fi is on/off and scan for networks in accordance to your personal settings. Therefore it'll still consume battery while it scans and detects.
This brings in the issue of whether it'll be better to use Tasker profiles, or to keep Wi-Fi always enabled and the result will differ for every person depending on the Wi-Fi scan time, or the complications of the Tasker profile.
But putting complications aside, Wi-Fi consumes less battery than 3G, but only when connected.

What is more energy efficient? 3G running constantly, or Wifi running constantly?

As many know, you can set the phone to turn wifi off when the screen is off, this means it will default to using the 3G for data. As someone with unlimited data, either or will do for me.
However, is it actually more energy efficient for it to be running off the wifi rather than 3G? I noticed when wifi is enabled always, the 3G signal is hardly used at all.
wifi should be more efficient even if you leave it on when the screen is off. the difference between long range transmission (cell) and shorter range (wifi) is big.
you can also test it out yourself. play on your phone for a few hours a day, 1 day with wifi off (completely relying on 3g) and the other day with wifi on all day. see how much power you have left.

BT, WIFI or mobile data. What use most battery.

Hi
I have a twin-sim and dont really need BT or WIFI connection.
But what use the most power? Bluetooth, wifi or mobile data?
Good question. I would think cellular or WiFi if you can adjust the max data rate.
Mobile data
Wifi
Bt
In that order
3kgt said:
Mobile data
Wifi
Bt
In that order
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So basically BT saves the battery most.
But, if you leave phone on desk all day and do many trips around the building the phone and watch connects and disconnects several times a day.
Dont you think that would use large amounts of battery, both on phone and watch?
I have the same problem. I'm wandering around a lot but my phone stays in one place. I'm getting out of the Bluetooth range which triggers Cellular Auto On. Than, switches on data connection, than sending data to Samsung account to tell that I'm out of the range just to divert all notifications/calls. Sometimes before all that process is done I'm coming back
At this stage I can only guess that it's draining battery a lot.
In theory, power consumption should be cellular > wifi > BT. I've been doing some experimenting to see how battery life is affected when the Gear S is constantly connecting and reconnecting to BT and connecting to wifi. I've set cellular to off for this first experiment since there is a delay before the Gear S tries to connect to cellular after it loses BT or wifi.
Bt, by the end of the night, my watch is around 50%. Wifi by the end of the night from all day use (considering it will be on 3g between times) leaves my watch at around 15-20% by the end of the night.
I have wifi permanently off ( as suggested by another poster wrt to solving some pairing / call forwarding / notifications issues)
I get the BT switching on off all day long going in and out of range but my battery life is still good 54% after 12 hours. I didn't make any calls today but did receive lots of notifications ( mainly BT but also when out of range)
Ive not noticed much of a delay transitioning over - maybe 30 secs before the pedometer kicks in
I leave wifi off also and just leave it on auto. At the end of the night when I go to bed it's always between 30 and 45%

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