Using Wifi in an area with poor GSM service? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

It has been documented that using wifi when at home (for example) can conserve battery, however in most cases there is a stable GSM signal. For this reason the phone will not waste a lot of battery trying to connect to the cellular network over and over again. However, I have an unusual situation that I would like advice on. My office has TERRIBLE reception and in fact I constantly lose/regain signal all day long. I believe this contributes to relatively low battery life on my phone(s) that I use. We do have office wifi however, and I am wondering how connecting to it will impact my battery. Would that improve the battery drain, or would it actually make it worse?

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Best Battery ROM?

which ROM has the best battery life,i have a friend and to him features and speed are irrelevant- just wondering which rom on these forums has the best battery life- in my experience its PROven 2.2
I'm just going to jump in here before you get flamed all to hell...
There is no "Best ROM for battery life." It depends on your radio, your location, your usage habits...
Have your friend try various ROMs until he finds one that suits his needs...
Merrell
And I assume an admin will lock this thread soon.
stock rom my friend
Battery Life Reco
I would think that ROMeOS or Elite project, since they are the most actively developed and publicized, and I know they have very recent drivers, might be best for your friend.
Also, they would get a lot of complaints if battery life dropped off. Same goes for a recent stock ROM, so there's that option as well.
A crucial note for battery life:
Use Advanced Config to enable the "3G" on/off switch in Comm Manager. Also, have your connections disconnect after 60 seconds of inactivity.
I get 1 day of battery life with normal usage when I leave HSDPA on, where as if I stick with EDGE, I can get 3-4 days. That's with IMAP e-mail retrieving every 15 minutes! Brilliant, if you ask me.
Note: I used a BlackBerry 7290 that worked on GPRS only this past summer, and its battery would last for 7-10 days! The faster your connection, the more quickly your battery drains. I've only witnessed few exceptions, one being an LG CU515, but I'm convinced it just turned off 3G without notifying the user to save battery.
I would love it if my TP kept to GPRS until I opened a browser or hit send/receive on my e-mail, (ideally using EDGE here, perhaps HSDPA for attachments) but I think that would be fairly hard to configure/no one has done it yet. Also, it would suck to receive an important call (phone interview, for example) and be stuck with non-3G voice and thus degraded quality. However, I hear 3G voice tends to disconnect more often than non-3G (while 3G is turned off) especially when moving from cell to cell, and as I recall basic GSM call quality is usually pretty good.
"Which ROM has the best battery life?" is a question we cannot answer for you. Everybody on here does something different from the next person, so results will ALWAYS vary.
The best way to control battery life is to try different radios until you find one that performs good in your area. A radio that doesn't have to work [very] hard to find a signal will not drain the battery as fast.

[Q] HD2 - No Signal Polling related to Battery Drain

So I'm constantly walking into areas where I have no signal at my school. The result is an increased drain in my battery in these low signal areas.
This is a problem that I have noticed on all roms. Radios also seem to have little effect besides changing some current draw bound (ie -4 to -9).
I use radio 2.14.50.04.
when I have signal (guesstimates)
In standby idling between -2 to -6 ma
30% Brightness Screen idling, -100 to -150ma
however when I have no signal current draw increases to -80ma and higher and doesn't go down until I'm in an area with signal.
This would result in a standby time of only ~15 hours.
When compared to my standby time of -2 to -6.... at the least would provide a standby time of 205 hours.
Are other people getting the similar results under the same conditions?
I use tBattery to log my data.
Oh and I'm currently using Energy Sencity Rom with Cookie 2.0 Final (november 19) if anyone is interested.
My soft reset button is red
I have a TMOUS branded HD2
It just seems unreasonable that my phone should continue polling for signal for 2 hours and drain 20% of its battery during class...
Perhaps someone has a reg tweak for this?
post tBattery logs if you can and state conditions for changes in current draw.
edit:
perhaps its not clear what my question is from this post...
Is there a fix to substantially decrease battery drain when the HD2 has no signal (airplane mode doesn't count )
iPhone seems to have got it down....
bump
Are other people experiencing this issue?
Same happens here with TMobile US HD2. I disabled Sense and that helps with battery life, but I'm curious to find a solution. Tried wmlonglife and band switch, but wasn't happy with either.
tried that as well
I have also tried WMLonglife and CMBandSwitch as well, didn't really solve my issue...
wmlonglife helped a little, but it was still kinda unpredictable, sometimes it would work.... it doesn't actually solve the problem of signal searching....
also, I think this happens 90% of the time, not *all* the time... sometimes, after being in an area with low signal, my tbattery may show a reading of -7....
I'm not sure if the registry has a way to fix this....could be radio related.
bump
i think it is okay to bump this....
I get the most battery drain in a building when I have no signal.
Other than that, outside or in my house the power consumption is very good (2-7ma)
*i get 80-130ma consumption in buildings...
I wish there was a way to decrease the increased power the antenna was using as well as increase the length of the interval the hd2 uses to search for signal....
that way, the power consumption would be close to the same in buildings with low signal as compared to areas with excellent signal....
really would like to get this resolved without having to swap out batteries.... Only problem left for me. Many other phones when they don't have signal don't seem to be affected greatly with this *cough cough* iphone....
ive noticed this too. when there is no signal the battery drains much faster, also happens if its continually switching between a good 2g and poor 3g signal.
i often just disable the phone until move back to a good area
would be great to have a fix... even it just gives up trying to get a signal after a period of time

[Q] Is 4G the main drain on the tbolt battery?

I am considering switching from the charge to the tbolt. is the 4G radio the main drain on the battery? 4G is not available where I live, so I am wondering if I could get away with the stock battery until it is available in my area. Could I get battery life at least comparable to the DX until it is?
Unless I'm on business, I'm presently in an 3G-exclusive area, and with CM7 my battery drain is 50% cell standby. That said, on BAMF 1.6.3 (Froyo) I didn't experience this much cell standby drain. To be sure, 4G does draw a fair amount of current, especially if the signal is weak.
Not that I can tell. From everything I'm seeing its the half acre of glass on the front of the thing that sucks the battery dry. 4G signal strength shouldn't have any effect at all on the battery because it doesn't use code division multiple access technology which requires the signals from all devices on that tower to have signal strength reaching the tower to be equal. Instead, it requires an advance be built into the signal transmission so that the phone addresses the tower within its time slot. This has no effect on battery drain at all. What will still drain the battery in 4G areas is the connection needed for voice and text, which still uses cdma, if my understanding is correct.
nerozehl said:
Unless I'm on business, I'm presently in an 3G-exclusive area, and with CM7 my battery drain is 50% cell standby. That said, on BAMF 1.6.3 (Froyo) I didn't experience this much cell standby drain. To be sure, 4G does draw a fair amount of current, especially if the signal is weak.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I completely agree. If your 4g signal is somewhat weak, your battery will drain fairly quick. You might also notice your battery getting up to 103 degrees Fahrenheit because it keeps trying to get that weak 4g signal.
You could always change it to CDMA prl. That will save your battery and prevent it from drawing current to get a weak 4g signal.

[Q] Does poor signal affect the battery life significantly?

Hi all!
When I'm at home, I get about 3 bars of 3G signal. I have had this phone for about 3 days and the battery life is really bad, using basic apps drains my battery really fast. Should I change the network to 2G? Does the poor 3G signal affect the battery life significantly?
Much appreciated!
If 2G is enough for you, change it. It uses less battery even with good 3G signal...
And yes, a poor signal always uses much more battery life than good signal, no matter GSM/2G/3G/4G...
Yes, I have noticed that in areas where signal is poor (1-2 bars), battery drains significantly faster. It's quite irritating since this issue is non-existent on iPhones. I wonder if a software update can fix this.
Sharpshooterrr said:
Yes, I have noticed that in areas where signal is poor (1-2 bars), battery drains significantly faster. It's quite irritating since this issue is non-existent on iPhones. I wonder if a software update can fix this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's the technique of every phone, even on iPhones... the amount sure can vary, but it's not inexistent...
I have about 1-2 bars at home and over night it takes about 2-3% of charge, very similar like iPhone I had before...
it does on mine. at work i get full signal and though i use it a fair bit, it doesnt seem to use too much battery but at home where i get terrible battery life it seems to use more battery

wifi vs 4g battery drain

Let's say all things equal, which would drain the phone battery the most - being on WiFi or on LTE?
I know on older phones LTE round drain the battery like I drain a glass of beer, but I'd imagine the chips are much more efficient now than they were back then. Is one more battery efficient than the other?
Phones are still designed to use WiFi if possible when both WiFi and data are available and this behavior is independent of any data saver settings you might use so it's a pretty safe bet that 4G still uses more power.

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