Develop Bugs

turn off WiFi?

guys, is there any point turning off WiFi when not in use, or does it do the decent thing and stop using power when not actively in use?
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

I'd imagine it still scans for networks so it will still use battery - I just have the toggle on one of my home screens and turn it on when needed

landwomble said:
guys, is there any point turning off WiFi when not in use, or does it do the decent thing and stop using power when not actively in use?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
from Market, get WiFi Status from Andrew Schwimmer, one of the very best android app developers. It doesn't do exactly what you want but it's the smartest detection app out there for letting you know when there is no wifi signal to connect to, thus prompting you to toggle off wifi. It displays in the Notification Bar.
As for turning off wifi, I tried about 10 home screen widgets; they are all the same more or less. To me the far greater tool is Quick Settings, which gives you one-click access from anywhere via the Notification Bar, vs having to navigate to home screen and find the widget. But in addition it has toggles for sound, brightness, data, gps, bluetooth, etc -- all in on fast app.
I think it blows all these single-function widgets away as dumb.

So if my phone is on, screen off, in my pocket, it'll be constantly looking for wifi? If this is the case it's, well, dumb. Ta for tip about quick settings, just installed it and it's very nice.

landwomble said:
So if my phone is on, screen off, in my pocket, it'll be constantly looking for wifi? If this is the case it's, well, dumb. Ta for tip about quick settings, just installed it and it's very nice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
then try wifinder -- i mused ti use that, but with quick setings i dont bothher any more

Add the widget 'Power Control' for one-touch bluetooth/wifi/gps/sync/brightness control....

landwomble said:
So if my phone is on, screen off, in my pocket, it'll be constantly looking for wifi? If this is the case it's, well, dumb. Ta for tip about quick settings, just installed it and it's very nice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure it would be scanning for wifi when the screen is off. That would be daft. Ntework coverage yes, but wouldnt think wifi until you turn on the screen. Anyone confirm?

no, it stays on when the screen is off.
Seems so many people complained about it turning off in standby that google went ahead and changed it.
now it defaults to staying on forever until manually turned off.

Go to Settings> Wireless & Networks > Wi-Fi Settings > [Menu] > Advanced > Wi-Fi sleep policy. I set mine to 'after 15 mins'... if I understood this setting correctly then after 15 minutes of the phone being in Sleep mode it'd turn off the Wi-Fi. I don't use mobile data anyway so that's irrelevant. Wi-Fi will turn on again once I activate the screen.

blimey, that's well hidden.
what a stupid arrangement. WiFi should be on demand, and enabled only when data requests it, like the iPhone.
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

I use "Y5 - Battery Saver" for my wireless shenanigans

I am using 'Y5 battery save'r. It turns on wifi if you are on a location where you had a wifi connection and turns it off if you go elsewhere. You can manage the locations in the program. It can use the GPS or radio for the locations. You will find it in the market place.

Terrible battery life

Can't make it through the day on a single charge, and to make matters worse, where my iPhone used to climb 50% in less than an hour, the desire charges at a glacial pace. Screw froyo, do something about the battery life, HTC.

Vlad_M said:
Can't make it through the day on a single charge, and to make matters worse, where my iPhone used to climb 50% in less than an hour, the desire charges at a glacial pace. Screw froyo, do something about the battery life, HTC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so you're using froyo and your desire can't make it through a day?

I think he means he thinks HTC should concentrate on sorting the battery life and not on pushing out Froyo.
But tbh with heavy use my Desire lasts around 24 hours to maybe 36 tops on a full charge and also charges quickly through mains (not throught usb on pc that's slow).
I think he has a bad battery or is using a crap rom. Or has brightness on full, wifi on all day and bluetooth too.

I think "heavy usage" is a relative term. My wife and I both have the same phone, and are experiencing the same problems, so I don't think it's a case of a bad battery. My brightness is on auto, yes, wifi is on all the time however isn't this the point - so that the phone can use wifi for data when in a know network?
The phone is not rooted, therefore using the stock ROM.

Vlad_M said:
I think "heavy usage" is a relative term. My wife and I both have the same phone, and are experiencing the same problems, so I don't think it's a case of a bad battery. My brightness is on auto, yes, wifi is on all the time however isn't this the point - so that the phone can use wifi for data when in a know network?
The phone is not rooted, therefore using the stock ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
*#*#4636#*#* in Phone, goto Battery History, then select Partial Wake Usage in the top drop down box, if anything is going above a very tiny blue bar, check it out.

Android system has quite a significant blue bar representing it. Now what?

Vlad_M said:
Android system has quite a significant blue bar representing it. Now what?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are loads of "tweaks" you can make to improve battery life of your handset... you can try the following and it should make a huge difference for you, and result in longer battery life span:
1. Lower screen brightness. Go to Settings -> Sound & display -> Brightness. Slide the brightness switch to the left to lower it or check the "Automatic brightness" box to let the phone use its sensors to adjust the screen according to the ambient light. You can also find dedicated screen brightness widgets in Android Market.
2. Turn off 3G, WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth when you don't need them. The easiest way to manage these wireless radios is to use the Settings widget preinstalled on your phone. Tap the + button on your home screen -> Widget -> Settings. Once your chosen widgets are on any of your home screens, a simple tap turns each one on/off. You can also use "Power Control" widget found in home screen -> Widget -> Power Control. There are other widgets that do this in Android Market (e.g. SwitchPro), but these are already preinstalled and they're a nice-looking set.
3. Disable WiFi and 3G network notifications. Go to Settings -> Wireless & networks -> Wi-Fi settings. Uncheck the Network notification box so your phone isn't constantly scanning and looking for open networks to tell you about. For 3G, go to Settings -> Wireless & networks -> Mobile Networks.
4. Disable "always on" mobile data. This is one of the biggest battery savers. Go to Settings -> Wireless & networks -> Mobile networks. Tap "Enable always-on mobile data" to uncheck the box. I haven't found a negative consequence of disabling this feature, as Gmail and other apps/functions still work perfectly.
5. Turn off background data. If you're not using Google services, go to Settings -> Accounts & sync and uncheck the Background data box so that applications cannot sync, send, and receive data whenever they want to.
6. Lower the screen timeout interval. The phone's screen can be set to automatically turn off when you don't interact with it for a predetermined amount of time: 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 10 minutes, or never. Depending on what you're doing, a too-short interval can become annoying (especially if you didn't disable your lock screen), so choose wisely.
7. Manually turn off the screen when not in use. Since the screen timeout function ensures that the phone's screen will turn off (unless you have it set to "never turn off"), it can be tempting to put the phone down when you're done using it and just let the screen turn off by itself. Instead, give the power button at the top of the phone a quick push to turn it off manually.
8. Turn off auto-sync. Go to Settings -> Accounts & sync -> Auto-sync.
9. Change auto-sync frequency (Weather, News, Stocks, Twitter, etc). If you don't want to turn off auto-sync, you can adjust how frequently data is retrieved/updated. The settings vary depending on the app (and some don't offer the setting at all), but it's generally found in the same place: Settings -> Accounts & sync. Select an account from the list and then tap "Account settings" to change the sync frequency.
10. Disable wireless network location services when not needed. Go to Settings -> Location -> Use wireless networks. Note that this (or one of the other options) needs to be enabled if you want to see and/or use your location in apps like Maps.
11. Turn off window animations. To turn it off, go to Settings -> Sound & display -> Animation -> No animations.
12. Don't use a live wallpaper. Use a static wallpaper instead.
13. Use a dark wallpaper. Some say that dark wallpapers are more energy efficient than light wallpapers. Others say it doesn't make any difference. Either way, there's no harm in using a dark wallpaper so you may as well do it.
14. Change WiFi sleep policy. This may sound counter-intuitive, but leaving WiFi on when the phone isn't being used and the screen is off is actually better than letting it sleep. When WiFi sleeps, 3G wakes up to sync, get email, and retrieve other data. 3G will eat up more battery than WiFi, so go to Settings -> Wireless & networks -> Wi-Fi Settings. Press the Menu button and tap Advanced, then Wi-Fi sleep policy. Choose "Never" from the pop-up menu.
15. Monitor your running services (or consider using a task killer). Just because Android 2.1 is supposed to an intelligent operating system that will manage your running apps for you doesn't mean it will always do things the way you want them to be done.
You can take matters into your own hands by going to Settings -> Applications -> Running services, where you can view what your phone is doing and manually stop certain activities. You can also download a third-party task killer from Android Market and kill selected apps to free up some resources and potentially save some power. Task killers are a polarizing topic in the Android community, so tread lightly when looking for recommendations or asking for help with them.
16. Choose your home screen widgets carefully. Widgets that need access to the internet to update information (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Engadget, Slacker Radio, Weather, Stocks, News, Mail) can suck up a lot of juice if not managed well, so choose them carefully and set their sync/update frequencies to a reasonable interval.
17. Disable notification lights. This may not be practical if you're someone who really needs/wants to know when something happens on your phone when you're not looking, but for everyone else, feel free to turn off those notifications. Go to Settings -> Sound & display -> Notification flash and uncheck all the boxes.
18. Turn off phone vibration. If the ringer is on, why do you need the phone to vibrate? You're already in a loud environment that drowns out the ring; answering the call won't quiet your surroundings so you can hear what the person at the end of the line is saying.
And if your phone is set to silent, then an incoming call should be silent. Yes, the buzzing vibration may not be disruptive as your ringtone, but people still hear it.
So go to Settings -> Sound & display -> Phone vibrate and turn it off.
19. Turn off audible touch tones. In Settings -> Sound & display, uncheck Audible selection and turn off Audible touch tones.
20. Turn off haptic feedback. Once you get the hang of typing on the phone's on-screen keyboard, you can turn off the haptic feedback that was turned on by default. Go to Settings -> Language & keyboard -> Touch Input -> Text input -> Vibrate when typing.
You can disable haptics in other areas of the system by going to Settings -> Sound & display -> Haptic feedback.

Hi,
Had major battery problems before.
It seemed media was always running and draining battery.
This weekend i bought a new microsSD card an that somehow solved all my issues.
Migt be that something on my sd card was causing the power drain.
Try formating the sd card with pc and the insert it again in phone.

Peculiar. I have a perfectly standard Desire, nothing modified and get a day easily. I do have Juice Defender enabled (easy mode)

Sometimes I am just wondering ... We need to turn off so much in order to get decent battery life
I am watching the new iPhone 4 announcement ... it has much better hardware and very good battery life (10 hours video playing!).

MasDroid said:
4. Disable "always on" mobile data. This is one of the biggest battery savers. Go to Settings -> Wireless & networks -> Mobile networks. Tap "Enable always-on mobile data" to uncheck the box. I haven't found a negative consequence of disabling this feature, as Gmail and other apps/functions still work perfectly.
5. Turn off background data. If you're not using Google services, go to Settings -> Accounts & sync and uncheck the Background data box so that applications cannot sync, send, and receive data whenever they want to.
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So with these two off, my Exchange and Gmail will still sync?

Vlad_M said:
So with these two off, my Exchange and Gmail will still sync?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, disabling the Background Data will affect the auto sync to Google.

I think Im seeing light at the end of the tunnel...
I hated the batterylife when I first got the Desire. I disabled everything, no live wallpapers, no automatic updates, only couple widgets etc. I barely managed one day.
NOW after several weeks of usage, guess what. I am using automatic brightness, live wallpapers (starfield), News widget and Friends stream updating every hour, GMAIL. I surf some, read emails, play game or two, bit of GPS and Copilot, calls and txts... and I get through about two days!
I think the battery gets better with time!

On the South African forums where we discussed the phone everyone complains that it starts off bad, but after about a week the battery life is much much better....I am but 5 days in, and it's better, but let's see how much it improves.

MasDroid said:
Yes, disabling the Background Data will affect the auto sync to Google.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you elaborate on that? What is auto sync to Google if not gmail?

Vlad_M said:
Can you elaborate on that? What is auto sync to Google if not gmail?
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Click to collapse
Well, if you have an unlimited data plan, then you might as well leave auto-sync and background data on.
Autosyncing allows for push e-mail with gmail.
If you try switching off auto-sync and background data, it means that you will not get the notifications in real-time from Facebook, for example, and on the drag down menu, and other similar things.
I have tried turning off background data, and not noticed any ill effects... I still get my push gmail etc....
EDIT: actually, turning off Background Data will stop push email happening as there's no data connection, or a periodic pull of email happening again, because of no background connection.
I guess it's a bit of a tradeoff really - connectivity vs battery life.

so far i have to say the battery is far worse than the HD2 with a good rom and radio but maybe its somthing to do with the fact this is new to me and i am playing more

The above statements read very contradictory.

Vlad_M said:
The above statements read very contradictory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
over all with both phones running with same kind of stuff updating the HD2 useing xanny's evo rom 2.2 with radio 2.11 eats far less battery than the desire even though the HD2 has a 1240 mah battery and desire a 1400 mah but the my desire is new so i playing lots more but i am quite sure at the moment on even terms the HD2 set up i have will last far longer on one charge than my stock desire.

gogol said:
I am watching the new iPhone 4 announcement ... it has much better hardware and very good battery life (10 hours video playing!).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apple says the iPhone 4 is rated at 7 hours of 3G talk.
HTC says the Desire is rated at 6.5 hours of 3G talk.
Not much of a difference in paper.
Still, let's see how thing will go in practical use.
In every day life, I know many people that charge their iPhone (3GS) 2 times every day. Now that sucks even more.

Some questions from a recent iPhone switcher

Hello!
I just bought a HTC Desire (was using an iPhone 3G until a few days ago).
I haven't rooted (yet?), so I'm running stock 2.1. Didn't install any task manager.
I have a few questions I couldn't find answers to...hope you'll help me!
Maybe they are just differences between Android and IOS, everything is so different from the iPhone...
1. Why doesn't wifi turn off when I turn off the screen? The only option I found is to turn it off after 15 min (I don't see the point).
2. I turned off every autosync in every possible setting/app. (turned it off in all apps such as Newsrob, etc). When I'm out I continue to see the HSDPA icon with blinking arrows, as if something was transferring data. I only have the Astrid todo widget and battery snap. no weather, no mail, nothing else.
3. Do I have to switch off wifi and gps using the power widget? If so, why? On the iPhone if you don't use them they won't drain the battery...if I don't open Maps, why would I want to turn off GPS? Isn't it off by default?
4. Sometimes when I receive a text message and I read it, the 'Messages' icon displays a little '1' for a while, then disappears (don't know exactly when).
5. Since I turned off autosync, I have to open mail, press menu, hit refresh to check if I have new mail. I checked the 'Refresh on open' in the default mail app (not gmail). This works, but once the app is in the background and I switch to it, it won't count as a new 'open', so it won't check for new mail and I have to go through 2 additional keypresses. Frustrating, since mail is my most used app. This happens in both mail apps.
6. Is there a way to enable the clockwise landscape rotation?
7. Is there a way to enable a gesture to perform the 'back' action on the browser via the touchscreen? Maybe I need to get used to it, but for now I really don't like to hit the physical 'back' button.
8. The compass works randomly. Sometimes, using Maps, it's perfectly smooth and accurate. Then I close maps, open it again (i.e. switch to it, since it's in background) and it's a mess, doesn't work with the phone on a flat surface but moves if I hold it up vertically. Weird. Also, do I need gps activated to use it?
9. The auto-brightness is way too bright indoors, way too dim outdoors. I tried to trust it for a few days, but always end up going to the power widget and activate the lowest setting while indoor and the highest while outdoors. Any fixes for it?
Quite a long post, I'm sorry...
Thank you, this forum already helped me figure out a lot of stuff

I haven't had my desire long but here's my n00b point of view...
1. So your listening to streaming music the screen goes off your wifi goes off too personally i just leave wifi on unless i'm on holiday.
2. I have never turned off any auto sync options, If you want to be sure of not incurring extra charges, untick data roaming in mobile network settings.
3. My gps is set to off, If i use maps it switches on unless my desire is magical
4. I have had the 1 stick around before too, I have seen an answer to this before but i have forgotten where.
5. you could use the sync widget, or get a task killer to force close the mail app.
6.
7. Dolphin browser has gestures
8. Its been a while since i used the compass because i know where i am i believe a message popped up about enabling gps otherwise it would use the network to determine position or some such thing.
9.

6. enable rotation in settings/display
9. the auto brightness works off the light sensor so no, i have no problem with it tho works fine for me

1. In Advance Settings of my WiFi I found a sleep policy with 3 options:
a) After 15min. b) Never when plugged in. c) Never. I think that 15th minutes is fine, It wont drain so much power.
2. You could use a program like APNDroid to disable mobile internet, there is a widget for faster ON/OFF switch.
3. In Android programs can't change GPS status and you have to turn off/on manually. But for my personal option if the GPS is turned on it won't drain power if you not using it.
4. It bugs me too, It was the same on Windows Mobile.
5. I don't use mail programs on Desire and I'm sorry that I can't help you.
6. Not found my me - asking same question ?
7. Dolphin browser .
8. For me is working fine, but I don't lose myself often
9. I'm using manually brightness settings, but in sunny days AMOLED screen makes me crazy.

6. For this one you need a custom rom as the default rom only allows anti-clockwise rotation I believe
9. The Auto Brightness is rubbish, The power widget is your best and fastest option, Give Extended Controls a look if you dont want a full 1x4 widget bar

[Q] WP7 – night mode, or quiet time etc?

Like I suspect most people, I don’t need my emails downloading while I sleep (or any other data transfer for that matter).
There doesn’t appear to be a ‘night mode’, or whatever you want to call it.
So in the interests of saving the battery, what do people do?
There are three options:
1. Turn off mobile
2. Turn on flight mode
3. Turn off cellular

'Tron said:
Like I suspect most people, I don’t need my emails downloading while I sleep (or any other data transfer for that matter).
There doesn’t appear to be a ‘night mode’, or whatever you want to call it.
So in the interests of saving the battery, what do people do?
There are three options:
1. Turn off mobile
2. Turn on flight mode
3. Turn off cellular
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I leave mine as is, but if I could get into a routine, I would practice the habit of tapping airplane mode.

I let it roll - if I need to be contacted in the middle of the night my phone needs to work (so airplane mode isn't an option). However, what I would like are notification profiles (which I would assume are similar to network profiles in principle, if not in function). I'd like the phone to automatically go into vibrate during a meeting, stop vibration/sound notification for e-mails at 'night,' and change the volume during 'game.'

GProfile
I used to use GProfile when I was using my Fuze with WM 6.5.X and it was great. Still waiting for something like this for WP7.

I suppose the fourth option is to put it on charge? That's what I do but, yeah alright, that doesn't conserve the battery.
The ideal situation would be to allow us to custom define our own profiles and to also differentiate between system (ringtone/notifications) and application (music/games) sound.

Unfortunately, my job dictates that I be on call 24-hrs a day if any of my staff/system crashes need me. So I have to actually turn up the ringer to full every night to assure it wakes me up... ugh...
(no, not in IT)

Max screen time out = 10 minutes

This is my only major niggle with this phone. I use it to track my cycling (speed & pace on screen) and it turns off halfway to work. This morning I used it in the car with Maps open and the traffic layer on (no need for Navigation, just wanted traffic info) and that again turned off after 10 minutes.
I know apps can set it so the screen stays on, but even Googles own Maps app doesn't do it.
Anyone else find this annoying?

Go to Settings, scroll to section 'SYSTEM'. Select 'Developer Options'. Tick 'Stay Awake' - screen should never turn off when charging. Probably won't help when you are cycling, but screen will stay on when on charge.

saquib said:
Go to Settings, scroll to section 'SYSTEM'. Select 'Developer Options'. Tick 'Stay Awake' - screen should never turn off when charging. Probably won't help when you are cycling, but screen will stay on when on charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cheers, but when I need it on it's not charging (in car and on bike)

mmace said:
This is my only major niggle with this phone. I use it to track my cycling (speed & pace on screen) and it turns off halfway to work. This morning I used it in the car with Maps open and the traffic layer on (no need for Navigation, just wanted traffic info) and that again turned off after 10 minutes.
I know apps can set it so the screen stays on, but even Googles own Maps app doesn't do it.
Anyone else find this annoying?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could try some of the apps in the Android market such as Screen Timeout Widget or AnyScreenTimeout.
Not sure if these are compatible with Ice Cream Sandwich, but they'd be worth a shot. There's others there as well you could try out.

Here's a fix... Use the "always on" toggle in the app Extended Controls. I have just tried this and it works for me

grizlore said:
Here's a fix... Use the "always on" toggle in the app Extended Controls. I have just tried this and it works for me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This also works for me.