Wifi calling with no LTE signal vs Good LTE signal: battery drain? - Samsung Galaxy S8 Questions and Answers

I'm considering switching to ATT which requires a phone switch too. Anyway, looking to pick up as used S8 and have no ATT signal inside my house. Maybe 1 bar in some areas. In the past I would have terrible battery drain to the point of an hour of SOT with a Sony Z5C. Most battery went to cell signal. ATT stopped giving out femtocells saying Wifi calling is good enough. But... with a weak to nonexistent LTE signal, even if on great Wifi, am I going to be using up my battery searching for the LTE signal or is the S8 smart enough to no waste the battery on that? Anyone's impressions of having great wifi and no LTE on an S8 series, while using Wifi calling?

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Large battery drain in cirtain locations

OK, I know there are numerous threads about battery drain etc etc but this is something slightly different,
Look at my sig for what i am running.
Basicly, I can get around two days of battery use out of my HD2 which i am happy with but i have noticed that the past few weeks i have been out at a cirtain night club and noticed when in this night club the battery drain is rediculous, in just 6 hours my batter went from 100% to 7%. Its happed that last few times ive been there, does anyone know why this may be?
In locations with lower signal quality (reception) radio is pumping more juice (battery) into GSM module to achieve better signal quality. My bed room has all 4 walls made out of reinforced concrete and if I take my HD2 with me to bedroom, in the morning I have 10% less battery compared to situation where I left it in living room which was better signal reception (big windows=more signal bars).
Basement location are also known as locations were mobile phones are struggling to achieve decent signal quality.
_X_ said:
In locations with lower signal quality (reception) radio is pumping more juice (battery) into GSM module to achieve better signal quality. My bed room has all 4 walls made out of reinforced concrete and if I take my HD2 with me to bedroom, in the morning I have 10% less battery compared to situation where I left it in living room which was better signal reception (big windows=more signal bars).
Basement location are also known as locations were mobile phones are struggling to achieve decent signal quality.
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thats exactly what someone said to me earlier, it makes sence now i've heard it in that aspect.
Thanks for the reply.
I read something about how if the phone is set up for 3g, and there is a solid signal, it takes less juice than if its in gsm mode. But if there is a weak 3g signal, it takes more juice trying to find a better 3g signal. and so in those situations, its better to put it in gsm mode and keep it with a better G or edge signal.
Or something along them lines!! you may want to your phone in gsm mode when you go clubbing, see if it helps
the_cool said:
I read something about how if the phone is set up for 3g, and there is a solid signal, it takes less juice than if its in gsm mode. But if there is a weak 3g signal, it takes more juice trying to find a better 3g signal. and so in those situations, its better to put it in gsm mode and keep it with a better G or edge signal.
Or something along them lines!! you may want to your phone in gsm mode when you go clubbing, see if it helps
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im on it tonight, so i wil give it go.
cheers
+1 yea i agree just change the band settings to gsm this way the phone doesnt keep trying to connect to a poor 3g setting this will eat the battery like u said
Also if you have bluetooth on constantly in a club location you will get the vast majority of other phones in the place trying to make a connection irrespective of whether you are discoverable or not
still a larger than usual drain but changing the setting was cirtainly noticable.
thanks
I think you will have to experience some sort of drain regardless as there is limited signal in a nightclub, you cant really avoid that. I guess since its dark, you can put the birghtness of the screen all the way down, as said earlier, make sure bluetooth is off, erm, disable data connections?
Also, have you given your battery a full discharge, then recharge? You can get a much better battery life once you do that

4G Data drains 20% battery PER HOUR

With full signal, even when idle.
It just seems crazy, i am not sure if this was intended to be an always on service or just on demand.
Which firmware are you on, stock or the update? The update seems to have a much more efficient cell radio.
I am on the update but if i keep 4G (and i have full bar) i see about 20% battery drain per hour.
If i am only using 3G it goes down to about 5%.
Wifi only it is about 3%.
Its probably due to how spotty and new 4g is. Its constantly searching for service. It might say you have full bars but you could be going in and out of 4g coverage.
Ah, that is a bummer. I can't compare, don't have 4g in my area yet. Did notice the wimax radio firmware is about 8MB. Hopefully they can update it to be more efficient. Could be the spottiness of the 4G signal, wimax shouldn't be that much different than 802.11 in theory. I suppose it would require higher transmit power

Network mode Global vs LTE/CDMA - Signal Stregth & Battery life

I rebooted my phone for the first time yesterday evening (Camera was force closing after setting Aviate as home launcher), after that overnight phone lost 20% charge, before this reboot - phone was loosing 3 to 5% overnight.
I have not installed any new apps, also checked GSam battery monitor and didn't see any app sucking more juice. I was checking different things and noticed network signal strength is much better than normal (95-97 dbm, usually it used to be 103dbm at the same place), checked network mode and it is set as Global instead of LTE/CDMA, I remember it was LTE/CDMA before reboot and my signal was 103dbm.
During the last couple of hours also I am loosing 3 times more battery than normal, so looks like Global network mode is giving better signal compared to LTE/CDMA mode but using more battery. I am all for better signal strength but not at the expense of battery life.
Does any of you noticed similar issue? Does network mode selection has any impact on signal strength & battery life?
Mine is sort of opposite. It had defaulted to global and was at 91% battery being mostly idle for 16 hours. Just switched to CDMA/LTE/EVDO and signal went from >-100 to -97 dBm but could be normal fluctuation range. Will see how it affects battery life but so far it's still at 91% battery having switched over more than an hour ago.
I just checked mine , it showed -81 dBm for LTE. Switched to Global and it went to -75 dBm then right back to -81 dBm.
OK so I'm not sure about dpm, as far as if it's better to have a higher or lower number? But, I did however switch from Global to LTE/CDMA and I'm definitely getting the 4GLTE symbol way more than I was on Global! I was in 3g quiet a bit on Global. And Verizon has excellent reception in my area. I noticed yesterday that my wife was in lte on her iPhone while I was in 3g and we were sitting next to each other. It's much better now.
Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk
Ibkevin said:
OK so I'm not sure about dpm, as far as if it's better to have a higher or lower number? But, I did however switch from Global to LTE/CDMA and I'm definitely getting the 4GLTE symbol way more than I was on Global! I was in 3g quiet a bit on Global. And Verizon has excellent reception in my area. I noticed yesterday that my wife was in lte on her iPhone while I was in 3g and we were sitting next to each other. It's much better now.
Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk
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dBm... lower is better

Wifi vs lte battery life?

Any one else notice better battery life on lte vs wifi? I'm on 4.4.2 but it has always been like this since I got 4g where I live. On my wifi at home I get about 3 hours screen on time(I even have it set to turn wifi off when screen is off) , vs on 4g I'm getting about 5 to 6 hours screen on time
On lte I get anywhere between 5 to 15Mb down(depending on time of day) and wifi I get about 17Mb down, I know that doesn't matter just saying anyways
Been testing my battery life for weeks and wasn't using wifi when testing lte and vice versa except when the screen was off it would revert to lte, before I got 4g where I am battery life was horrible on 3g. Maybe 2 hours screen on time and my gs4 would get hot
Anyways just seems odd that lte is more efficient than wifi so I don't even use wifi unless Sprint is having network problems.
Thanks for reading my crap lol
Sent from my Sprint Galaxy S4
Ever since I've gotten reliable LTE at home I never turn on wifi. I only use wifi when I'm in a poor signal building. My battery has never been better since going LTE all the time.
well that baffles me
i thought LTE takes the most juice
i for one always get much longer battery use if im on wifi all day instead of LTE
SayWhat10 said:
well that baffles me
i thought LTE takes the most juice
i for one always get much longer battery use if im on wifi all day instead of LTE
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maybe its based on the signal quality
I get much better battery life on wifi, lte sucks some battery! you're getting 5-6hrs screen time on lte? stock battery? most I saw was a little over 5hrs on mostly wifi
Sent from my S4 using tapatalk
It has to do with your signal strength. A strong LTE signal is much better than a weak Wifi signal. Beyond that, the Wifi DTIM interval can theoretically have an effect on your battery life. If you have a router that allows you to change some advanced settings or are running DD-WRT or Tomato, you can try raising the DTIM interval to maybe 3 or 5m which should improve your Wifi battery life.
scott_0 said:
I get much better battery life on wifi, lte sucks some battery! you're getting 5-6hrs screen time on lte? stock battery? most I saw was a little over 5hrs on mostly wifi
Sent from my S4 using tapatalk
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Stock battery, guess I got really good 4g signal where I'm at. Sucks cause I'm moving soon tho lol
Sent from my Sprint Galaxy S4
Ever since they starting attaching the lte unit to the motherboard, the battery life has gotten a lot better. Though signal does effect it, battery is usually better on lte then on wifi.
Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

Low 4g/3g signal at home?

Does anyone else get low cell reception on 4g and 3g? My 4g cell is around -107dbm with 35asu with 2 bars. Would only having 2 bars drain my battery? My 3g is even worse, although my previous OPO had nearly full 3g signal.
Is this a samsung hardware problem? Saerching around on Google seems like a lot of folks had problems with cell reception on their S6 too
Thanks

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