Database Users

Auto-Off for WiFi when not at home

Hi,
i'd like to save some battery on my desire and i think WiFi is draining the battery a lot.
Like many people i use wifi only at home but i forget to turn off wifi often and then the phone is searching for new wifi networks all the time.
Is there an app out there which turns off wifi automatically when a certain wifi network is out of range? Switching on manually is no problem, cause when i use internet at home i realize quick that i am on 3G and not Wifi. I think there is no way for an auto-on/auto-off.
Any ideas?
thanks

There's an app called Sweet Dreams that turn Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/Ringer/ on or off based on some things like current day, hour of the day, location, sound in the room, movement of the handset.
It's more focused on saving battery and turning sound down when you sleep but works perfectly for what you need.
There's also something like Locale

thx, but i think both apps use GPS for the Location which drains the battery again
A Simple:
If wifi XXX is out of range for more than 5 minutes -> turn off wifi

Or you can use "Setting Profiles" which I use and prefer much more over "Locale"
With Setting Profiles you have the option to save a location based on either
Lat/lon or Cells ids or WIFI location.
Also has reverse logic
Info:
***.probeez.com
(replace *** with www as I am not allowed to post external links)
Best program in Market for this if you ask me.

How the hell do you set this up
LOL. I wanted to turn wifi off when away from home
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

Might be easier to help you if you also tell us what program your trying to setup

y5 battery saver - used it on my g1 and hero with perfect results
more info: http://y5.polidea.pl/

y5 seems a good little app, will try it out this evening, thanks for the tip stingerpl

setting profiles its the app im trying too setup
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

watercool said:
thx, but i think both apps use GPS for the Location which drains the battery again
A Simple:
If wifi XXX is out of range for more than 5 minutes -> turn off wifi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well both have the option of using GPS but it can work just fine with cell triangulation. If your GPS is off it can work just fine based only on approximation from GSM towers, similar to what Google Maps does for the "My Location" feature.

Guitarfreak26 said:
setting profiles its the app im trying too setup
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well if you want it to turn off WIFI when your leaving home and get out of reach of your WIFI you do the following:
1. Press "locations" and press the menu button and press "New location". Choose "Wi-Fi AP Identified" and put a mark where it says the name of you WiFI at home. and name it like "Home"
2. Now press the profiles button and create 2 profiles. First one you can call "At Home" and set it up like you want you telefon with WiFi enabled and so on when your at home.
Next create another profile and call it something like " Away from Home" and set it up with WiFi disabled and so on like you want it.
3. Now press the "Rules" button and press menu again and create a new rule.
Again press "Menu" and then "Add condition" and choose location you just created before.
Now press Menu and choose "add action" and choose "Activate profile" and choose the profile "At Home" that you created before.
4. Now press the "Rules" button and press menu again and create a new rule.
Again press "Menu" and then "Add condition" and choose location you just created before. But this time put a mark in "Inverse condition logic"
Now press Menu and choose "add action" and choose "Activate profile" and choose the profile "Away from Home" that you created before.
Now your telefon is set to turn off Wifi and what else you want off when you leave reach of your network at home and also it is set to turn back WiFi on when you get back home in reach of your network.
Simple once you learn the logic of setting up profiles and so on. And extremely powerfull as you can basicly set and rule and action for anything you want and get it to do anything you want.
Hope that helped a bit.

Ahh i see.. Ive set that up..
Now i need to figure a way to turn bluetooth on when im in the car lol...

thyttel said:
Well if you want it to turn off WIFI when your leaving home and get out of reach of your WIFI you do the following:
1. Press "locations" and press the menu button and press "New location". Choose "Wi-Fi AP Identified" and put a mark where it says the name of you WiFI at home. and name it like "Home"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That isn't going to work, when coming back from 'Away from Home' the wifi is in an off state therefore it won't detect that it is back in the home wifi range.
You need to set-up lon/lat for the wifi to turn back on again.

Ive set it up with location.. surely tht needs gps on tho?

Guitarfreak26 said:
Ive set it up with location.. surely tht needs gps on tho?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, I think it works out your location using the mobile network masts

I thought the HTC desire switched over to the 3G network when out of range of the wifi anyway.
How do you know for sure that it continues scanning for a wireless network?
And if this is certain, does it do this only when the phone is on and not in stand-by?

I think the best way to approach this is something like Nokia have.
Get the networks (wifi or 3g) in order of preference to connect. Then when sync is need if you have wifi network in a major priority of an 3g, the phone try to connect first to the wifi, if not in range go to 3g.

i downloaded the y5 app form the market and used it for a full day, i say it works amazing like how you want it...
at first i thought it was not working because when i was out of range, the wifi didnt turn off...but i found out why
when you first got your y5 app, open it and it will auto remember your wifi AP(if you are connected to the wifi AP when opening the app)
ok now the tricky part is setting it to turn off, you have to go out of range from the wifi(just go out the house until there is clearly no signal), then manually turn off the wireless.....
ok now go back into the wifi range, voila it will turn itself back on! and go away from it, will turn wifi off!
=D tried and tested....
ps: if you dont manually turn it off when you go out of range for the first time, it somehow wont auto turn wifi off after that......for me at least...

Does it have to be automatic? ToggleWifi shows a not connected icon in the topbar when you have wifi on and not connected. And it is not a widget, so you can customize the icon for wifi (which acts as a wifi toggle)

msc4985 said:
I thought the HTC desire switched over to the 3G network when out of range of the wifi anyway.
How do you know for sure that it continues scanning for a wireless network?
And if this is certain, does it do this only when the phone is on and not in stand-by?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
- cause i get a notification when an open wifi is awailable, and in addition, how should the phone know that i am at home without scanning (and do an auto connect)?
- second is true, i set at the wifi-policies that wifi is turned off when in standby

Phone auto connecting to random Wifi access points

All,
My brother has a T-Mobile stock ROM HD 2 and he has the issue where device would just randomly connect to available access points, including a BT OpenZone and a Netgear home router. The worst thing is that if the device is connected to his home [preferred] router, it would all of a sudden connect to the BTOpenZone one and totally disable all activity and actually bring up their registration page, etc. It connects to this [random] Netgear one when he is at his in-laws place.
Just to say that these access points have never previously been added as a preferred network or otherwise.
I used to have a WM device (on to Android now) but never used the WiFi connection, so perhaps I'm missing something obvious (?!)
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

This is normal behaviour, if you leave your wifi on. It automatically searches for and tries to connect to any nearby wifi sources. All you have to do is turn wifi off. Just turn it on when you want to use it.
There's a toggle app in one of the stickied threads (cabs & tips)

Must go into the WIFI settings and after couple of Nexts, Uncheck the /Automaticaly Find The Key/ or something like that..also you can go into WIFI options and remove a certain routers setting,just play around a bit with the settings and you will find it.

johncmolyneux said:
This is normal behaviour, if you leave your wifi on. It automatically searches for and tries to connect to any nearby wifi sources. All you have to do is turn wifi off. Just turn it on when you want to use it.
There's a toggle app in one of the stickied threads (cabs & tips)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Surely it's not default behaviour? I vaguely remember that it automatically searches for wifi APs (if the WiFi is on) but never knew it automatcally connected without you asking it to do so, especially if you have never connected to that AP before or previously added it as a preferred network.

hagba said:
Must go into the WIFI settings and after couple of Nexts, Uncheck the /Automaticaly Find The Key/ or something like that..also you can go into WIFI options and remove a certain routers setting,just play around a bit with the settings and you will find it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I shall have to give that a go and look for that setting.

I have the device in front of me now, but fail to find any settings to disable/prevent this behaviour.

disabling data on sgs

ive found some where on this forum on how to turn off the data connection
here our to steps
Try this:
1. Type *#*#4636#*#* on your dial pad
2. Select "Phone Information"
3. Press "Menu" soft key
4. Select "More"
5. Select "Disable Data on Boot"/ or just disable data
6. Reboot
Now data should be disabled (you won't see E/3G icons in the notification bar) and you can use WiFi whenever you want.
Credit doesn't go to me some one eles on the forum just wanted to repost as i cant find and some people might find this useful

i do it that way to, but it only works until you do Reboot
it doesn't save the changes
after the phone reboots, you have to go back into the menu to manually turn data off.

So much work. Use APNdroid and a widget on your homescreen to endable/disable. And yes, it does save even after reboots.

Still worthwhile
Here's a good reason why an automated way of using this service menu option would be a good idea:
APNDroid (and similar programs) 'disable' data connection by adding additional characters to the APN information of your phone. They, therefore, don't disable data connection, they merely invalidate the APN information.
What happens though is that the phone still tries to connect to the GPRS/3G network, using the invalidated information. On my network, Vodafone UK, enabling the APN later again (i.e., putting the valid information back) does not lead to switching the GPRS/3G connection back!! Only switching on/off the airplane mode switches back on the cellular data connection!
My guess why: invalidating the APN information (and the phone using this information to attempt connecting) leads to a sequence of GPRS attachment requests being sent to the (cellular) network. Some operators might react to these requests by disabling any future attempt of attaching to the network - a denial-of-service prevention, if you will. When you switch APNdroid (or similar) back on, the cellular attachment has been disabled on the operator side (since you've been sending invalid attachment requests). Switching airplane mode on/off re-attaches you from scratch to the cellular network - GPRS/3G will work again!
I observe this behaviour on my and my wife's phone consistently IF the cellular connectivity has been disabled for more than 60 minutes (possibly a timeout set by Vodafone UK). We tried several APN switching programmes.
When using the service menu switch, you can use your connectivity at any time - no airplane mode switching required. Problem though is that the menu selection is far more complicated than the airplane mode switching ;-)
So what's required is a programmer's work to create an automated (widget-based) switch, using this menu!!!!
BTW: my friend's Hero has an HTC-provided widget, doing exactly that. He's never observed any issues with it, as described above.

Has anyone tried DCswitch+ it supposedly doest exactly that - disabling the dta connection via service menu.

blublub said:
Has anyone tried DCswitch+ it supposedly doest exactly that - disabling the dta connection via service menu.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, tested it work like advertised.
thanks man.

That's very handy. Thanks for the tip.

Hi,
I don't know if it uses the service menu but Smoda widget doesn't change the apn string and does switch off the data connection, saving me great amount of battery time. I'll have a look at DCswitch+ and try to compare.

there is an even easier method just install the app APN on-off Widget
link here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=765081

AllGamer said:
there is an even easier method just install the app APN on-off Widget
link here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=765081
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But this also only renames the apn, right? It is mentioned in the comments... If so, it will not help to save battery, like the method of the first post.

you can use SP if the goal is to save battery
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=807989

I'm on froyo and you just long press the power button and one of the options is disable data connection !
Sent from my X10i using XDA App

How to decide - wifi or 3G?

I have been trying to figure out a way to choose wifi or 3G when i want to surf. For instance if i click on the intrrnet app and it should give me an option, to surf through a wifi or 3G service.
What happens now is that it just connects difrectly but i do not now which service it is connected to. How do i achieve this option or at least get the option to surf through eithet wifi or 3G?

If you don't know what connection it uses you should at least read the manual or find out the icons from somewhere else.
Have you set up wifi in the settings? If there is no wifi available I believe it uses 3g automatically.
There is widgets to turn connections on/off.

ebue said:
I have been trying to figure out a way to choose wifi or 3G when i want to surf. For instance if i click on the intrrnet app and it should give me an option, to surf through a wifi or 3G service.
What happens now is that it just connects difrectly but i do not now which service it is connected to. How do i achieve this option or at least get the option to surf through eithet wifi or 3G?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be quite annoying to get the pop up everytime you open the internet up. It uses whatever connection you have active. If you have wifi and 3G on, and you are on a wifi network then wifi will override the 3G (and save you battery in the process). If you have 3G on and wifi off, 3G will be used. However, if you have no connection, a popup does come up saying "please connect to a wifi network" when you click the box, it brings you to the wifi settings, where you don't have to hit a single button and it will turn wifi on and bring you right back to the page where you were (honestly, this might be different across firmwares, but if you don't have it then expect it in the 2.2 update).
So, how to fix the problem you have, I have two recommendations for you:
1) QuickDesk, it's a UI screen that will pop-up over any program you have running without exiting the program (even games). Double-click of home button will allow you to access 1 page of apps (such as a wifi on off switch or power control widget...see below)
2) Power control widget, or at least a wifi on/off toggle switch. Before I had an always on 3G this was a widget I never lived without. I'd have wifi off 3/4 of the day and 3G on 95% of the day, meaning if I wanted to connect to the internet I wanted something easy and simple to use... a simple wifi on/off toggle will work. I would sometimes forget to switch 3G off when I'd get home and half way through looking at web pages I'd think about it, so I'd double click home, find power control widget and activate wifi to override the 3G connection as I originally described.
Hope that helps.

alovell83 said:
That would be quite annoying to get the pop up everytime you open the internet up. It uses whatever connection you have active. If you have wifi and 3G on, and you are on a wifi network then wifi will override the 3G (and save you battery in the process). If you have 3G on and wifi off, 3G will be used. However, if you have no connection, a popup does come up saying "please connect to a wifi network" when you click the box, it brings you to the wifi settings, where you don't have to hit a single button and it will turn wifi on and bring you right back to the page where you were (honestly, this might be different across firmwares, but if you don't have it then expect it in the 2.2 update).
So, how to fix the problem you have, I have two recommendations for you:
1) QuickDesk, it's a UI screen that will pop-up over any program you have running without exiting the program (even games). Double-click of home button will allow you to access 1 page of apps (such as a wifi on off switch or power control widget...see below)
2) Power control widget, or at least a wifi on/off toggle switch. Before I had an always on 3G this was a widget I never lived without. I'd have wifi off 3/4 of the day and 3G on 95% of the day, meaning if I wanted to connect to the internet I wanted something easy and simple to use... a simple wifi on/off toggle will work. I would sometimes forget to switch 3G off when I'd get home and half way through looking at web pages I'd think about it, so I'd double click home, find power control widget and activate wifi to override the 3G connection as I originally described.
Hope that helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. Thats the answer I was looking for. I have both services activated and they are active in the bar at the top of the screen; that is why I asked to see which one was actually being used in this case. So if both are on then Wifi takes perference over the 3G? Good to know this. I take it I can ger this on/off widget in the Market. I'll see if I can download it. The widget method sounds better.
BTW, just checked out the Market and there are quite a few. Any particular one that you guys recommend or just any will do-? I just downloaded the one by Curvefish
Now looking for one to turn off the 3G.

I think power control widget comes out of the box long press on your screen and go to widgets to look for it. As far as 3g goes you should be able to program a shortcut instead. Long press then access settings which should bring you to individual settings you can program like 3g toggle...ank program off the market will do just fine but I prefer to not give access to my phone unless necessary.

when both WiFi and 3G/H are ON
it will by default use WiFi
if WiFi fails or signal is poor, it will automatically switch to 3G/H
you will see the icon at the top of the status bar
ebue said:
I have been trying to figure out a way to choose wifi or 3G when i want to surf. For instance if i click on the intrrnet app and it should give me an option, to surf through a wifi or 3G service.
What happens now is that it just connects difrectly but i do not now which service it is connected to. How do i achieve this option or at least get the option to surf through eithet wifi or 3G?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

You can force the phone to only use WiFi if you install this App
APN on-off Widget http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=765081

Thank you guys for the good info. I am in the process of downloading some maps and it is really going well. Got something like 165KB/s so far.

wifi not re-connecting

Whenever I reboot my new GS5, my wifi does not connect. I get this icon on the system bar and in the pull down I get a notice that "myssid" disconnected Network disconencted. Sign in again.
I go to wifi settings and tap on my connection and then tap on connect and it comes right up, but I have never had the network not reconnect automatically when I was in range.
Any thoughts?

ParrSt said:
Whenever I reboot my new GS5, my wifi does not connect. I get this icon on the system bar and in the pull down I get a notice that "myssid" disconnected Network disconencted. Sign in again.
I go to wifi settings and tap on my connection and then tap on connect and it comes right up, but I have never had the network not reconnect automatically when I was in range.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, you didn't give us a detailed description of your settings i.e. how your phone is configured. Sounds like expected behaviour.. based on the way your phone is likely configured. You can optimize your settings or install an app to automatically log you into wifi.
To know for certain, you'd need to make some screen shots and describe your settings for us - not sure why you didn't do that to start with?
.

fffft said:
Unfortunately, you didn't give us a detailed description of your settings i.e. how your phone is configured. Sounds like expected behaviour.. based on the way your phone is likely configured. You can optimize your settings or install an app to automatically log you into wifi.
To know for certain, you'd need to make some screen shots and describe your settings for us - not sure why you didn't do that to start with?
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"sounds like expected behaviour" WHat? I have had smart phones since the Evo 4G and NEVER had my wifi not automatically connect when I cam into range or when the phone was turned on. So far I THINK it is mostly happening when I do a reboot.
"You can optimize your settings or install an app to automatically log you into wifi" I have NEVER had to install anything on any phone or laptop to auto log me in. I don't understand this at all and I am a computer guy. Been working on, building, troublshooting computers for 20+ years.
As for detailed description of settings, it is wifi. There is not that much to set. I am using WPE security and my SSID. The wifi works but when I reboot, I have to maually connect to the network bu taping on the connection in the wifi listing.
If there are spesicif settings you have questions about , let me know what you want to know. but it is wifi. There is not that much to it. I was thinking that maybe this had to do with connection optimizer or something.