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1 Bar of LTE enabled on iPhone 7 Plus - Cause of Battery Drain?

Benz63amg

Benz63amg

macrumors 601
Original poster
Oct 17, 2010
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so i have the iPhone 7 plus, in my apartment in NYC i usually have 1 bar displayed at the top which indicates the LTE signal strength, Now, i just disabled LTE and my iPhone 7 Plus now displays 4G at the top instead of LTE and my signal strength in my apartment is now 4 bars, Does this mean i'm going to have better overall battery life? the Signal strength with LTE was also about 2-3 bars at work during the day so not the greatest, its now about 4 bars at work as well,

If my understanding is correct, when LTE has to work extra hard such as when it only has 1 bar of reception, it drains the battery quicker because it uses more power right?
 
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Benito said:
That is my understanding as well, when the cellular signal is poor the phone has to hunt more and expends more energy keeping a cellular connection.
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That is my understanding as well, Hope someone else can chime in to confirm this is the case as well, because if im getting 1 bar of LTE at home then its a no brainer for me to disable LTE and stay on 4G at all times, the speed difference is marginal for me anyways for casual browsing in Safari and facebook, i dont use cellular data for anything else
 
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Applejuiced said:
You should try it.
With AT&T wifi calling is kinda flaky and connects and disconnects without rhyme or reason so not sure how much it would help.
Click to expand...

but would that better a better option than just using 4G? im getting a solid 4 bars on 4G right now and im in my apartment, where with LTE enabled i have 1 bar of signal. Whats wifi calling going to help me with as far as battery life is concerned?
 
Benz63amg said:
but would that better a better option than just using 4G? im getting a solid 4 bars on 4G right now and im in my apartment, where with LTE enabled i have 1 bar of signal. Whats wifi calling going to help me with as far as battery life is concerned?
Click to expand...

Yes wifi calling will route any calls or messages via your router and will not continue to search and try to connect to carrier signal. Enable lte and turn on wifi calling to see how it goes. Wifi saves more battery over carrier connection.
 
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Applejuiced said:
Yes wifi calling will route any calls or messages via your router and will not continue to search and try to connect to carrier signal. Enable lte and turn on wifi calling to see how it goes. Wifi saves more battery over carrier connection.
Click to expand...

are you personally using wifi calling? you mentioned above its flaky,
 
Benz63amg said:
are you personally using it?

i have the wifi calling feature under the "Phone" app on my iphone 7 plus but my brother doesnt have the wifi calling setting on his iPhone 6S, why is that? is wifi calling an iPhone 7 exclusive feature?
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Yes.
I love wifi calling on T-Mobile. Everything gets routed via wifi and connects and stays connected to wifi calling so battery life improves in low signal places that have wifi available.
It's available for the 6S also. Not sure why he doesn't have it available. Maybe he needs to update his iOS version. Yes on AT&T too?
 
Applejuiced said:
Yes.
I love wifi calling on T-Mobile. Everything gets routed via wifi and connects and stays connected to wifi calling so battery life improves in low signal places that have wifi available.
It's available for the 6S also. Not sure why he doesn't have it available. Maybe he needs to update his iOS version. Yes on AT&T too?
Click to expand...

He is on at&t as well yes

i just read a big thread on reddit saying that Wifi calling can cause huge amounts of battery drain and apparently its been a big issue on the apple support forums as well so im going to pass on enabling wifi calling - https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/com...has_been_killing_the/?st=iufj500s&sh=ddbb6917
 
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Benz63amg said:
He is on at&t as well yes

i just read a big thread on reddit saying that Wifi calling can cause huge amounts of battery drain and apparently its been a big issue on the apple support forums as well so im going to pass on enabling wifi calling - https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/com...has_been_killing_the/?st=iufj500s&sh=ddbb6917
Click to expand...

I've been suing WiFi Calling on AT&T since the day it launched. No battery drain. I only ever have 1-2 bars of LTE at my house. That rapidly drains my battery. I've had an iPhone 6s go from 100% to 40% in 2 hours from signal level alone.
 
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I'm on Verizon but WiFi calling is AWESOME. I'd miss calls at home where I have 1-2 bars and now I get them every time. Call quality is perfect too. Just don't get too far from the router while on a call (it does transfer but I prefer to stay on WiFi). I have almost no battery drain when I do this.
 
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BigMcGuire said:
I'm on Verizon but WiFi calling is AWESOME. I'd miss calls at home where I have 1-2 bars and now I get them every time. Call quality is perfect too. Just don't get too far from the router while on a call (it does transfer but I prefer to stay on WiFi). I have almost no battery drain when I do this.
Click to expand...

I have wifi calling on Sprint and it works well but unlike you it doesn't hand off to LTE so if I lose wifi the call drops.
 
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BigMcGuire said:
I'm on Verizon but WiFi calling is AWESOME. I'd miss calls at home where I have 1-2 bars and now I get them every time. Call quality is perfect too. Just don't get too far from the router while on a call (it does transfer but I prefer to stay on WiFi). I have almost no battery drain when I do this.
Click to expand...
But would enabling wifi calling and leaving LTE enabled for voice and data give me better battery life than disabling LTE entirely and using 4G?
 
Benz63amg said:
But would enabling wifi calling and leaving LTE enabled for voice and data give me better battery life than disabling LTE entirely and using 4G?
Click to expand...

I'm a little unfamiliar with AT&T's treatment of LTE and 4G. Last I understood their 4G was really a super fast 3G, which may be why you have better 4G reception versus LTE.

So your question - Having 4 bars of 4G vs leaving LTE on with WiFi calling - what's better for battery life? That is a good question and I think both are pretty similar based on my own experience. When I have WiFi calling enabled, Verizon uses WiFi to do everything (calls, texts, etc...) and seems to never touch LTE.

I've compared it by turning on Airplane mode then immediately turning on WiFi. When I do this, I get WiFi calling enabled and I can send/receive sms, mms, make/receive calls - it's almost as if my phone did not have Airplane Mode on. NOTE THIS IS ON VERIZON. I assume AT&T is doing things similarly.

So, if I was just you, I'd leave LTE on and WiFi calling on for ease of use. I have strong WiFi (Fios speeds) at work and home so this works for me. I have no abnormal battery usage when at home (1-2 bars of LTE and WiFi calling enabled).

Now days difference between WiFi and cellular usage is low when idle. Obviously WiFi will use a lot of battery when streaming tons of data because of the bigger bandwidth tube (especially when connected to 1gbps wifi networks) --- but when mostly idle (average usage), I think the battery usage is very close.
 
Benz63amg said:
But would enabling wifi calling and leaving LTE enabled for voice and data give me better battery life than disabling LTE entirely and using 4G?
Click to expand...

When you're on wifi you will not use any lte for anything. Calls, texts and all data traffic will come through your router.
Leaving lte on or off doesn't make any difference.
You're way overthinking this battery thing.
And you're the only one I see not wanting to enable wifi calling. I don't get it...
 
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Applejuiced said:
When you're on wifi you will not use any lte for anything. Calls, texts and all data traffic will come through your router.
Leaving lte on or off doesn't make any difference.
You're way overthinking this battery thing.
And you're the only one I see not wanting to enable wifi calling. I don't get it...
Click to expand...

Well did you read the link I posted above? Many people report that wifi calling enabled causes huge amounts of battery drain
 
Benz63amg said:
Well did you read the link I posted above? Many people report that wifi calling enabled causes huge amounts of battery drain
Click to expand...

Its an old post that cannot even be commented on anymore. And to use the word "many" is an overestimation. There was like 28 posts? Also, it is talking about IOS 9.2.1.

At least try wi-fi calling and report back.
 
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There's links with people posting that they speak to ghosts too:D
You will not know unless you try it and see if it works or not for you.
I never experienced or heard of anyone having battery issues with wifi calling on.
Battery and calls are improved with wifi calling not the other way around.
But do whatever you want...
[doublepost=1476821722][/doublepost]
Thor_1 said:
Its an old post that cannot even be commented on anymore. And to use the word "many" is an overestimation. There was like 28 posts? Also, it is talking about IOS 9.2.1.

At least try wi-fi calling and report back.
Click to expand...

Pretty much.
There's Millions of subscribers on wifi calling but 10-20 complaints about a year ago about an older iOS version.
 
Benz63amg said:
But would enabling wifi calling and leaving LTE enabled for voice and data give me better battery life than disabling LTE entirely and using 4G?
Click to expand...
Best thing is to try it out for yourself. As you have seen based on various articles and threads you've come across, different people have different issues or no issues at different times. No way to really say if things might for some reason be worse for you, even if most likely they might be better or at least the same.
 
I appreciate the replys regarding wifi calling however I just tried enabling wifi calling to give it a try and it returns an error saying my account type does not support the feature so there's that.
 
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