Wi-Fi Assist Useless

[matjamca]

Does anyone here have issues with Wi-Fi Assist not working?

I've had Wi-Fi Assist on since I bought my iPhone 7 Plus on launch day, but in all that time, I have used just 28MB of data via Wi-Fi Assist.

This is despite our upstairs bathroom having very poor/no Wi-Fi connection and Safari, Facebook and certain games not loading data and just hanging whilst in there.

 

[Applejuiced]

I haven't noticed much difference with it on either.

 

[RPG97]

Same here, I still have to turn WiFi off to get anything to load when I have poor signal. It's like it doesn't do anything.

 

[melman101]

Completely agree.

 

[JohnApples]

Ditto, never noticed a difference.

When on 2 business trips back to back, stayed at hotels with godawful wifi. iPhone would constantly hang on Safari and other apps until they timed out. Never once noticed it switch to cellular, and it's been On since the day it was released.

 

[ATC]

I thought I was the only one with this issue. As others said, I have to turn off wifi for things to load in poor wifi zones.

 

[LoveToMacRumors]

There was a very large number of complaints about WIFI assists using too much DATA.

 

[stevemiller]

Anecdotally, myself and other people I know have had the opposite issue, where using wifi assist results in constant LTE usage even when connected to a strong wifi network.

It's clearly a difficult line to walk deciding what the threshold should be to satisfy everyone. Rather than risk unexpected overages due to over zealous use of LTE, I just keep it off.

 

[willmtaylor]

I've also noticed that it's virtually useless.

There was a very large number of complaints about WIFI assists using too much DATA.

There were many ignorant complaints, but very few (if any) substantiated claims. Generally, when folks get new phones, they use more data, so many false tips on Facebook and YouTube said to turn off this "horrible new feature." (Which wasn't even new!!!) Folks even started bringing this "fake news" to MRF.

I'm not saying it can't be responsible for using more data, but when using iOS which can track how much data Wifi Assist is actually using, this is highly unlikely, especially when so many of us DO track our data, DO use Wifi Assist, and have NEVER seen it be responsible for such large data consumption as Facebook & Youtube click boaters want you to believe.

 

[Shirasaki]

especially when so many of us DO track our data, DO use Wifi Assist, and have NEVER seen it be responsible for such large data consumption as Facebook & Youtube click boaters want you to believe.

Since the start of Wifi assist, I only see 107MB in total data used on this feature, and I never run out of data because of that.

 

[nostresshere]

I thought I was the only one with this issue. As others said, I have to turn off wifi for things to load in poor wifi zones.

I would agree. Have to do this often when the phone will not load. Gets rather annoying at times.

I never have an issue of using too much data.

 

[fluamsler]

I think in general it does not help you much it's more in specific situations. A couple of days ago I was traveling to the city by streetcar/tram. Many of these vehicles have built in free wifi hotspots.
While sitting in the tram my device was switching constantly from weak wifi signal (one to none bar) to 4G. I guess it was a misconfigured router or a software issue of the router. The surfing performance wasn't bad at all and I haven't to reload a single webpage but the WiFi assist used around 15MB of data. For my usage habits it was very much: during this 30 minutes the Wi-Fi Assist used nearly the same amount of data as it has used since I changed plan on march 6th this year.

Edit: My WiFi (using 5GHz and 2.4GHz as a backup while I'm on ground floor or outside) at home is very fast and It only kicks in if I load a webpage while leaving the apartment.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I wish I could get my wifi-assist to use data more... especially now that I'm on an unlimited plan (Verizon). The most it has ever used in 1 month is 2.4mb. Like others have posted, I often have to turn off wifi.

 

[eyeseeyou]

wi-fi assist actually produces a worse user experience because it takes maybe a minute to realize the poor wifi connection is hung for whatever reason while I'm expecting the data connection to kick in.

Turning off the wifi and switching completely to a data connection usually, fixes the issue.

 

[Shirasaki]

Same here, I still have to turn WiFi off to get anything to load when I have poor signal. It's like it doesn't do anything.

Maybe Apple should change how Wifi assist work. Like, switch to LTE when using Wifi cannot load any content. But this is a bit tricky.

 

[eyeseeyou]

Maybe Apple should change how Wifi assist work. Like, switch to LTE when using Wifi cannot load any content. But this is a bit tricky.

I honestly thought that is what it does

 

[RPG97]

I honestly thought that is what it does

That's what it's supposed to do, but I find most of the time it takes way too long for the transition to happen.

 

[spooklog]

Wi-Fi Assist has driven me crazy. I keep hoping it will work. I've waited and waited in locations with crappy Wi-Fi, anticipating it will switch to LTE any second. The few times it did work I was thrilled; mostly, though, I'm always disappointed.