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WIFI + Fetch = Battery Drain?

D

donm3ga

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 19, 2008
89
0
Does having WIFI and Fetch on kill your battery? I know having WIFI and PUSH on does. I have had WIFI on all day connected to my work network and Fetch set to hourly. My battery looks to be about 25-30%. It seems very low for how little I've been using it.

3G: Off all the time
PUSH: Off all the time
WIFI: On all the time
FETCH: Hourly
Brightness: 25%
Autobrightness: On all the time.
Bluetooth: On for about an hour
Location Services: Off all the time

I've sent maybe 20 test messages today and maybe 50 IM's over AIM. A little gaming and probably an hours worth of web surfing.

I'm starting to think my battery is defective. What do you think?

Thanks
 

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That seems fine too me.

I never have to charge during the day and I fetch my mail every 15 minutes. I don't really play game's much but I do a lot of texting and email. Probably the thing I do the least with my iPhone is make a phone call. :D
 
I'm not joking. I do think the my battery life is below average.

When I take a look at the "Link a screenshot of your battery usage" thread, I see some crazy numbers when it comes to standby and usage.

Does having WIFI on all day connected to a network drain your battery?

When you get a battery replaced through Apple, am I out of a phone until they replace it? Or is it more like they take a battery out of the back and replace it?

Thanks all.
 
I get similar usage from my iPhone at work. Push and WiFi are both on, barely use the iPhone and still by the end of the work day I'm about 1/2 down on the battery. Try shutting your WiFi off tomorrow just as a test to see how your battery holds up then.
 
Here are my changes for today marked in RED.

3G: Off all the time
PUSH: Off all the time
WIFI: Off all the time
FETCH: Manual
Brightness: 25%
Autobrightness: Off all the time
Bluetooth: On for about an hour
Location Services: Off all the time

Sent about 20 test messages and 30 IMs over AIM. Talked for a little over 30min on bluetooth and did a little bit of web surfing.

Here are my results so far:
 

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this is the most ive ever gotten

this was on 2.0.1
 

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donm3ga said:
I'm not joking. I do think the my battery life is below average.

When I take a look at the "Link a screenshot of your battery usage" thread, I see some crazy numbers when it comes to standby and usage.

Does having WIFI on all day connected to a network drain your battery?

When you get a battery replaced through Apple, am I out of a phone until they replace it? Or is it more like they take a battery out of the back and replace it?

Thanks all.
Click to expand...

Yes it does. You are using another transmitter so power is being used. I relayed in another post that I leave 3G, location services, and push on all day and I get 5 hours of usage and 17 hours of standby before I get the 20% warning. If you are connected to a Wifi network, you are exchanging data intermittently ie transmitting and receiving.
 
i did notice that wifi caused my usage to increase dramatically at night when the iphone was asleep... still not sure why it only happens with wifi and not with 3G enabled
 
donm3ga said:
Does having WIFI and Fetch on kill your battery? I know having WIFI and PUSH on does. I have had WIFI on all day connected to my work network and Fetch set to hourly. My battery looks to be about 25-30%. It seems very low for how little I've been using it.

3G: Off all the time
PUSH: Off all the time
WIFI: On all the time
FETCH: Hourly
Brightness: 25%
Autobrightness: On all the time.
Bluetooth: On for about an hour
Location Services: Off all the time

I've sent maybe 20 test messages today and maybe 50 IM's over AIM. A little gaming and probably an hours worth of web surfing.

I'm starting to think my battery is defective. What do you think?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Roughly the same usage and time even added some 3G fun. Different day. Different settings. Different results. Find my settings on post #8.

Conclusion: WIFI eats up your battery if you leave it connected all day. I knew this, but I didn't know it ate up that much.

Left image is the original one in the original post. Right image is today's test.
 

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Wi-Fi is not connected all day. Usually when I unlock my phone I see the GPRS or 3G symbol for a few seconds before it is replaced by the Wi-Fi indicator... and I just checked the router - the iPhone connects every 30min (my fetch setting) and is disconnected after ~30 seconds, I suppose that is simply some kind of idle timeout. In your case that would be maybe five minutes of connectivity. Even a full five minutes of downloading shouldn't make a noticable dent in battery life... kinda strange that your results do indicate that. Maybe Wi-Fi does stay connected in your case, can you check the icon?
 
Amorpheus said:
Wi-Fi is not connected all day. Usually when I unlock my phone I see the GPRS or 3G symbol for a few seconds before it is replaced by the Wi-Fi indicator... and I just checked the router - the iPhone connects every 30min (my fetch setting) and is disconnected after ~30 seconds, I suppose that is simply some kind of idle timeout. In your case that would be maybe five minutes of connectivity. Even a full five minutes of downloading shouldn't make a noticable dent in battery life... kinda strange that your results do indicate that. Maybe Wi-Fi does stay connected in your case, can you check the icon?
Click to expand...

Whenever I have wifi on it seems like it's always on. The wifi icon is always there. I have never seen it switch from icon to icon.
 
Amorpheus said:
Wi-Fi is not connected all day. Usually when I unlock my phone I see the GPRS or 3G symbol for a few seconds before it is replaced by the Wi-Fi indicator... and I just checked the router - the iPhone connects every 30min (my fetch setting) and is disconnected after ~30 seconds, I suppose that is simply some kind of idle timeout. In your case that would be maybe five minutes of connectivity. Even a full five minutes of downloading shouldn't make a noticable dent in battery life... kinda strange that your results do indicate that. Maybe Wi-Fi does stay connected in your case, can you check the icon?
Click to expand...

I see the exact same thing. My router's opinion is that the WiFi is disconnected about 30 seconds after the phone is locked.
 
superunlikely said:
I see the exact same thing. My router's opinion is that the WiFi is disconnected about 30 seconds after the phone is locked.
Click to expand...

locked? I thought it shut off in sleep? If it was locked, then people without PIN's would have wifi always on?
 
Get 25% More Battery

so, I have found something that has given me about 25% more battery life.

I had so many issues with Push/Exchange as it is simply buggy and get caught spinning or doesn't alert me when email come in that I switched to ActiveSync/Fetch. No real change in battery there.

In an attempt to fix the continued bugginess with mail, I left Contacts/Cal on ActiveSync and moved my exchange email to an IMAP account and set it to OFF in the exchange account.

Since then, my battery is about 25% better. I have no idea why. You would think fetch under activesync should be the same as fetch under IMAP, but it appears not to be the case.

p.s. This has consistently given me 25% boost for about 5 days now.
 
abnospam said:
locked? I thought it shut off in sleep? If it was locked, then people without PIN's would have wifi always on?
Click to expand...

Let me clarify: After I briefly push the sleep/wake button and the phone's screen turns off, then less than 30 seconds later my WiFi router removes the iPhone from its connected MAC list. When I tap the sleep/wake button (or home button) to wake it, I see the "E" icon (I have 3G disabled) and then the WiFi icon, and then the iPhone appears on my router's MAC list again.

Whatever you want to call that... That's what I'm seeing. Is there any other way to lock it other than sleep or power cycle? I did not power the iPhone all the way down.

I set password protect to off and it behaves the exact same way.
 
abnospam said:
so, I have found something that has given me about 25% more battery life.

I had so many issues with Push/Exchange as it is simply buggy and get caught spinning or doesn't alert me when email come in that I switched to ActiveSync/Fetch. No real change in battery there.

In an attempt to fix the continued bugginess with mail, I left Contacts/Cal on ActiveSync and moved my exchange email to an IMAP account and set it to OFF in the exchange account.

Since then, my battery is about 25% better. I have no idea why. You would think fetch under activesync should be the same as fetch under IMAP, but it appears not to be the case.

p.s. This has consistently given me 25% boost for about 5 days now.
Click to expand...

Where do I change the settings for this?
 
Kind of sucks that I have to turn off almost every feature on the new iPhone 3G just to get good battery life on it.

I guess I just have to turn on whatever feature I need before I use it, and turn it off when I'm done.
 
donm3ga said:
Where do I change the settings for this?
Click to expand...

Go into the advanced settings for your Exchange account and turn off Mail (leave calendar and contacts ON).

Now add a new email account as other. Set it up as IMAP (most exchange servers you can use the same server name and login/pwd). My exchange is hosting so the server for imap access is different than exchange access, you will have to check with your IT or host if you have problems.

I entered my user id and password on both the imap side and the smtp server (same server name). So it shows up as two accounts, but only one is getting email.
 
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