Wifi vs lte battery life? - Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshoot

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

Related

3g battery drain

Does the evo have this?
Nope. In fact, when the Evo is on 3G, it starts recharging.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
on wifi i get good life but on 3g it goes meh
I've noticed that 3G mode murders the battery as well. I was out last Saturday night and put the phone into 3g only mode because I hadn't tweaked it enough to trust battery life under 4G or WiFi. The damn thing was dead in 4 hours of very little use.
Really, it's not much wonder though because the 3G chipset in it is the first Rev.A chipset Qualcomm ever produced. Why they chose it I'll never understand.

Radio based battery drain

Hello.i am getting horrific battery life coming from my radio..the phone seems to struggle with signal in places where all other phones excel..in my house i get full signal, but if i go 1 floor down it suddently drops all signaland have to wait 15 minutes to get it back..i have tried jve,jvk,jpy and pretty much all european radios..
my location is athens greece and my provider is vodafone..i wouldnt mind it so much if it were only speed drops on 3g (whihch is not the case, i get great dl speeds in good signal areas), but this way it kills my battery..im losing 12% on standby during night time without any data connections on..
p.s it is not app/rom related , i have checked multiple times with spare parts/juice plotter and i have no wakelock issues..
rom : darky's 9.5
kernel : speedmod latest
current radio : jve
i have exactly the same thing, in 3g/hsdpa the battery goes down like hell even if i have no data transfers, wi-fi is crappy also very weak reception comparing to iphone 4, in the same network (vodafone romania) iphone 4 will get about 2 days of standby in 3g network while galaxy s has 8-10 h with about the same amount of usage, galaxy s is a very good phone on paper put in real life it is not even half as good as iphone 4. and i'm sorry for that.
lupu666ro said:
i have exactly the same thing, in 3g/hsdpa the battery goes down like hell even if i have no data transfers, wi-fi is crappy also very weak reception comparing to iphone 4, in the same network (vodafone romania) iphone 4 will get about 2 days of standby in 3g network while galaxy s has 8-10 h with about the same amount of usage, galaxy s is a very good phone on paper put in real life it is not even half as good as iphone 4. and i'm sorry for that.
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lol yes...and i am use to cm7 g2 battery life that can go as far as 4% idle consumption /24 hours..this is really frustrating..if it were dependant to my usage i could deal with it,but this is just plain ridiculous..
Try jq1 modem.Good battery life and signal.Heraklion Crete
manosv said:
Try jq1 modem.Good battery life and signal.Heraklion Crete
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Click to collapse
will try..thanks.
Tried jq1 too...signal was fine , but gps performace was very bad compared to jve..

HTC battery life going to crap

So... I was getting 4 1/2 hours on auto brightness... Now this is from 100% charge and me turning auto brightness off and setting the brightness at 0...
No heavy gaming, strong signal...
I have heard that deep cycling this battery is not recommended but this is BAD... I am totally stock running T-Mo .11 firmware.
I am tempted to deep cycle but I've seen people do that and the battery goes kaput for good so I don't know.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2
And as you can see, power saver is on as well. Something isn't right...
And the WiFi radio is so atrocious that I always use mobile data so that isnt it...
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2
looks normal app usage 95% but i thought you would gain more battery if brightness is at 0
use grenify and to limit app usage as i'm guessing you have a lot of unnecessary apps calling for data in background
and 4g is known to drain use wifi when possible
If you think that's bad see my battery life, it's atrocious. In standby overnight, my battery drains about 9%, worse than my old iPhone 4. I can barely get 3.5 hours of screen on time. But I still love the phone though.
Sent from my HTC_PN071 using Tapatalk 4
zFayZz said:
looks normal app usage 95% but i thought you would gain more battery if brightness is at 0
use grenify and to limit app usage as i'm guessing you have a lot of unnecessary apps calling for data in background
and 4g is known to drain use wifi when possible
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The problem is that the WiFi antenna in the One is so bad that I die at 3 hours. And if I go in the bathroom, the phone freezes of I get a call.
There are some serious radio bugs with this device. Like the 45 second handshake from 4G to LTE (S4 is 5 seconds max) - doesn't usually cause a problem but for some reason T-Mobile drops from LTE to 2G within 10 seconds on the phone unless it is locked to WCDMA only in my area (we are blanketed in HSPA here in Denver, we are two blocks from the Capitol!) but then takes 30 seconds after a call to go on HSPA then another 45ish to get back on LTE, sometimes 2-3 minutes!
As for WiFi, both my S3 in an Otterbox Defender and my old S4 (given to roommate,long story) get WiFi all the way to the elevator. The One can't even make it to the toilet :/
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2
Moderator Update,
Thread has been closed as there is an existing thread for battery issues here.
Please remember forum rules and search for existing threads before posting new ones.

Mobile standy battery drain

Hey. I am just curious. I always get big mobile standy battery drain, also during the night time. It is not affected by enabling or disabling location, bluetooth or wifi.
On battery settings - mobile standy is always bigger than screen drain, I think it is very strange. I am using 4G setting on phone, but anyway if I choose 3G, I got same drain. Please take a look into screenshots. I suppose that there is no fix for it, but I cant believe that all of users have same stats on battery also (4G users).
Honestly, it doesn't look too bad. I would say it is about as good as you can get on 4G unless you use Xposed.
From my experience, Moto voice was the culprit. When disabled I get about 4 hrs sot. Once enabled, cell standby drain jumps and sot drops to around 2 hrs.
Sent from my Moto X Pure using XDA Labs
SirMiks said:
From my experience, Moto voice was the culprit. When disabled I get about 4 hrs sot. Once enabled, cell standby drain jumps and sot drops to around 2 hrs.
Sent from my Moto X Pure using XDA Labs
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Moto Voice is not the culprit or cause... The issue is cellular signal strength, and SD808 SOC does not use battery efficiently unless signal strength is excellent, anytime it drops the battery usage increases exponentially. The OP's Mobile Standby drain looks very normal to me.
acejavelin said:
Moto Voice is not the culprit or cause... The issue is cellular signal strength, and SD808 SOC does not use battery efficiently unless signal strength is excellent, anytime it drops the battery usage increases exponentially. The OP's Mobile Standby drain looks very normal to me.
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Hm I must be thinking of something else. Thanks for clarifying. Sorry for the misinformation.
Sent from my Moto X Pure using XDA Labs
SirMiks said:
Hm I must be thinking of something else. Thanks for clarifying. Sorry for the misinformation.
Sent from my Moto X Pure using XDA Labs
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Click to collapse
No worries... Moto Voice CAN cause battery drain, although it isn't common, it just won't show up as mobile standby, that is purely radio usage.
acejavelin said:
Moto Voice is not the culprit or cause... The issue is cellular signal strength, and SD808 SOC does not use battery efficiently unless signal strength is excellent, anytime it drops the battery usage increases exponentially. The OP's Mobile Standby drain looks very normal to me.
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Click to collapse
This is why I primarily use 3G and will only occasionally turn on LTE. 3G signal strength is typically better in my area and it helps prevent the extra battery drain. For the most part, since I don't stream much video on mobile data, 3G speeds are more than sufficient for my day to day tasks like email, forum postings, banking, etc.
I kept Moto voice off for some time when I first got the phone because I worried about battery. I decided to give it a try one day and over the course of a couple of weeks I noted the battery drain was negligible despite always listening so I left it on. Any unusual battery drain during standby/sleep I've experienced since then has been due to a rogue app causing wakelocks but it has never been due to Moto voice that I could determine.
aybarrap1 said:
This is why I primarily use 3G and will only occasionally turn on LTE. 3G signal strength is typically better in my area and it helps prevent the extra battery drain. For the most part, since I don't stream much video on mobile data, 3G speeds are more than sufficient for my day to day tasks like email, forum postings, banking, etc.
I kept Moto voice off for some time when I first got the phone because I worried about battery. I decided to give it a try one day and over the course of a couple of weeks I noted the battery drain was negligible despite always listening so I left it on. Ancy unusual battery drain during standby/sleep I've experienced since then has been due to a rogue app causing wakelocks but it has never been due to Moto voice that I could determine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Might want to test with LTE on... In many cases LTE uses less battery than 3G in modern SOC's.
acejavelin said:
Moto Voice is not the culprit or cause... The issue is cellular signal strength, and SD808 SOC does not use battery efficiently unless signal strength is excellent, anytime it drops the battery usage increases exponentially. The OP's Mobile Standby drain looks very normal to me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ou. If you are saying that it looks fine for you, then I believe it. I am living in the place where are a lot of base stations nearby, so I suppose phone is always switching between the cells to find the best signal at that moment. Thanks.
I was just worried that Mobile Standy is always in first place, and then I got only 2 hours of SOT.
acejavelin said:
Might want to test with LTE on... In many cases LTE uses less battery than 3G in modern SOC's.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I can get Tasker to do the switch LTE on/off via location I will give it a try. At work I usually get decent enough signal to get data and phone calls on 3G all day but LTE is extremely weak and drops regularly back to 3G so the switching back and forth between bands is murder on the battery and data consistency.
UPDATE: Gave a shot to running LTE on for a few days. Thanks @acejavelin. While my battery life is not really noticeably better, it is not worse either so I can enjoy the greater speed. I just have to manually switch to/from 3G when arriving and leaving work, but I can deal with it.

Wifi calling with no LTE signal vs Good LTE signal: battery drain?

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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