I have an Eris. I'm interested in minimizing battery power consumption. At my home the 3G signal is weak [1-bar] but works OK. I could switch to Wi-Fi when home if that would use less power. Does someone know what would best for saving battery power? My Eris battery lasts approx 14hrs with normal use. Thanks.
What is your internet source when using WIFI at home. I would think you would always use that because it should be way faster.
I doubt you are going to see a significant difference in battery life either way, as long as you turn off WiFi when you are away from home.
The reason is that when your device goes into "sleep mode" (Screen turns off) it also turns off the WiFi connection and reverts back to your Verizon 3G coverage as soon as there is no network activity on the WiFi (or very shortly thereafter). The only time this is going to make a significant difference in battery life is when your phone is actually active and being used.
You can verify this if you know the IP address of your phone (if your Wireless router has the ability to show you the IP addresses assigned to your connected devices) by starting a ping of the phones IP address from another computer on your network. Once the phone goes to sleep and all activity on the WiFi interface ceases for a few minutes, Android will turn off the WiFi to save power. This, of course, would be as long as you don't have the phone plugged into a power supply and have the settings set to keep WiFi active at all times when the phone is hooked to a charger.
I would just pick one and leave it on, that seems to use much less power for me. Before I had both on and let it change back and forth but this started sucking my power. The past few weeks I have turned WIFI off and just using Mobile has given me 2-4 more hours stand by time.
Start a new topic or ask questions in the open forum.
