topic Location based wifi not working as expected in XPERIA archive

Location based wifi not working as expected

SmartphoneNewb — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 11:46:01 GMT

I would expect that location based wifi would either turn wifi off if not in a place with saved networks, or turn wifi on if arriving in a place with saved networks, but it does neither. I have tested this by turning wifi on when at home, then periodically checking status in places with no networks saved or open, and it's still on, and also by turning wifi off when away from home, then checking at home to see if it's turned on, and it isn't. So doesn't seem to be working either way. I have stamina mode active, and some people have said that location based wifi won't work with this.but most say works just fine, and would have expected Sony to say if different power saving options were incompatible. Always have location sensing GPS turned on. Often have mobile data off. Some have said that this is necessary for location based wifi to work, but others not, and to my way of thinking, location based wifi should turn wifi off whenever out of range of saved network, and add long as phone has some way of knowing where it is to wake up wifi, then it shouldn't matter which location modality it uses. Can anyone shed any light on this? Google's not being very helpful. Thanks

Re: Location based wifi not working as expected

Sam — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 03:34:59 GMT

Hi and welcome to the community! Since you're new please be sure that you have checked out our Discussion guidelines.

You do need to have data turned on and as such you must also have Stamina mode turned off for this to work sorry.

What are your thoughts about this forum? Let us know by doing this short survey.

Re: Location based wifi not working as expected

T816B — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 01:20:32 GMT

Hi Technical Support,

I have problem understanding how the Location Based Wifi works?

- I am not in Stamina Mode

- I turn ON the Location Based Wifi

- Should I turn ON or turn OFF the Wifi?

- Should I turn on the Location/GPS or remain off?

Thanks.

Re: Location based wifi not working as expected

TomKay — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 23:31:51 GMT

Sam, you wrote

"You do need to have data turned on and as such you must also have Stamina mode turned off for this to work sorry."

From my experience (14.4.A.0.108) this is not correct.

I have STAMINA mode turned on and data turned OFF, and the location based WiFi still works.

Re: Location based wifi not working as expected

TomKay — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 23:42:29 GMT

Maybe you are suffering from this "Network-provided location is not updated" bug?

Re: Location based wifi not working as expected

T816B — Sat, 11 Oct 2014 07:04:08 GMT

Hi Tomkay,

Thanks for your reply.

- My location based Wifi actually works ok when I left my Office for example. But it does not connect to my Wifi when I reached home. I had to turn on my wifi manually in order to be connected to Home.

- When I left home again, the phone will switch off the wifi (which is good). However, it will not switch it back on when I am back to my Home/Office.

Do you think mine is suffering from this "Network-provided location is not updated" bug?

You mentioned that "I have STAMINA mode turned on and data turned OFF, and the location based WiFi still works." **bleep** does your phone have the network-provided location when you turned your data off? I am puzzled.

Thanks.

Re: Location based wifi not working as expected

TomKay — Sat, 11 Oct 2014 09:29:53 GMT

My location based Wifi actually works ok when I left my Office for example. But it does not connect to my Wifi when I reached home. I had to turn on my wifi manually in order to be connected to Home.

Do you have "Location" turned "on"? I found that it is safe to turn it on as the battery costly GPS only kicks in when it is needed. I may have had to do a few things (e.g., turning off Google location history), but now GPS only briefly kicks in when I use "Maps" and otherwise it is off. I believe that while I have "Location" turned "on", the only location information the phone gathers on a regular basis is from the cellular network.

Do you think mine is suffering from this "Network-provided location is not updated" bug?

I don't know. The OP of that thread describes a test that you could perform to see whether your location information is updated.

You mentioned that "I have STAMINA mode turned on and data turned OFF, and the location based WiFi still works." **bleep** does your phone have the network-provided location when you turned your data off? I am puzzled.

Yep, it works a treat. As I said, I have "Location" turned on but for the location-based WiFi control, the phone only uses the location provided through the cellular network and hence I'm not paying with battery lifetime (GPS is quite a battery **bleep**).

Re: Location based wifi not working as expected

T816B — Mon, 13 Oct 2014 05:50:46 GMT

Thanks Tomkay.

From your reply, it seems like we need to set the Location On in order for location based wife to wotk (I had it off all the while).

That prompt me another question, will turning on the Location consume more power as compared to Not turning off the wifi?

Re: Location based wifi not working as expected

T816B — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 06:53:51 GMT

Tomkay, guess what, my location based wifi works even with I turned OFF the Location. Glad to report it here.

May I also ask you about Double Tap to Wake? Do you think this feature eats up battery life?

Re: Location based wifi not working as expected

TomKay — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 07:32:36 GMT

That prompt me another question, will turning on the Location consume more power as compared to Not turning off the wifi?

From what I have seen, having Location turned on does not consume any power at all, unless some app/service requires the use of GPS. The latter will take a toll on the battery life, but unless I'm using "Maps", GPS is never turned on.

I turned off all Google Location Services, etc. so that may help, but in general the location will just be inferred from the network connection and no additional battery consumers such as GPS or WiFi will be needed.

Re: Location based wifi not working as expected

TomKay — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 07:42:41 GMT

@T816B wrote:
Tomkay, guess what, my location based wifi works even with I turned OFF the Location. Glad to report it here.

Interesting. From my early tests, I seem to recall that it was necessary to have "Location" turned ON, but I could be wrong. I'm going to leave it ON for the time being because I'm not seeing any additional battery being used and it saves me turning it on manually whenever I use "Maps". The nice thing is that after I have used "Maps", GPS gets turned off automatically and consumes no more battery.

It took me a while to set up everything and I had to disable some services, but now I'm very happy with the battery life of my Z1 compact. From what I've seen the past days, my normal usage (some hours of screen time a day) and few, if any, calls, should get me through multiple days without a charge. I guess, I count as a "light" user.

@T816B wrote:
May I also ask you about Double Tap to Wake? Do you think this feature eats up battery life?

My Z1 compact does not support double tap to wake. I can only speculate, but it seems impossible to me that activating such a feature will not take some (however small) toll on the battery life. A good phone maximised for battery life will completely turn off power supply to any sensor that is not in use and in order to support double tap to wake, certain sensing capability will have to remain active.

This is why -- after a short period of experimentation -- I switched off the ability to use "OK Google" from every screen. Having the latter active implies that the microphone is monitored from every screen and that should cost more battery life than only using the microphone when prompted to do so. I currently don't need a 100% hands-free operation, so I turned the feature off in the hope that it will gain me a bit more battery life.

Re: Location based wifi not working as expected

T816B — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 08:43:11 GMT

I agree with you. Some sensors have to be on in order for the Double Tap to Wake to work. But my search on the internet shows that Sony does not have the battry drain issue for this feature, unlike Nokia (lots of reported cases).

I am going to try out by charging my phone to 100% before I go to sleep, and see what will the battery level is the next morning (try out with Double Tap to Wake On and Off).

Re: Location based wifi not working as expected

T816B — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 03:28:55 GMT

Ok, I tested the Double-Tap-to-Wake (DTTW) battery usage over the last 2 days.

I had the DTTW switched on before I went to sleep at 1130pm, the batter was at 79%. When I woke up at 7.00am the next day, the battery was at 64%, a drop of 15% over 7.5 hours.

The next day, I had the DTTW stiched off. The battery at 11.30pm was at 72% level. The next morning 7.00am, the battery was at 55%, s drop of 17%.

I did use the phones during the middle of the night on both nights, just to check out the stock markets.

From this test, I did not see a significant battery usage by switching on the DTTW.

Re: Location based wifi not working as expected

phani612 — Wed, 27 May 2015 16:11:34 GMT

Hi T816B, did it work on your phone? Is it alright now? I had my display replaced around 3 months ago. The phone came with factory settings. Before that, my location based wifi used to work so perfectly that I never checked for location or data settings. But after the factory reset and reinstalling of software, I'm having the same problem. It is turning off. But not turning on. Did you find any solution?