I'm someone who always forgets to turn off WiFi, which regardless of what some people say, leaving WiFi on (while not connected to your network of preference (eg while driving)), will drain the battery.
What does everyone think of a personality option like having WiFi turn it's self off automatically after a pre-defined amount of not being able to connect to any saved AP's?
Lets say I'm at home, on WiFi.. Then I get in the car and drive to a friends place, after not being in range of any preferred WiFi locations for for lets say 15 minutes - Since it's not in range of any networks of choice, my BB will turn it's WiFi off, to save power. Of course, you'd have to turn it back on when you get to a place with an AP, but still, does this not sound like a good feature/personality option?
Do you mean if it did this by it's self? I think it should be a personality option, meaning you can choose if it does it or not.
I don't think RIM will put it into their OS... so I'm thinking someone would have to create an application that would allow you do what you described (you selecting to turn it off after so many minutes of not connecting)... if someone was selling that type of app, I don't think it's worth any amount of money for me to purchase something like that... but that is just one person's opinion... and isn't that what you are asking for on a forum, just one person's opinion, or at least a bunch of one person's opinions.
A better design would be for the phone to shut down the WiFi after <user-configurable time without signal> and that every <user-configurable time> minutes thereafter it would turn the WiFi radio back on and spend <user-configurable time> seconds looking for known access points.
End result could be a config where if it loses WiFi for tne minutes, it shuts the radio off. Then, every five minutes afterwards it could spend 30 seconds looking for an access point. You'd have the radio off 4.5 minutes out of every 5 minute period, and it would still connect once you arrived at your destination that has WiFi.
I'm someone who always forgets to turn off WiFi, which regardless of what some people say, leaving WiFi on (while not connected to your network of preference (eg while driving)), will drain the battery.
What does everyone think of a personality option like having WiFi turn it's self off automatically after a pre-defined amount of not being able to connect to any saved AP's?
Lets say I'm at home, on WiFi.. Then I get in the car and drive to a friends place, after not being in range of any preferred WiFi locations for for lets say 15 minutes - Since it's not in range of any networks of choice, my BB will turn it's WiFi off, to save power. Of course, you'd have to turn it back on when you get to a place with an AP, but still, does this not sound like a good feature/personality option?
I'm pretty sure there's already a program that exists that will turn off Wifi in the event you leave the range of your wireless network. I just don't remember the name but I read about it recently.
And I don't think anyone will dispute that having wifi on all the time will drain the battery. but with the battery life being what it is, leaving it on isn't that much of an issue. Even if you keep it on an you're not within range of a preferred network, the phone isn't constantly searching for signals so it does not drain that much of the battery just sitting idle. Same with bluetooth.
Agreed, in another post in my own thread....i posted my timeline throughout the day and I leave all connections on all the time...my battery does not come near dead with constant use.
I think because people see the logo on their homescreen, they somehow associate that with meaning the service is "running". I highly doubt that is the case considering to even FIND a hotspot of bluetooth device you have to manually initiate a search on the phone to find it. That alone is proof to me that despite the service being turned on it's not ACTUALLY doing anything until I tell it to.
