Will you have Pyra wifi 'always on'?

Will you leave your Pyra's wifi always on? (so connected to a network when you are using the device

  • Yes (while using the Pyra, wifi will be active - like most modern cellphone/tablets scenarios) (assu

    Votes: 18 24.3%
  • No (will turn on/off wifi as I need it, and only then)

    Votes: 56 75.7%
  • i like tacos! (do not plan to have a Pyra)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    74

skeezix

Internal Development
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Merry Christmas my friends :)

I'm just debating the feature-set for some of my possible upcoming applications (such as C4A integration for both Pandora and Pyra), and I thought a poll might be useful to myself and others.

I would imagine 99% of modern phone/phablet/tablet/laptops/gaming-devices/everything just leave their wifi to auto-connect on trusted networks (with 'ask to connect' or auto connect for networks when out and about.) .. but making assumptions can get you into hot water! So for designing features, I thought it best to ask a few questions .. see Poll, to save me quoting myself here :)

This isn't a question about granularity of permissions (is your password stored? is a background application permitted to use your network?) .. don't want to get into that here. (Being a linux primarily device, standard rules apply .. I don't want to side-track into all that.) (No, I'm not planning on building a background service for spamming everyone you know ;)

jeff
 
I haven't noticed a huge power saving by shutting my Pandora's wifi off, so I just leave it on all the time already. I expect the Pyra to have even better power performance. Perhaps not right away, but eventually.
 
Its interesting that so far (not a tonne of votes, mind) the majority are 'on demand' wifi user. I was like that early with Pandora since it wasn't reliable nor fast, but its been pretty good on my ghz unit... so I just leave it on.

For phones or tablets .. I've not seen anyone who fiddles with on demand wifi (or rather, toggling radio on/off since the OSes rarely support convenient wifi management.) But thats why the poll :) (Perhaps I should add a question for peoples 'other devices', to see if its just Pandora/pyra that have this usage pattern, but other devices are otherwise.)

The Pandora and Pyra are perhaps in the small laptop frame of reference for some, and phone or game gizmo for others..

jeff
 
Im on demand if the hardware keys are there, otherwise i default to lazy, which means leaving it on.

I do turn my pandora off, but i leave my phone, with worse battery life, on.  People are strange and im no exception.

My ideal would be no phone, only pyra, always on, with hardware buttons for powertoggles.
 
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I will most likely leave it on unless there's a significant power drop when it's searching for networks all the time.
 
For phones or tablets .. I've not seen anyone who fiddles with on demand wifi
I do! But I'm not a big smartphone user (got a Galaxy s3 with AOKP). I just read e-books on it all the time. Maybe its because I don't have facebook, whatsapp, snapchat and that kind of shit on it? And I don't feel comfortable with Android and all these proprietary Apps, the cell tracking and so on. I doesn't feel like I can trust it, with all the unkowns -.-

How about enableing MAC address spoofing by default in the Debain version for Pyra? Its easy with systemd. Doesn't it make sense for privacy reasons? Especially if your traveling a lot with your wifi on. Who uses MAC filters anyway..

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MAC_address_spoofing#Method_1:_systemd-networkd
 
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I like tacos AND I will only have wifi on when it is being used, as I have always done with wifi capable devices.
 
Like my laptop, I switch it on when I need it and directly disable it when I no longer do.
 
My computers generally boot with wifi on, if they've got it. My handhelds generally don't. My pandora actively encourages me to turn it off, as if I leave it on it tends to fall off the network and steal my keyboard focus in the middle of a game. I've used a usb wifi nubbin with it to avoid that, but that means I need to charge my Pandora every night.


The Pyra will hopefully have a less problematic wifi chip with a less problematic driver, which means I may be able to leave it on with less problems, but I still don't think I'll boot with it on, or leave it on whenever I remember to turn it off.
 
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For phones or tablets .. I've not seen anyone who fiddles with on demand wifi (or rather, toggling radio on/off since the OSes rarely support convenient wifi management.)
I just tested 5 phones with Android 4.2-4.4 and all had a toggle for wifi directly in the settings. Most people I know use it.
 
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I thought the on demand option was also the most used on phones... you know the little button in android in the pulldown menu.. I do It as well on the pandora. My phone doesnt have wifi....
 
My phone is always manually connected and only for the duration needed. Pandora is mostly on-demand, especially if I use my external dongle, which I only plug in when required. Netbook is always on though
 
For battery-savings, I have my Pandora WiFi OFF as long as I don't use it. I also like "thin" and "clean" systems with as few things run at the same time as possible. So besides WiFi, I also have USB host and BlueTooth disabled on my Pandora and actualy everything that was possible without making the system unusable.  I did the same on my Windows PC by the way and it still runs great after all the years. :)
 
Poll is flawed in that it does not actually account for a device as capable as the Pyra.  It would be more applicable to the Pandora.

I'm assuming that my future Pyra will have both a mobile 3G or 4G radio AND a WiFi radio AND a bluetooth radio.

Which radios I want on will depend on where I'm at.

If I'm in the middle of nowhere with no mobile signal, I'll want the mobile radio to turn off then re-check for signal every 15? minutes.  Otherwise I want the mobile phone radio on constantly.

If I have mobile signal, then I'll have location.  If I'm within 100 meters of a known/used/stored WiFi hotspot, then it should turn on the WiFi.

Bluetooth?  If there is nothing within range that it is trained to connect to, turn off.

User settings should be able to override all of the above.  Including re-check times, distance to hotspot, even 'Turn on bluetooth and WiFi to check for devices and networks whenever lid is opened.  Turn them back off if nothing is found.  If bluetooth headset is found, leave BT headset connected when lid is closed until/if device is gone for 5 minutes.'

Advanced device = advanced conditionals.
 
Bluetooth?  If there is nothing within range that it is trained to connect to, turn off.
If it is not connected to anything and uses any noticeable power then there's a major problem. You shouldn't be concerned with power usage from bluetooth, it was designed with extremely low power in mind. Even while active, the 4.0 standard keeps power consumption to 15mA (down from the 2.0's 25mA standard): assuming a 6000mAH battery lasts 10 hours without bluetooth, it'd go 9:45, just 15 minutes less, with an active connection*. Technically 15 minutes is 15 minutes more play time, but how often do you actually reach a point where that 15 minutes is critical? In the long run turning off bluetooth doesn't actually save a lot, and advocating turning it off as a power saving measure is probably a little misguided. It's not like the wifi where an active connection can cut battery life nearly in half or the USB which just sucks power away. In terms of actual cost, assuming the Pyra is running 24 hours a day with a bluetooth connection, it'd take about 18'000 hours (2.1 years) to reach 1KWh. Probably shouldn't lose any sleep over it.
(*) Technically that's just the bluetooth connection, if it's actually active (connected and transmitting/receiving) that means the CPU and RAM are getting in on the action as well and probably using up more power, but as a max baseline for an idle and connected but not transmitting (and therefore max for idle and not connected) it should work well.
 
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