Wi-Fi Matic turns your wireless connection on or off automatically
WiFi is one of the biggest power drainers on mobile devices when enabled.
Up until recently, I turned WiFi off manually whenever it was not needed. This included before I went to bed, but also when I left the house, work, or another location where I used it.
While that worked most of the time, it happened that I forgot to turn it off, which resulted in unnecessary power drainage.
I have been using Wifi Auto-Off for some time to automate this as much as possible.
The Android application can be configured to turn WiFi on whenever the device gets unlocked, and turn it off when the screen is off for a set period of time, and when the device has not connected to a network for at least a given time interval.
Wi-Fi Matic review
Recently, I switched to Wi-Fi Matic instead. It is a similar application, but offers more functionality and customization options than the other app.
Basically, it remembers all WiFi networks the phone has been connected to, and will enable or disable WiFi whenever you enter or leave the connectivity range.
What's great about this is that it is not using GPS or location-based services to determine whether known WiFi networks are available or not. Instead, it uses network cell identifiers to pinpoint the location of the device, and since it links connected networks to those identifiers as well, it can determine when you are in range, and when you are not.
So, WiFi is turned on or off based on past connections to networks, and the location that is retrieved from cell identifiers.
This alone works well for me most of the time. When I leave the house or another location, then WiFi gets turned off automatically once I'm away far enough, and turned on back when I return.
There are situations however where this won't work. Say, you are using WiFi at home. It would not be turned off for example when you go to bed. You can however configure a deactivation and reactivation time in the app. Say, to turn it off at midnight and back on at seven in the morning.
Besides what has already been mentioned, the app supports a couple of additional features that you may find interesting.
First of all, it keeps a record of all known (that means connected at least once) WiFi access points. For each, it is possible to disable auto-activation and auto-deactivation of the WiFi connection. If you prefer to turn it on or off manually for a specific AP, you can configure the app to let you do so right here.
And if you do not like the idea that wireless access points are remembered, you can turn off that feature in the preferences as well.
The advanced preferences offer a couple of other features that you may be interested in. Here you can enable the activation of WiFi connections when there is no mobile coverage,disable mobile data automatically while connected to WiFi, or set a disconnection timeout that disables WiFi connections.
Verdict
If you use WiFi regularly on your Android device and tend to forget to turn it off at times, you may want to give this app a try to save battery and time to manually turn it on when you are in reach of a known wireless network.
Now Read: Use WiFi Analyzer to optimize your WiFi connection
Advertisement
Thanks for the tip Martin.
It is for these kinds of posts that I follow GHacks.
What’s up with the generic comment, are you a bot?
2G?
Where on the planet is that still in use? I was forced to give up using my RAZRV3 years ago because 2G was phased out by AT&T.
Everywhere 3G has been turned off and you don’t have LTE coverage, and believe me there are many developed countries where this is the case and if it weren’t for 2G you wouldn’t even be able to make a phone call.
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t believe tha term “2G” is in the article. Perhaps you are referring to “AGM G2”??
@Martin
Your website has gone insane.
When I the post button I then saw my comment posted on a different article page. When I opened this article again, it is here.
@Tachy @Martin Brinkmann
” Your website has gone insane. ”
Same here. Has happened several times.
@Tachy,
@Martin P.,
For over two weeks now,
I’ve been seeing “Comments” posted by subscribers appearing in different, unrelated articles.
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572991
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572951
For the time being,
it would be better to specify the “article name and URL” at the beginning of the post.
@tachy a lot of non-phone devices with a sim in them rely on 2G, at least here in europe.
Usually things reporting usage or errors/alarms on something remote that does not get day to day inspection in person. They are out there in vast numbers doing important work. Reliable, good range. The low datarate is no problem at all in those cases.
3G is gone or on its last legs everywhere, but this stuff still has too much use to cancel.
Anyhow, interesting that they would put that in. I can see the point if you suspect a hostile 2G environment (amateur eavesdroppers with laptop, ranging up to professional grade MITM fake towers while “strangely” not getting the stronger crypto voip 4G because it is being jammed, and back down to something as old ‘stingray’ devices fallen into the wrong hands).
But does this also mean that they have handled and rolled out a fix for that nasty 4G ‘pwn by broadcast’ problem you reported earlier this year? I had 4G disabled due to that, on the off chance that some of the local criminals would buy some cheap chinese gear, download a working exploit and probe every phone in range all over town in the hope of getting into phones of the police.
>”While most may never be attacked in stingrays, it is still recommended to disable 2G cellular connections, especially since it does not have any downsides.”
The downside would be losing connectivity. I spend a lot of time way out in the countryside where there’s often no service or almost none. My network allows 2G, and I need it sometimes. I have an option on the phone to disable 2G, I may do that when I’m in the city and I have good 5G connectivity, but not out in the country.
I would imagine that the stingray exploits, like most of the bad things in this world, are probably things you will run into in the crowded big cities.
I stopped using it in a mobile (Wi-Fi line) environment, so I’m almost ignorant of the actual situation,
But the recent reality in Japan makes me realize that “the infrastructure of the web is nothing more than a papier-mâché fiction”.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/17/google-chrome-to-enable-https-first-by-default-for-all-users/#comment-4572402
It is already beyond the scope of what an individual can do.
What we should be aware of is the reality that “governments and those in power want to control the world through the Web”, and efforts to counter (resist and prevent) such ambitions are necessary.
Why do you want people to disable the privacy features? Hmmmmm?
Now You: do you plan to keep the Ads privacy features enabled?
I’d like to tell you, but apparently if you make a post critical of Google, you get censored. * [Editor: removed, just try to bring your opinion across without attacking anyone]
@Martin
You website is still psychotic. Comments attach to random stories.
@Martin please do fix the comments, it’s completely insane commenting here! :[
@Martin
The comments are seriously messed up on gHacks now. These comments are mixed with the article at the below URL.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/18/android-how-to-disable-2g-cellular-connections-to-improve-security/
And comments on other articles are from as far back as 2010.
What does this article has anything to do with all the comments on this article? LOL I think this Websuite is ran by ChatGPT. every article is messed up. Some older comments from 2015 shown up in recant articles, LOL
The picture captioned “Clearing the Android Auto’s cache might resolve the issue” is from Apple Carplay ;)
How about other things that matter:
Drop survival?
Screen toughness?
Degree of water and dust protection?