Does Wi-Fi turn off when locked

Thanks for that. I had been trying to figure out how within a month i use up more than 500mb of data on my iPhone 4s. I even bought the app: "Data Usage" where i was able to determine that in sleep mode, iPhone uses 3G and then also noticed when i woke it up, switched back to wifi. I also tested turning off 3G connection but Data Usage app showed that it still uses up data but slower when the phone is asleep. I definitely would want to maintain switching off 3G when am on wifi or when i go to bed. I think the user should be given an option to have wifi persistent and it would be nice to have an app that one can set to turn off 3G at certain times, like at night when going to sleep.

iOS devices may or may not keep the WiFi on when the screen is locked. Normally if there is a cellular data connection, WiFi will be turned off, but there are exceptions. Namely if some process requests WoW (wake-on wireless) be enabled.

If WoW is enabled, WiFi will never be shut down and the device will remain connected to the WiFi network. Certain apps will trigger WoW to enable, but I've also found that sometimes the phone will do it by itself. For example, on my home network, my iPad 2 3G and iPhone 4S will both (usually) shut down the WiFi. At my office for some reason apple's push notification daemon requests WoW be enabled so my phone never de-associates from my office's WiFi, even when sleeping.

luis144 wrote:

I have an iPhone 4S with iOS 5.0.1, and need to keep 3G off to save battery, so I keep my wifi on.

I've been doing a simple ping and realized that is not persistent, but it also wont stay off al the time.

The behavior is very random:

With the phone active Wifi is active (obvious)

When locked it maintains the wifi active for 20 secs

Wifi goes off for 20 secs

Wifi goes on for 20 secs

Wifi goes off for 20 secs

Wifi goes on for 20 secs

and keeps repeating that behavior...

Sometimes the cicles are longer or shorter than 20 secs, I've seen 5 secs cicles and 1 minute cicles, I really would like to know what services are waking up the wifi, or what this cicles depend on.

Hope this helps.

Looks like you have some kind of 'push' application active, and it needs to access the internet every 20seconds.

There are apps that monitor what app is using the data channels, so you can let it run a while and find out who is doing what, and for how long. Note that these apps run all the time, so there is a battery usage penalty while they are active.

iPad and iPhone wifi behavior is similar but different. If you want wifi persistent, on iPhone there is another way to keep wifi alive while the phone is locked.

1. Plug it in to the power adapter

iPad unfortunately a this is not the case, the wifi radio does indeed sleep when the iPad locks. The only way to change this behavior is to have no passcode set and change the autofocus setting to "never".

Interestingly, push notifications, email, etc will still come through with the iPhone or iPad in autolock mode, there is some very smart stuff going on depending how you have your notification center settings tailored. Even when all this is going on the wifi radio is in a battery saving mode and it will not respond to a ping, but will wake up as soon as you unlock the device.

I wish iPad could be changed to keep a persistent wifi wifi locked so I can download some rather large files unattended.

I posted in a few other threads as well, but I seem to have fixed the problem., Not sure if it will work for all, but its been going on a few days now and I haven't lost connection to wireless once, I can actually see the icon switch from 3g to wireless icon when I turn on the screen.

I never changed my network name, so it had a WEP key on it but still named Dlink, so I actually changed the network name to Fobfather. Than I changed it from 802.11 G only to 802.11 G / N both enabled in the router settings. I rebooted the phone ( holding down the power button and the home button, not just restarting), and I have not lost signal at all to my wireless.

Hope this helps.

i also have the same wifi issue on my 4 & 4s but as ive observe if its really done from original iphone 3 yrs ago why on my 3gs wifi connection stays on sleep mode for a couple of days without activating from sleep mode or without pressing anything! i prove it because once i tried to call my 3gs (which is in sleep mode for a couple of days and without touching anything on it) called it with my iphone4 via viber and surprisingly it rang!

Ok, thank me later.

I have an iPhone 4S with 6.1.3 and same issue/problem since the beginning.

Solution:

Turn auto-lock to "NEVER", and wifi will stay connected while screen off. I've tested it after waiting 1 hour with screen manually turned off.

Prior to the iPhone 5, if your iPhone was conneced to external power, it would keep the WIFI on even if the auto lock was enabled. I have noticed (and reported to Apple) that with the iPhone 5 (at least through iOS 6.0.2) that even with the external power connected, the iPhone would turn the wifi radio off when it would enter the "deep sleep" state. All iPhones have done this behavior when not connected to external power, and in responses from Apple, that was how it was supposed to work (with external power keep wifi on, without, turn it off to conserve battery). I have not really tested my iPhone 5 since the latest iOS update to see if it still turns the wifi off, even if on external power, so I will have to re-test that and submit another big report to Apple if it does.

I have my iPhone 4 in a Mophie Juice Pack Air, and as long as it is getting power from the Mophie, it leaves the wifi radio on. That has come in very handy for me many times before I upgraded it to an iPhone 5 (but it is still nice to keep wifi on when I use the old iPhone as an iPod Touch).

@twinkletoesmofo

Friend, i keep a passcode lock!

So for your fix to work should i keep it on or turn it off or it doesnt matter if its off or on??

Thanks in advance

I am not sure this is the same issue being discussed here or not. The wifi issue I am having, where it dissconnects after about 20 seconds while the screen is off.

I have tried setting the Proxy setting to auto as suggested somewere, cant remember where. This doesnt work.

I have tried setting the auto lock feature to off. This also does not work.

I have an ipod touch 5th gen IOS verion 6.0.1 (10A523).

I do not have a iPhone, only an IPod Touch, i use iMessages to comunicate with my wife while I am at work. The problem is I never get her messages when she sends them. I'll unlock the device only to find she was trying to contact me and left a message an hour before. This is an anoying behavior.

The ONLY way i have been able to combat this is by having music play in the backgroud. Havng music play for some reason will keep the wifi connected 100% of the time and Ill recieve messages as soon as they come.

There has got to be a better way to keep wifi alive while the creen is locked.

Well nevermind, I probably should have updated to the latest version ( 6.1.3 (10B329) ) before posting because so far it seems to have been resolved.

hello guys!

stuck in the same problem too, have read many forums from different countries and haven't solved it.

I have 4s with 6.1.3 iOS.

The main thing I discovered - the phone is connected in different ways with different routers: wi-fi works at my job fine when the screen is locked, but it turns off when I'm home. And I guessed that maybe it is not iphone problem but problem with router settings.

At home I have a router D-Link Dir-651 and I just decided to try a different combination of its settings.

Here is the combination that made ​​the wi-fi to work!

I changed the value of the "channel" to "auto" and "Wireless mode" from "802.11b \ r \ n" to just "802.11n".

And it works!

Hopefully, this method will help someone.

My iPhone 5 also turns wi-fi off after about 20 seconds if it is set to display off, or it goes to autolock. If it is plugged into the supplied adapter to line power, it remains on. This is the only way I have found to prevent AT&T from using cellular data to send whatever it is they send every night.