keep wifi alive ios 7

Is there a way to keep wifi alive if the screens turns off? without jailbreaking

iPhone 5s, Windows 8, iOS, sync

Posted on Aug 12, 2014 1:56 PM

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11 replies

Aug 12, 2014 2:06 PM in response to Geff Kunert

Geff Kunert wrote:


Is there a way to keep wifi alive if the screens turns off? without jailbreaking

Keep it plugged in. WiFi is turned off when the phone goes to sleep to preserve battery unless the phone is plugged in. If it didn't the battery would be dead after a few hours because WiFi when connected uses power continuously, whether data are being transferred or not. This has nothing to do with iOS 7; all previous versions of iOS worked the same way.

Aug 26, 2014 12:35 PM in response to AjayJP

AjayJP wrote:


Do you know if IOS has the same behaviour with iPad's tooo ? Also is anyone aware of any apps that let you turn off cellular data when on wifi that wifi stays on continously.

That's a good question. I didn't know, so I tested it. iPads behave the same way. WiFi turns off about 30 seconds after the iPad goes to sleep. I'm not aware of any app that will keep WiFi on, and I doubt that it's possible to create such an app because apps cannot access the iOS API. If you could keep it on you would quickly discover the reason that it turns off as your battery would be drained after a few hours.

Aug 27, 2014 7:48 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

I have been checking my cellular data for quite sometime now. I see the push data and pings dropping and coming back too and this is very small amount of data. But under system services>exchange services, there is a large amount of data that is being utilized. Based on what i have read, only push data should come and the actual email should get downloaded on wifi.


I have about 3 exchange accounts on the phone and get a lot of emails too, probably 10-15 mb of emails in that window. So not sure how much would be push notification data.. But 1 MB on push notification seems to be pretty high. Any thoughts ?

Aug 27, 2014 12:42 PM in response to AjayJP

My understanding is that Microsoft ActiveSync always uses cellular data; it isn't the same as Push. Most other apps that wake up with Notifications will use WiFi data if there is a connection. My push data for the current billing period to date (halfway through) is 6.6 MB. And my cellular usage for the month is 1.7 GB, but that's because I was without home WiFi for 2 weeks thanks to Verizon's crack customer support for FiOS. My normal cellular usage is 600-900 MB. Fortunately I have a grandfathered unlimited data plan.

Jan 12, 2016 3:21 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Lawrence,


Is there any credibility to the claim that sometimes even with the phone connected to power that WiFi is disabled? Here is the sort of comment I am referring to from: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4406372?start=75

from TallBearNC

“...

the issue of any iOS device dropping Wi-Fi when the screen is locked… This is not a bug, this is not a hardware issue, this is not a software issue… This is deliberately programmed behavior by Apple. Now where the problem does why is it an iOS device is connected to power, whether it's charging or at 100%, it is never supposed to disconnect from Wi-Fi..

...

“however, it does anyway and this is something Apple has changed and changed back over several or I should say many patches over various iOS versions from 5 to 9

...

For the longest time, Apple kept Wi-Fi active anytime you were connected to power, Apple even states this in their support forms… But they also sometimes remove this feature from iOS, and when they do, this feature disappears from the support forms at Apple

...

I think this basically has to do with power and battery life… Not everybody uses the best recharging adapter for their device and if you kept the device on Wi-Fi, even with the screen lock you would slowly lose power vs gain it – especially if you only use a 5v, 1A charger."

-Randal

Jan 12, 2016 7:11 PM in response to cafebeef

I've never experienced a situation where my phone or iPad disconnected from WiFi when plugged in. Sometimes any device will disconnect due to interference on the wifi channel or a device's lease will expire. But that's not iOS disconnecting; it's just bad luck. If WiFi Assist is enabled and the WiFi signal is weak the phone may revert to cellular data, but that's by design, and you can turn off this feature.

Jan 17, 2016 5:45 PM in response to cafebeef

cafebeef wrote:


Hmm. Maybe that's it. If this is the case (WiFi being judged inadequate by Assist and kicking in cellular data), would that prevent backups from running, since I think they are set to run on WiFi only. What would be a good way to test this? Isn't Assist iOS 9 only?


-Randal

It would prevent automatic backups from running. The Assist switch is in iOS 9 only, but some of us suspect the capability was in earlier versions, but with no way to disable it.

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keep wifi alive ios 7

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