Re: Turn wifi down to 10mW
 

you meant setting the Wifi signal strength on the router save your n900 battery? that is insanely busted. How can wifi signal strength effect your battery power? I dont get it lol..

Please explain more. I'll try it out when mine arrives

Re: Turn wifi down to 10mW
 

I'm going to try cutting down to 10mw. I'm sure it makes a difference. The other thing is the option to connect whenever wi-fi is available option. This will cause the N900 to search every few minutes ( you can set the rate) for a wi-fi network. This in my opinion, similar to cell tower searches (*) cause significant battery drains. I noticed that today. I put off the option, and the battery lasted a lot longer. Now I will try with the 10mw option and post when/if I notice a difference.

* - Cell-tower search. I have noticed this with different phones. When you are in an area with no phone network connectivity, I have noticed that the battery drains in a matter of hours. Upon searching on the issue I found that phones tend to increase power to search and connect to a network. When there are no networks around, it continues searching every few minutes. This causes rapid power drains even though you're not even talking or using the cellphone.

I suspect its similar with Wi-Fi searches. So the solution I think would be to simply turn it off and choose your network (Carrier or Wifi) when you need it.

Re: Turn wifi down to 10mW
 

Its not a router setting. you can set 100mW/10mW on your n900.. thats what i'm talking about anyway.

Re: Turn wifi down to 10mW
 

All those arguing why, despite what some of us says, 10mW does seem to make a difference: Please read the thread better! We already know (from another poster) that there's currently a bug in the N900 which would make this a difference (wi-fi doesn't shut down properly).

So, for now, if the 10mW setting does make a difference to your battery time, feel free to use that setting. Nobody will call you names. However, when this bug gets fixed you would be better off setting it back to 100mW. See http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...3&postcount=18 above.

Re: Turn wifi down to 10mW
 

3dB is a factor 2
6dB is a factor 4
10dB is a factor 10

In radio we define that 6dB is one 'S' point, doubling the 'range'.

And yes, of course, if you lower the output power by a factor 10, the amount of power needed to generate that output is also lower (not by a factor of 10, as it depends on how the amplifier works etc).

PH7Wim

Re: Turn wifi down to 10mW
 

Any prove ?

Re: Turn wifi down to 10mW
 

Exactly the same test result !

Agree with you !

Re: Turn wifi down to 10mW
 

holy macaroni! tried the 10mw and yes it does make the battery last longer! with wifi enabled and email set to check every 15 mins, after 7 hrs i with 100mW i had 1 bar left. using 10mW same condition only 1 bar was consumed.

Re: Turn wifi down to 10mW
 

Most 802.11 devices use between 1 & 100 mW of power

1 mW(milliwatt) = 0.001 Watt
10mW = 0.01W
100mW = 0.1W

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBm

Re: Turn wifi down to 10mW
 

Can you reproduce it? File that on the bug report.

I personally cannot reproduce any of the Wi-Fi bugs, and my battery lasts around 4 days (with or without 100mW which as many people have said it's very much useless to idle times). Note that the biggest improvements in Wi-Fi battery life can usually be accomplished by selecting a proper AP... or careful configuration of the router, not the N900.