2.4 GHz vs 5 GHz Wi-Fi - which uses less battery power ?

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › 2.4 GHz vs 5 GHz Wi-Fi - which uses less battery power ?

harlansmart

446 posts

Ultimate Geek

#304062 1-Apr-2023 15:01

Was reading a GZ thread yesterday, person installed a new device and found their phone started draining the battery in '8 hours'.

They switched 5 GHz band OFF > phone went back to lasting '3 Days' on 2.4 GHz band.

No one replied so figured it made sense, still curious though, does this, make sense ?

i.e. 2.4 GHz has better range / penetration etc, disregarding this, phone next to router, will it use less battery on 2.4 vs 5 GHz ?

RunningMan

8964 posts

Uber Geek

#3057591 1-Apr-2023 15:41

Could be a few things. 20MHz vs 80MHz channel width, poorer signal so having to increase TX power to compensate, different DTIM settings.

harlansmart

446 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3057715 1-Apr-2023 17:38

Generally though, all things being equal and average and similar and middle of the road should using the 5 GHz band suck more out of a cellphone battery than using the 2.4 GHz band.. they obviously thought that 5 GHz drained the phones battery 9 times more rapidly ?

Asking since we can't tell any real-world difference between them, except doing SPEEDTEST (loads of WAP's all over) so would prefer lesser charging to occur.

RunningMan

8964 posts

Uber Geek

#3057727 1-Apr-2023 18:29

The frequency alone will make no difference. The detail of how it is configured will certainly have an affect on power consumption, and the coverage of 5GHz will usually be less than 2.4GHz, so if the device is on the fringe of reception, it may increase TX power, causing more battery drain.

As above, things like channel width, number of chains, DTIM can have a noticable impact on battery drain on some devices.

raytaylor

4017 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3060427 9-Apr-2023 10:26

Wont make a difference. User is confused with something else or a coincidence.

Any data transmitting or receiving will use more power than idle.

Turn off wifi and use app settings to prevent all apps from using background power or data (except your common messengers etc)

Ray Taylor

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robjg63

4100 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#3060430 9-Apr-2023 10:36

RunningMan:

The frequency alone will make no difference. The detail of how it is configured will certainly have an affect on power consumption, and the coverage of 5GHz will usually be less than 2.4GHz, so if the device is on the fringe of reception, it may increase TX power, causing more battery drain.

As above, things like channel width, number of chains, DTIM can have a noticable impact on battery drain on some devices.

I suspect this could be the answer. If you have a home wifi network on 2.4 and 5GHz, you often set the SSIDs to be the same.

The theory being that devices will connect to the SSID and work out when it is appropriate to cut from 5GHz to 2.4Ghz. As noted above, the 5GHz range is normally less and 2.4GHz has a greater distance of coverage.

Some devices dont handle that auto-switching too well apparently - so often the SSIDs are set to different names.

But if you were on the outer reaches of the 5Ghz area (and it does drop pretty quickly), the radios in the phone have to start amping up the power to try and keep connected.

Imagine you are walking further away from a person talking normally. Both sides need to start talking louder/shouting to maintain the conversation = more power used.

Ideally, the phone would see the 2.4 signal has become stronger and switch to that and save some power.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler