monitor signal strength

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Nnyan
Posts: 2
Joined: 03 Feb 2015 16:49

monitor signal strength

Post by Nnyan » 04 Feb 2015 07:27

Hello all. Complete noob here so prepare to be amazed at my lack of knowledge. I have a few questions. When I start a flow with the trigger looking for cellular signal strength will that trigger be checked once or constantly so that if I move to another area that has a better signal will the trigger detect this? EX: I walk from inside a building with poor/no signal to outside? If so how often does it check?

If I am managing my radios using Airplane mode it couldn't do a cellular or wireless check could it?

Thank you!

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Martin
Posts: 4468
Joined: 09 Nov 2012 14:23

Re: monitor signal strength

Post by Martin » 04 Feb 2015 20:35

Hi,

The trigger Phone Signal Strength by default listens to the signal strength changes provided by Android as events so the trigger itself will not check the signal strength actively but will wait until Android notifies Automagic about a change.
Many devices inform apps about the signal strength change only when the display is on, for this reason you can configure the trigger to turn the screen on periodically. This mechanism will definitely increase battery use so I would set the wake interval to the highest value that works for you, like 5 or 10 minutes.

You can use the settings in the trigger to define whether the trigger should be executed every time when a signal change is detected that is below a certain level (setting lower than) or you can use setting becomes lower than when you want to execute the trigger only once when the signal strength falls from a value above the threshold to a value below the threshold. With this setting the signal strength has to raise again above the defined threshold before the trigger is allowed to execute again.

Regards,
Martin

Nnyan
Posts: 2
Joined: 03 Feb 2015 16:49

Re: monitor signal strength

Post by Nnyan » 04 Feb 2015 22:37

Martin,

Thanks! That clears that up! Is there a similar signal strength monitor for wifi? I'll have to see if my phone needs to wake up.

I basically am looking to disable my radios when I have no/poor connection to save battery. Iv been using Airplane mode (tried set mobile datanetwork state) and it affected my Nexus 5 (I could not connect to cell even when this was disabled).

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Martin
Posts: 4468
Joined: 09 Nov 2012 14:23

Re: monitor signal strength

Post by Martin » 05 Feb 2015 18:38

There's no built-in trigger to detect the WiFi signal strength but you can use trigger General Broadcast with example WiFi Signal Level to build your own trigger. You probably need an action Script or a condition Expression to check the value of the provided variable rssi.

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