- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- testing@lemmy.ca
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- testing@lemmy.ca
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The article is crap, but it is correct in that you don’t need to use airplane mode. I would, however, advise to still use it purely to preserve battery life of your device as otherwise it will very aggressively keep scanning for networks and drain it.
The article is crap,
It is Gizmodo after all
Yep. I do wish there was a toggle for the cellular radio by itself (rather than just mobile data). It’s annoying to have to go airplane mode then turn WiFi and BT back on.
On Android you do have that toggle
And if you turn wifi back on once, it’ll tell you that it can remember and always leave Wi-Fi on if you want.
Don’t even have to find the setting
iOS has it as well.
There is? I know the control center button for turning on/off mobile data, but I wasn’t aware there was a way other than airplane mode to prevent it from continuously scanning for networks.
The cell data button only disables data, but the airplane button disables the cellular radio entirely and doesn’t disable WiFi or Bluetooth. If you want WiFi and BT disabled, you need to tap them separately.
However… the airplane button remembers your last preference. If you tapped airplane and then disabled WiFi and BT, it will disable them next time you turn on airplane mode. If you last used airplane mode with WiFi and/or BT enabled, it will only disable the cell antenna.
That’s what airplane mode is. Try it out in the control center. It doesn’t disable my WiFi unless I had WiFi disabled when I last turned airplane mode off. Similar with Bluetooth except turning airplane off turns my Bluetooth on even if I had it off before.
Of course, an OS update or a reboot might reset the value of the previous WiFi state. 🤷♂️
Right, but the person I was replying to appears to be saying there is a toggle button that isn’t airplane mode to turn off the antenna, unless I’m misunderstanding.
Perhaps this is what they meant:
There’s a separate cellular toggle yes.
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I don’t but I’m running an older Lineage OS. Is it in the quick actions on the notifications pulldown?
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Weird. On iPhone it remembers if turned BT and WiFi on while Airplane mode is on and will only turn off the Cell antenna. Do that every time I travel.
Android does that too. At least the latest versions
Meh - flights have USB ports now if your battery is low.
USB ports and outlets lol I haven’t been concerned about preserving my phone’s battery life while flying in a long time now lmao
But that’s just a waste of electricity then? And battery health?
Unless you’re really into flying the effect is minimal
It also costs you nothing to disable it. And if everyone keeps it disabled for all their flights, it’s not minimal anymore. So I don’t really see the problem here.
Imagine the savings if all of those people just didn’t fly! lol
That doesn’t change that disabling cellular makes a difference, so I don’t see your point. Just because something’s not perfect, doesn’t mean it can’t make a difference.
It just makes such a tiny, insignificant difference that it really doesn’t matter one way or the other.
How old are your phones? I don’t notice any “aggressive scanning” when I don’t have airplane mode on. The other user is not able to switch WiFi on in airplane mode, my last two phones did that no problem and they go like 4-5 years back.
Cell towers, without mountains/buildings blocking them, reach 10+ miles and airplanes don’t fly that high… so you are within range of towers while flying unless you’re over the ocean.
However, connecting to a tower that far away requires running the radio at maximum transmission power which absolutely kills your battery. Also the towers reject your phone’s attempt to connect because they are programmed to ignore distant connections when they know a dozen other towers are within a few miles of that tower. If you’re flying over remote areas where towers will accept any connection you might occasionally get enough signal to call 911 but i likely won’t be a usable data connection due to how far away you are.
Wether it shows a connection or not, your phone is still reaching out trying to connect and doing handshakes with towers on the ground.
Being inside a metal tube doesn’t help reception either.
“You have a reminder set for 5pm today,” my phone said.
“A reminder? What is it?” I asked.
“It’s a notification to ensure you don’t forget something, but that’s not important right now,” the phone replied.
Then I remembered I’d left it in Airplane! mode.
😆 It might be nice to have a phone that tells me “Remember, we’re all counting on you. Good luck.” Otoh it would probably keep calling me Shirley.
You can absolutely do that with a text to speech app and the app Tasker on Android.
It would have to be Leslie Neilson’s voice though.
Just have it play an mp3 clip of that scene in the movie.
“5pm today” can also get ambiguous if you’re flying across time zones.
If you keep in flying in the right direction, it could take more that 24 hours until you finally catch 5pm.
I think it’s still worth doing so your phone isn’t rapidly trying to connect and disconnect from nearby cell towers as you ascend and descend. Maybe there’s already protections in place for this case but it makes sense that it could add a lot of unnecessary strain on certain cell towers.
Not to mention the battery drain.
It’s been a long time since I’ve flown on a plane without at least a USB port to plug into, most have had full outlets to plug into lmao
It’s been a long time since my charger has actually stayed plugged into one of those worn-ass outlets in a plane.
Also, I don’t want to have to juggle multiple charging devices in the tiny cramped space where I’m already stressed and miserable.
Budget flights don’t have that kind of luxury.
I take short flights the whole year (like 6-10 per month) and I never had the USB chargers.
Those are like 1h flights tho
This is the primary reason I do it, although more for my battery life than the cell towers.
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I thought that’s what the Pico cells are for - each plane has a mini phone tower in it so phones happily connect to that instead of looking for ground stations
I used to turn Airplane Mode on during my LSD trips many years ago, pretty useful.
I haven’t heard drifting referred to as limited slip differential trips before, but that’s good that you aren’t texting and drifting.
Airplane mode is a blessing. If the OS is trustworthy (i.e. FOSS Android) then it actually works, it turns off that crappy unprivate cell connection and you have anonymous Wifi only.
It saves battery and you can use your phone without anyone being able to track you easily.
Btw Google hides the GPS quicksettings toggle for a reason, edit the shortcuts and add it.
… What? You think WiFi is anonymous?
It can sometimes triangulate you better than the cell towers.
WiFi isn’t as safe as they apparently think it is lol
If the SSID you connect to is unique enough, there’s a site that can literally pinpoint your location. If you have any other SSIDs around you, it’s basically guaranteed. That’s why there’s a bunch of apps that log the SSIDs around you, to get your location without having to ask.
That’s not even considering the entire rest of WiFi that’s not anonymous
If you randomize your Mac address (which is default on GrapheneOS and Fedora now) you are pretty anonymous to the wifi network.
Of course websites see where you are, they always do that. Use Tor or a VPN.
More importantly, you don’t need to be on an airplane to use airplane mode.
All the comments about technical details and practical details…
Are we forgetting that when dealing with millions of people, plus bureaucracy, in a potential death risk, it’s worth being slow and cautious about relaxing former safety rules.
That was my understanding, that once upon a time it was legitimately feared that mobile phones could caused accidents (and thought they had indeed caused one). So, besides the other issues people have highlighted in the comments, to walk back from the safety rule of turn-them-off is a slow process.
Commercial air travel is not known for going, “ah, it’s probably fine, don’t worry;” except in the case of emergency exit door bolts.
Also, I’d like to add:
You don’t need to use airplane mode on airplanes
… Please do follow the rules, and do what the cabin crew ask you to do. Otherwise, even if you don’t directly endanger the plane, you make it harder for them to do their jobs and keep everyone safe.
Ive always forgotten to set this anyway. No planes taken down so far (but it will drain your battery)
Why don’t they just call it “avoiding people” mode instead
Then why flight attendant says “switch your devices to flight mode”? It was a week ago in domestic european flight.
They usually only ask you to do so for take off and landing. Also based on experience from a European flight
In my country, 2G phones could interfere with radios with that da-dada-da-dada sound. I know people who have personally had that happen to them while trying to land airliners and it made listening to ATC more difficult.
I don’t think it’s an issue anymore though.
That’s because phones and airplanes were operating on the same frequency. They don’t do that anymore… in part because there’s a dozen phones on every flight that haven’t been put in airplane mode.
Definitely not an issue in the US anymore. T-Mobile is the last carrier to support 2G and they’re shutting that down in April this year. I think most Android phones explicitly disable 2G now too because it’s not secure.
Mine has it disabled, but available if I want to enable it (with a security warning.)
Mine had it disabled by default, but still available for emergency calls, and the option to enable it.
I feel like this has been common knowledge. Airplane mode is more about “we don’t want some asshole talking to their client on the phone while we are trying to do the safety briefing and take off”
Last time i forgot and the phone connected to “aeromobile”. Would have cost me a packet if i had left roaming data on
That problem relates to landing an airplane with a 5G tower near the airport. Nothing to do with passenger phones.
And honestly it’s a faulty radio in the airplane. They shouldn’t be disrupted by 5G towers at all… but Boeing doesn’t want to pay for replacement parts and neither do the airlines.
I didn’t make any claims to the effect. In fact, I wanted to make it clear that even these worries over 5G towers aren’t really relevant or a reason to keep such a claim alive. There is no need to take my word for it. The FAA has already covered it.
Thanks for rendering my little private rebellion worthless. It’s all I had left.
