Does Tasker take advantace of Wifi - Scanning always available?

[Roberto Fabrizi]

I was just wondering how the WiFi near is implemented on cells that support the Scanning always available advanced wifi option. 

My understanding is that the check is done by periodically turning wifi on and off, but that is not really needed on devices that support the Scanning always available option.

Does Tasker use that if available? 

Thanks,

Roberto

[Cptnodegard]

Never heard of that option, but every Android device I have seen allows you to allow WiFi to always be on, never sleep, in which case at least WiFi Connected will work. I don't use WiFi Near so can't comment on that

[Roberto Fabrizi]

You can see it here for example: 

[Pent]

 I remember someone reporting that it did work, you could get updates without the Toggle option.

For certainty, you could try yourself.

Pent

[CoolRaoul]

Apparently tasker is able to use this feature accordintg to the online help

http://tasker.dinglisch.net/userguide/en/help/sh_index.html

(search paragraph Wifi Near")

Toggle Wifi: if Wifi on the device is disabled, enable it for the period of the scan, probably around 15 seconds. Toggling cannot take place when the Wifi Tether (Hotspot) is enabled on the device. On Android 4.3+ devices, consider enabling Scanning Always Available in Android advanced wifi settings, instead of toggling

[UncleMike]

That was me.  I tested it out of curiosity, but I don't use it in any of my profiles.

[Pent]

In the current stable version, Tasker doesn't actually look at this flag, but the
way it's coded the flag should still provide some power gain.

In the current beta (next stable) version, Tasker checks the flag and
behaves accordingly, which should result in some more gains
(if maybe not very significant).

Pent

[Roberto Fabrizi]

Not sure that I'm following. Tasker current version on play store does work in combo with that option, I have a At home profile with Wifi Near my own wifi and no toggle wifi enabled, yet when I get back home with the Wifi disabled the At home profile does become active, therefore it works just fine with it atm

[UncleMike]

The list of nearby APs updated by Android when this option is enabled is available to Tasker, so there's no real benefit to using the "toggle wifi" option in Tasker if your version of Android has this feature and you've enabled it.  I think what Pent is planning is to look for this setting in Android and, if it's enabled, ignore Tasker's "toggle wifi" option since there would be no benefit to turning Wifi on, but if the setting either doesn't exist or is disabled in Android, then Tasker's "toggle wifi" option will be used accordingly, turning on wifi (or not, depending on the setting) to refresh the list of nearby APs.

[Pent]

Not sure that I'm following. Tasker current version on play store does work in combo with that option

I didn't say it didn't, just that it can work better by actually looking at the setting and acting appropriately.

Pent

[Gary Sargent]

So previously it was recommended to have a "cell near" as well as a "wifi near" since the cell near was a less expensive operation than turning the wifi on for a quick scan - so best to do a rough are we close, then do a wifi scan.

 

With the new Android 4.3+ wifi scanning always available turned on - should we now remove those "cell near" conditions, since it is just wasted processing since the phone already has the AP list anyway and we can just use WiFi Near (with wifi toggling off).

 

Does that make sense?

 

Thanks.