Pixel 9 (Pro) its so bad, wow...
Ouch, I've been side-by-siding my new Pixel 9 with my venerable Samsung Z-flip 3 for the last 24 hours.
- Throttle disabled
- Settings same or faster for scan speed
- "Keep Screen On" with a button push afterward to avoid burning up my battery immediately.
- ZFlip has an immense database from years of running (vs. the clean new Pixel 9)
The Z Flip 3 is seeing LITERALLY 3x as many WiFi networks as the new hotness. Google has absolutely nerfed these things to death.
- Throttle disabled
- Settings same or faster for scan speed
- "Keep Screen On" with a button push afterward to avoid burning up my battery immediately.
- ZFlip has an immense database from years of running (vs. the clean new Pixel 9)
The Z Flip 3 is seeing LITERALLY 3x as many WiFi networks as the new hotness. Google has absolutely nerfed these things to death.
Can you try withOUT the power button push -- as I've done more comparisons it does seem the damn screen has to be ON on for things to behave as we've been used to.
I will, but it's pretty impractical for me, as a distance runner - I can't exactly leave it screen-on, plugged in.
Alright WiFriends, new thing to check (maybe everyone here has already done this, and I'm late to the party- just got a recent pixel last week).
Apparently the recent Android updates started enforcing the new battery optimization system.
1. under the app battery settings for the WiGLE WiFi Wardriving app, you'll get a single row: "Allow background usage" followed by a toggle.
2. Tap the TEXT (not the toggle!) to get to the second menu, where you can permit the application "Unrestricted" background permission (effectively turning off the now-default "Optimized" behavior)
3. Restart your phone, launch the app, and rock on.
Performance is still not AS GOOD as my top stumbling phones, but it's far less grim than it was before.
Apparently the recent Android updates started enforcing the new battery optimization system.
1. under the app battery settings for the WiGLE WiFi Wardriving app, you'll get a single row: "Allow background usage" followed by a toggle.
2. Tap the TEXT (not the toggle!) to get to the second menu, where you can permit the application "Unrestricted" background permission (effectively turning off the now-default "Optimized" behavior)
3. Restart your phone, launch the app, and rock on.
Performance is still not AS GOOD as my top stumbling phones, but it's far less grim than it was before.
Setting changed, phone rebooted, looking forward to giving this a try!
Seeking confirmation:
if you look at your phone's net.wigle.wigleandroid logcat messages (requires an app or an IDE+cable) after a long run with one of these nerfed phones, do you see a lot of:
blocks? It seems like maybe Google's patch isn't letting Android write or write enough with the screen off.
if you look at your phone's net.wigle.wigleandroid logcat messages (requires an app or an IDE+cable) after a long run with one of these nerfed phones, do you see a lot of:
Code: Select all
culling pending queue. size: 512
culled pending queue. size now: 512
pending queue still full, couldn't add: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
Curious to see how this turns out 
I did this now to the P9P and yes it helps a lot. Thanks!1. under the app battery settings for the WiGLE WiFi Wardriving app, you'll get a single row: "Allow background usage" followed by a toggle.
2. Tap the TEXT (not the toggle!) to get to the second menu, where you can permit the application "Unrestricted" background permission (effectively turning off the now-default "Optimized" behavior)
3. Restart your phone, launch the app, and rock on.
With the unrestricted background permission it is about even with a S10. It is still loosing against a S20, but not as much as before.
I would have never found this magic second menu, what a hidden thing...
It's still a puzzle - there's a dev branch as I've experimented, but there have been a lot of confusing problems and dead-ends here. Darn it, Pixel team, this "optimization" sucks!
Running a bit longer i have mixed results now. Sometimes its ok, but most times its bad 
Cant see a pattern here, the only thing that realy fixes it for me is keeping the screen on
Cant see a pattern here, the only thing that realy fixes it for me is keeping the screen on
tl;dr: LineageOS doesn’t nerf WiFi scanning and installing it can restore WiGLE performance for Pixel devices.
I decided to run an experiment with my Pixel 6. We know that Google has nerfed WiFi scanning with the screen off. Given that devices from other manufacturers do not seem to exhibit this behavior, I decided to test whether this was firmware based or OS based. I admit that this isn’t a truly scientific approach (sample size of one device, run on a single day, compared against a different device), but I figured I would share my method and results.
I decided to install LineageOS (LOS) on my device. I followed the instructions on the LOS wiki, in my case at https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/oriole/install/, to install the OS on my phone. This does require setting up ADB and fastboot on a PC and typing commands into a terminal. Part of the process involves unlocking the bootloader which breaks device verification, meaning functions like tap to pay, banking apps, and some DRM fail to function properly. As this is not my daily driver phone, so I was willing to make some concessions to trade off on better WiGLE performance.
Installation went fairly smoothly, although the latest build failed to install properly. My solution was to use the previous build, then update to the latest build. I also installed the latest available Google Play runtime available from MindTheGapps. What resulted was my Pixel 6 running LOS 22.2 (Android 15) build 20250421.
I went through the setup process, logged into Google Play, downloaded all the app updates, then installed WiGLE. I logged into my account, enabled developer settings to turn off WiFi Scan Throttling, and disabled battery optimizations for WiGLE.
I took my Pixel out on Saturday for Operation Wigle Meltdown. For comparison, I am using my primary phone, a Samsung Galaxy S24+ running Android 15. Both devices were in cell phone holders mounted to the front windshield, the S24 on the driver side, and the P6 on the passenger side. For the compared uploads, the timeframe was very close on both phones.
The major differences in conditions between the two is that I did leave my car on a few occasions over the several hours and took my S24 with me (into a restaurant, inside an apartment building on a busy street), but moved the P6 into the glove box. The Pixel ran off battery and had the screen off nearly the entire run, where my S24 had the screen on, and was plugged in via USB for Android Auto.
Now, the results that I think you all want to see. My S24 saw a total of 81,629 BSSIDs on WiFi, where the Pixel 6 saw 73,100. A not insignificant portion of this difference can be explained by me carrying the S24 outside the vehicle for a period of time while the P6 was in a glove box. Further still, I have always seen higher numbers on the S24 than on this Pixel 6. Given the truly abysmal performance that I had experienced prior to this test, this is an amazing result!
If you want to make the best use of your hardware and you can accept the tradeoffs that come with running a third party OS, LineageOS might be a good fit for you. Looking at their wiki, it seems that they support all Pixel devices with the exception of the 9a. For a secondary device like in my case, it is a no-brainer in my opinion.
I decided to run an experiment with my Pixel 6. We know that Google has nerfed WiFi scanning with the screen off. Given that devices from other manufacturers do not seem to exhibit this behavior, I decided to test whether this was firmware based or OS based. I admit that this isn’t a truly scientific approach (sample size of one device, run on a single day, compared against a different device), but I figured I would share my method and results.
I decided to install LineageOS (LOS) on my device. I followed the instructions on the LOS wiki, in my case at https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/oriole/install/, to install the OS on my phone. This does require setting up ADB and fastboot on a PC and typing commands into a terminal. Part of the process involves unlocking the bootloader which breaks device verification, meaning functions like tap to pay, banking apps, and some DRM fail to function properly. As this is not my daily driver phone, so I was willing to make some concessions to trade off on better WiGLE performance.
Installation went fairly smoothly, although the latest build failed to install properly. My solution was to use the previous build, then update to the latest build. I also installed the latest available Google Play runtime available from MindTheGapps. What resulted was my Pixel 6 running LOS 22.2 (Android 15) build 20250421.
I went through the setup process, logged into Google Play, downloaded all the app updates, then installed WiGLE. I logged into my account, enabled developer settings to turn off WiFi Scan Throttling, and disabled battery optimizations for WiGLE.
I took my Pixel out on Saturday for Operation Wigle Meltdown. For comparison, I am using my primary phone, a Samsung Galaxy S24+ running Android 15. Both devices were in cell phone holders mounted to the front windshield, the S24 on the driver side, and the P6 on the passenger side. For the compared uploads, the timeframe was very close on both phones.
The major differences in conditions between the two is that I did leave my car on a few occasions over the several hours and took my S24 with me (into a restaurant, inside an apartment building on a busy street), but moved the P6 into the glove box. The Pixel ran off battery and had the screen off nearly the entire run, where my S24 had the screen on, and was plugged in via USB for Android Auto.
Now, the results that I think you all want to see. My S24 saw a total of 81,629 BSSIDs on WiFi, where the Pixel 6 saw 73,100. A not insignificant portion of this difference can be explained by me carrying the S24 outside the vehicle for a period of time while the P6 was in a glove box. Further still, I have always seen higher numbers on the S24 than on this Pixel 6. Given the truly abysmal performance that I had experienced prior to this test, this is an amazing result!
If you want to make the best use of your hardware and you can accept the tradeoffs that come with running a third party OS, LineageOS might be a good fit for you. Looking at their wiki, it seems that they support all Pixel devices with the exception of the 9a. For a secondary device like in my case, it is a no-brainer in my opinion.
This is awesome, thanks for posting! My Pixel 6 is only used for wardriving so any collateral loss is irrelevant to my quest. I shall have to find time to try this out very soon.
Return to “Net Hugging Hardware and Software”
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest