WLAN icon showing signal strength

[runestone]

Sorry for pointing out the obvious, but why doesnt the WLAN icon in the status bar change with the signal strength? This is the case with the Ipod touch WLAN icon for example.

Is it hard to implement? I guess not, since when you tap the icon once you get a signal bar that updates quite fast.

Is it to do with battery life? Maybe, but then there should be an option to enabled it.

Does anyone have a hack/deb file already?

Thanks for your input.

[theflew]

I would imagine it is to save CPU cycles since knowing your wifi strength doesn't buy you much once connected. On the iPhone it can switch to the cell network for data communications so it's important to know wifi strength.

[linux_author]

I would imagine it is to save CPU cycles since knowing your wifi strength doesn't buy you much once connected. On the iPhone it can switch to the cell network for data communications so it's important to know wifi strength.

- hmm... i wonder how many cycles would be expended on polling (icon updating) once every four or five seconds?

- i have found the wifiinfo gui w/its adjustable polling to be handy in a few instances, but then again, signal strengths are also available in the 'Select Connection' dialog...

[Benson]

I would imagine it is to save CPU cycles since knowing your wifi strength doesn't buy you much once connected. On the iPhone it can switch to the cell network for data communications so it's important to know wifi strength.

Well, here you can switch to the BT connection (if you have one configured, anyway), so it seems equally useful. But I'd like to be able to see it, too, as an option.

[GeneralAntilles]

- hmm... i wonder how many cycles would be expended on polling (icon updating) once every four or five seconds?


Polling sounds like a bad plan. Seems to me there should be a dbus signal for it.

[sashabe]

For example, RSS applet seems to consume CPU cycles during scrolling. So saving CPU may not be the aim of tablet developers.) And I find it useful to know the current Wifi signal strength too.

[TA-t3]

For example, RSS applet seems to consume CPU cycles during scrolling. So saving CPU may not be the aim of tablet developers.[..] Believe me, saving CPU (or specifically, battery) is extremely high on the (Nokia) tablet developers' list. So much so that there have been several problems over the last months due to the introduction of too aggressive power saving features (e.g. SD card corruption, networking problems). They're getting fixed too, fortunately. As for the OS2008 RSS CPU usage problem - that looks like a recently introduced bug that'll probably get fixed at some stage.

[sashabe]

OK, I believe you:) Anyhow, saving battery should be on the first place on priority scale. Just it's kinda strange that the wifi icon with graduations depicted on it doesn't actually "work", considering usefulness of such functionality.

[tz1]

It is strange, but when inactive they power down the entire connection, so probably can't get a signal strength. What would be nice though would be to indicate it was connected but asleep, but when it was connected, the connection strength as this should be available just by reading it when it is on.

(It is actually an annoyance at times - I can't ssh in unless the connection is awake).