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[PhilipD]

Hi

I've got several android devices connected to the ZyXEL Wi-Fi, and have for a while noticed my Android phone on Wi-Fi drains battery quite quickly sat idle compared to at the office or when Wi-Fi is off and it is using the mobile network.  The phone seems to spend a lot of time awake at home on Wi-Fi which drains the battery.

So after a Google around I tried an app called Network Log, and can see the phone is constantly receiving various broadcast messages many times a second which keeps waking the phone when on the home network.  A lot were NETBIOS broadcasts as the Wireless LAN and LAN are all as one.  At work we connect via a guest network which has all devices isolated from the LAN and each other, and I see no broadcast traffic on the phone, so it isn't constantly woken and explains the differences between work and home battery consumption.

So I head off into the ZyXEL settings and change the Wi-Fi network to Guest mode to isolate it, however while this isolates devices from each other, broadcast traffic is still received, so not much help and not my definition of guest mode.

Next try, under interfaces I create a new one and just add in the Wi-Fi network, then under Home networking it allows adding another subnet for the new interface, this has now stopped all the NETBIOS type traffic, these remain on 192.168.1.0 and don't find their way to the second subnet of 192.168.2.0, however IGMP broadcasts are constantly being made from the router (src is shown as 192.168.2.1, the routers second address) to the new subnet.

I've tried all sorts to stop these, including various Iptable entries found over the net.  It doesn't seem possible to add a simple firewall rule via the interface of the ZyXEL as traffic can't be filter going from router to LAN, that option is missing.

So any ideas how to stop IGMP traffic?

Regards

Phil

[jid]

I used to have this issue, I have a TP Link router and access point here, and in the wireless security settings theres a Group Key Interval setting.

Default is 30. Set this to zero and no more battery drain issues



Maybe worth giving this a try, I cannot remember where this was in the Zyxel settings, but I do remember seeing it 

[kitz]

Seeing this made me wonder about my battery life as Ive been mostly home (for a change) for the past few days and not used my mobile phone aside from a couple of texts and one call.  My last recharge was Friday and my battery was at 61%.

Ive just been messing around with it and tried to install Network Log, but as I found it it doesnt work on Samsung Galaxy's unless they are rooted.

Anyhow the point is I dont seem to use hardly any battery if Im at home and I know in the past Ive gone for the best part of a week without having to charge.   Ive been poking in the Zyxel wifi settings.   I have WMM Automatic Power Save Delivery (APSD) switched on and theres lots of other wifi settings that I have no clue what they mean, but most of the wifi type Power Save functions are set to enable on mine.   

Ive just googled DTIM and note that its supposedly something to do with multicast (IGMP) frame intervals and battery conservation so perhaps look further into that one?

[PhilipD]

Hi

I've stepped back and made the settings again, this time just using the guest network with isolation, with IGMP Snooping enabled and Enhanced Multicast enabled, and a reboot of the router and the guest Wi-Fi network no longer has NETBIOS broadcasts on it.  IGMP and enhanced multicast is suppose to be it seems, about learning which devices don't subscribe or respond to broadcasts so the router can shut down broadcasts on that interface or to that device.

That seems to be the case now, with a few broadcasts received for IGMP on first connecting to the Wi-Fi network then they stop. So hopefully the isolated guest network will let the phone slumber more, and this certainly seems to be the case so far looking at the battery stats.

Regards

Phil

[kitz]

Glad that you've managed to sort it