WiGLE.net

Hello,
i compared some phones in the past and so far the Samsung S20 is "the best" for me, see here: viewtopic.php?t=2498#p11121

Now i have the Pixel 9 Pro and its so bad im wondering if i do something wrong, or the phone is broken

A comparison between the S20 and the P9Pro, both on the dashboard from a car, driving a bit around.
List showing the total found items for Wifi, Bluetooth and Cells:
S20 W: 3359 B: 1544 C: 100
P9Pro W: 550 B:1628 C: 100

The Pixel 9 Pro is about 6x worse than the S20, thats a difference i have never seen before comparing phones.

Bluetooth and Cells look good.

Yes i have the developer options active and scan throttle off, is there anything else i can do?

Does somebody here also have a P9? or other Pixel with good results?

The last 2 security updates from Google have effected many Pixel phones. You are not the only person that had a pixel go from their best performer to their worst.

August 5, 2024 first update turned my pixel 6 into the worst performing phone in my setup.

September 5, 2024 second security update that many people started to notice pixel performance drops.

Haven't heard of any resolutions to the problem. Aside from downgrading to previous versions of Android on unlocked phones, Verizon still locks the phones and the process to get them unlocked is a tedious one. Or installing grapheneOS which I'm told resolves those issues.

that does not sound good

But i might have found a little hope today

Did the same thing again (with some more phones), and on the last bit i enabled "keep screen active" on the p9. That had a effect Right at the start the P9 is faster, then it goes into sleep or something, some sort of battery safer?
Lastly with the screen on it starts catching up to the S20

Thats it so far, will continue in the next days

Good find, I will have to run some tests with the screen set to stay on.

The Pixel 6 is still beast-mode for BlueTooth, so it's a bummer Google busted something in the past couple updates. There's very little detail on what was fixed -- would we be able to suss out any of the changes in the ASOP release code? I've never gone spelunking there before...

i can confirm now that "screen on" solves the problem.
How usable that is, is another topic...

Data from a short run, all 3 phones on the dashboard from a car:
S10: Wifi: 2250 Cells: 25 Bluetooth: 1054
S20: Wifi: 2542 Cells: 28 Bluetooth: 1204
P9: Wifi: 2737 Cells: 48 Bluetooth: 1175

so the Pixel 9 holds now 1st place in my phone fleet, but only when i can let the screen on.

Plot with the data shows how many more scans the P9 makes:

Hey @arkasha does this give any leads for a code-solution to the Pixel issues, or do we just need a user advisory to enable “Keep screen on” for best results?

it's not even a major version release - I don't even know that this is a documented Android change / something we can code around.

I took a look at the AOSP information at https://source.android.com/docs/securit ... 2024-09-01 and it looks a lot like out of bounds write fixes aplenty in the Quallcomm WLAN code for September. Similar for August patches - https://source.android.com/docs/securit ... 2024-08-01

I'm not smart enough to know if any of that would impact what we are seeing, but maybe someone else has a nose for the news in the of the details.

i can confirm now that "screen on" solves the problem.
How usable that is, is another topic...

Data from a short run, all 3 phones on the dashboard from a car:
S10: Wifi: 2250 Cells: 25 Bluetooth: 1054
S20: Wifi: 2542 Cells: 28 Bluetooth: 1204
P9: Wifi: 2737 Cells: 48 Bluetooth: 1175

so the Pixel 9 holds now 1st place in my phone fleet, but only when i can let the screen on.

Plot with the data shows how many more scans the P9 makes:
p9_screenon.PNG

Are the numbers from the phones displayed on the dashboard? Or the numbers are after you uploaded them to wigle and they were parsed? Are you uploading the phones with the highest displayed found nets first or randomly uploading whichever phone you grab first?

I did a mult-hour run today with my Pixel 6 and set the screen config in the WigleNet app to "Keep screen on". It definitely did better for discovered WiFi than when the screen was allowed to sleep. The upload file is in the Wigle.net queue so we'll see how it compares to several other devices. I als had it in my pocket for several hours at an event, and while the screen was off (as I had hit the power button on the device), we'll have to see how it did based on the app setting saying keep the screen ON.

Are the numbers from the phones displayed on the dashboard? Or the numbers are after you uploaded them to wigle and they were parsed? Are you uploading the phones with the highest displayed found nets first or randomly uploading whichever phone you grab first?

This are the "# in File" numbers from the upload page. So the total found in that given run.


Another find from today is that it also kind of works if you plug in power. But not as good as with screen on. The wifi count is ~ same between S20 and P9Pro, Bluetooth is way worse, Cells are same.

So something is up with the Radios in the Pixel phones depending on the "Sleep state" i would say

A couple of drives now seeing 'normal' results with the Pixel 6 after setting "Keep screen on" in the app options on the main screen menu.

I made the setting change while the P6 was showing 1 WiFi network and it instantly jumped to 11 networks seen. As noted before, it appears you can hit the power button to power off the screen and things remain happy.

Very odd, but happy to have a work-around for the issue!

So, is anyone experiencing this using a carrier OTHER than Verizon?

My Pixel 6 has no SIM, and was purchased unlocked, so I don't think it's beholden to Verizon. Any specific setting or model numbers that would be useful to collect?

So, is anyone experiencing this using a carrier OTHER than Verizon?

yes me, no Verizon where i live...


I cannot get the trick to work where i start with keep screen alive and then lock it with the button. As soon as the screen goes dark the phone goes in this limp mode.

It is running now Android 15, but nothing has changed for me, with screen on all is great, screen off and its not worth to start it