Android Pie’s latest change is causing throttling of WiFi scan with multiple network applications
Google released its latest Android OS, Android Pie final for Pixel and Pixel 2 series. Google has made lot of improvements on its mobile operating system including the enhancement of overall battery usage on Android. However, the latest iteration is causing throttling of WiFi scan with multiple network applications.
Google in the new Android Pie OS has put a limitation on the frequency that an app can use in the mobile platform’s WiFi scanning feature. Google in its issue tracker responding to the cause confirmed that the latest update to Android limits WiFi scan functionality for both foreground and background applications. The Mountain View company further mentioned that the WiFi Scan for each foreground app is restricted to 4 scans every two minutes, while all background apps combined are restricted to one scan every 30 minutes.
“We are further limiting the number of scans apps can request to improve network performance and improve battery life,” Google noted in its issue tracker thread.
XDA Developers have cited that while this might be a ‘decent way’ to alleviate battery usage, it will likely have a negative effect. The report mentioning some of the popular network apps like WiFi Analyser and WiGLE a Wardriving app said that the change might make these type of apps useless, and it will reduce the scan rate by minimum 30x. Google in its issue tracker thread explained how the WiFi scan throttling is determined. Google has not mentioned as of when it will provide a solution for the issue, however, it did hold off the issue for consideration in the next Android release in the near future.