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I recently switched from an older device running CyanogenMod 11 (Android 4.4 / Kitkat) to a newer device running CyanogenMod 13.1 (Android 6.0 / Marshmallow).

Both with this device and with others, I've found that the newer versions of Android are much less willing to connect, or to stay connected, to WiFi networks with a weak signal strength.

I assume that this is due to Android 6.0's renewed focus on reducing power consumption… but it is a problem for me because my device often has a weak WiFi in many parts of my workplace. This was not much of a problem under Android 4.4, but causes me to lose my connection frequently under Android 6.

I remember that stock Android 4.4 had an option to "Avoid wireless connections with poor signal strength" or something to that effect, but there seems to be no such option in Android 6.0.

Any good way to convince newer versions of Android to connect to weak WiFi signals?

UPDATE: Seemingly-related bug report, wherein many other people complain about the removal of the "Avoid poor connections" option. https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=81843

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  • I don't think losing connection have something to do with lowered power consumption, It may be releated to wlan chip so it have less streinght than others. Also I noted that on custom roms range is lower than on stock firmware specially on devices that doesn't officially support x version of android and you have custom rom of that version. – Једноруки Крстивоје Mar 13 '17 at 23:10
  • Why would custom ROMs have a reduced WiFi range as a general matter? This device was officially released with Android 6.0 and I see no reason to think the custom Android 6.0 ROM should be any worse in terms of WiFi support. – Dan Mar 14 '17 at 0:13
  • Because I have expirenced it. I had a phone which when on stock rom could stay connected to particaular network but when I flashed custom rom (6.x) phone couldn't even reach that network, while I was on 4.4.4 custom rom I had a wider range than on stock (4.1.1) and better stability. So it releated to hardware possibilities and than it can be tweaked a little on different versions of software. You can't give to hardware more/less power than normal otherwise you would damge it. What can be releated to battery consumption is if your wifi is turning off when locked. – Једноруки Крстивоје Mar 14 '17 at 1:21
  • If your wifi is losing when you use the phone it's due to hardware (80%) of phone or router whatever you like to say. – Једноруки Крстивоје Mar 14 '17 at 1:23
  • I already have set "Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep = Always". I'm not particularly convinced that custom ROMs in general should be any worse for hardware stability. For the most part their kernels and drivers are built from the AOSP kernel sources, in the same way as official vendor builds are. (I do have a decent amount of experience debugging and building wlan drivers for the mainline Linux kernel.) – Dan Mar 14 '17 at 3:10

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