Updates for both Android and PC are now available. On Android, new WiFi power policies permit the device to automatically reconnect to your WiFi even while the display is off, increasing the sync reliability for users that are not periodically checking their devices.
As announced earlier, I worked on improving the reliability on Android. As the operating system tries to save power by turning the WiFi off while the device is not used, sync connections are massively affected by Android's default power policy.
Even with previous versions of GeneralSync you can modify Android's power saving features to fit your personal usage by changing the "WiFi Power Policy" in the preferences. In addition to the current options, GeneralSync now features two new, more intelligent policies:
Protect sync operations – This mode still permits Android to disable your WiFi, but will wait for pending transmissions by GeneralSync.
Reconnect periodically – In addition to protecting pending transmissions, GeneralSync will wake the WiFi adapter in periodic intervals and attempt to reconnect to a saved network. After performing a synchronization, the device will disconnect form the network and go back to sleep.
For now, the new default setting is "reconnect periodically", as my internal tests did not show a big effect on battery life. However, it greatly improves sync reliability towards devices that are permanently connected to the network, such as PCs. In addition, the "higher" policies now also attempt to reconnect periodically.
Due to these changes, both the lowest (Android standard) and the highest policy (keep WiFi powered at all times) are no longer recommended, as the lowest may cause sync connections to be forcefully terminated and the highest greatly increases battery usage without providing much of a benefit. If you – for whatever reason – still wish to use these obsolete policies, you now need to switch to the advanced settings through the action bar.
Please note that all WiFi policies require hardware support: GeneralSync cannot determine whether your hardware will actually perform the requested actions.
In addition, some minor flaws have been fixed in this new version for Android (0.2.4.1b) and the maintenance release for PC (0.1.3.4b).
I expect these new versions to become available on the release channel within a few weeks.
Happy Syncing!
Update (1.3.2017): The beta versions have been bumped, fixing compatibility issues with Oracle's JVM on Windows and Samsung's default calendar app.
Update (7.3.2017): The versions have been pushed to the release channel.
Last edited by ds (2017-03-07 02:26:32)
