WLAN-o-Matic is an Android app that aims to save you battery life by tackling one of the most power-hungry features on our smartphones these days; WiFi. Now, there’s no denying WiFi is great, after all it saves our data allowance when we’re at home, it makes downloading big games and updates viable and it’s much better for streaming media on tablets. However, we don’t need it on all the time, and when your phone is blaring out looking for a WiFi network you could be leaking information out there. WLAN-o-Matic both stops sniffers picking up your data, as well as saving your battery life through WiFi but also through the likes of Bluetooth and mobile data. It’s an app that does all of this automatically, and once you’ve set it up once, you can go ahead and use your device as normal. Read on to see just how and what WLAN-o-Matic can help you with.
As with all other apps on Android, you’ll need to download WLAN-o-Matic from the Play Store. There are free and Pro versions available, with the Pro Version offering extra features like widgets as well as removing ads. Once you’ve downloaded WLAN-o-Matic from the Play Store, you’ll be introduced to a sort of welcome notice once you launch the app.
It seems that there’s something important for Lollipop users to take note of before they get too involved in the app. After you’ve read the welcome notice, you can go ahead and start tinkering around with the settings. There are “Controls” which are essentially like profiles as I see them. Each control will change something different depending on the criteria.
There are some already included and setup, like the screen off control. You choose which you’d like to turn off when the screen is off. I’ve chosen just WiFi for now, as I use Bluetooth for my Moto 360 and I have 4G at home, luckily. What I was more interested in doing however, was being to create my own controls. WLAN-o-Matic is designed to help me save battery, and when I go out for the evening, I need to make sure I have a phone to ring a cab or just in case something happens, so I’ll set up a time-based control here to save battery.
As a battery saving app, I admire WLAN-o-Matic for not trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes. WiFi, Mobile Data and Bluetooth are very real battery guzzlers, so automatically disabling those to save battery makes a whole lot of sense. There’s also some neat network information that you get along with it.
Over time, you will start to see statistics in WLAN-o-Matic and how much time the app has saved your battery from using WiFi, Bluetooth or automatic sync.
Being able to save all this battery life sounds great, and it’ll definitely helped stem the tide if you jump from WiFi hotspot to hotspot, but this means that you need to have a persistent notification which logs all the time it’s been running. There’s noway to sugarcoat this; it’s annoying. Having said that, you don’t always need to use WLAN-o-Matic and indeed, you’re not encouraged to. It’s easily turned off and on, and the controls are setup so that you can turn on WLAN-o-Matic in certain situations and turn it off when battery life isn’t a concern.
I have reviewed countless battery saving apps here at Android Headlines, and while some of them are better than others, there’s a common theme amongst them all; that they think killing apps is the answer. It isn’t, stopping big chunks of battery from being used in the first place is the answer and WLAN-o-Matic covers all those bases. WLAN-o-Matic stops WiFi, Bluetooth and mobile data from running, some of the most power-intensive features on any Android device. Auto-sync is a big drain as well, as you can use the controls in WLAN-o-Matic to control that, too. I liked being able to create my own controls, and on the whole I think this is not only a safer way to save battery, but also one that absolutely delivers on its promise. I really don’t like the persistent notification, but it’s one of those things that probably needs to be there to satisfy Android’s little quirks. Either way, this genuinely saves battery and as KAIBITS Software has a great track record with network apps, it also informs you about your network, too.
Ratings
- Speed (4/5) – WLAN-o-Matic runs just fine, and it didn’t have any adverse affect on my device’s performance, either.
- Features (4/5) – As battery saving apps go, this is one of the few that doesn’t just make things up, and it also offers an insight into your network strength, too.
- Theme (3.5/5) – The user interface looks decent enough, but the persistent notification can be annoying and it’s one less notification I could do without on my watch.
- Overall (4/5) – WLAN-o-Matic promises to save battery by tackling hardware that drains battery life, and it definitely does just that. It also offers a nice insight into how strong a signal you’re getting from your network.
Pros
- WLAN-o-Matic is easy to use and it does exactly what it says it does; saves you battery life!
- Ability to create your own “controls” is nice and it offers users the ability to craft an experience all their own.
- Doesn’t try to be a fancy task-killer like other apps that try to save battery, it just gets results.
- Offers a neat insight into your networks as well as save you battery.
Cons
- Persistent notification is both annoying and questionable as to why it’s there.
- Tutorial on what sort of controls to create make sense would be helpful for some less tech-savvy users.
All-in-all, WLAN-o-Matic is an Android app that gets results. having WiFi turned on all day when you’re not connected to a network is not only unsafe, but also an unnecessary battery drain. The same can be said of Bluetooth as well as mobile data if you’re trying to eke out the last remains of your battery. Being able to have this automatically shut down when you say is a great idea, and one that definitely saves on battery life.