WiGLE.net

I have a Motorola Droid 2 that I was using just for Wigle (no cell service), but lately it won't get a GPS lock. Are there any recommendations for low cost Android phones that could be picked up on eBay that work great with Wigle. I'm looking for something that doesn't take a year to get GPS lock and has serious battery life. Also if you had one of the CDMA/GSM world phones would that detect both towers?

Pixel 4as aren't too bad, but if you want a real budget pick, and older Pixel used on ebay might be a good purchase!

I have a Motorola Droid 2 that I was using just for Wigle (no cell service), but lately it won't get a GPS lock. Are there any recommendations for low cost Android phones that could be picked up on eBay that work great with Wigle. I'm looking for something that doesn't take a year to get GPS lock and has serious battery life. Also if you had one of the CDMA/GSM world phones would that detect both towers?

I'm looking for something as well.. But it seems whatever I use it drains the battery really quick. Is this normal or not?

generally its pretty battery friendly - most "new" phones I have can use it for hours on end, and the pixel 5 can run it all day. Have you changed the settings to scan as quickly as possible?

My little Samsung Core Prime will run 8+ hours as long as it doesn't get too warm. It is slow to GPS lock, but not more than 2 minutes usually.

My S7 Edge easily runs for 4-5 hours on battery, have to keep the screen off on that one for better life. It'll get a GPS lock in my basement office in less than 10 seconds, very quick!

I recommend the Samsung S5. I use one as my personal phone.

Stock Android supports VOLTE, custom roms don't. You might not be able to make calls with it past 2022.

It's had continuous LineageOS support for about half a decade. Street value $50-$100, cheap OEM batteries, has all the radios. The only model you should get in North America is the SM-G900T. All of them have unlocked bootloaders and it generally has the most useful 4G bands. "A" model is locked and "V" model is 50/50 depending on whether the phone came with exploitable hardware.

I have recently brought brand new xiaomi not 5 pro.GBWhatsApp I think it is the most suitable android phone for Wiglewifi with advanced connectivity and processor.

None of what the previous answers suggests matters. Manufacturers build phones in batches, each batch will differ depending on how well the manufacturing machines are calibrated. 2 Samsung S9 phones from 2 different batches will display 2 different results from the antennas and the bluetooth. Another consideration is that all because the phone is a newer version that doesn't mean it will be better at wifi or bluetooth scanning.

Tested numerous android phones at Intel, tested 10+ android phones on my own. There is no defacto best android phone for wardriving.

It's a moving target, too! Hardware gets better and more versatile, and OS/driver updates can make previously-good or previously-bad devices behave very differently

One observation: there's a "sweet spot" beyond which the very size of your local database can slow the device; beware trying to data-hoard on an individual phone, vs. exporting your observations or backing up your individual device SQLite databases to a computer that's faster and more powerful than your phone. Obviously, we think you should upload to WiGLE.net (shameless plug), but if you prefer to keep your data to yourself, you can still do a lot more with it on more powerful computers.

Apologies for necro'ing this post, but if I may ask a perhaps silly question, is it the Android version or hardware limitations that generally cause slow scan times for Wi-Fi/BT?

It's a pile of things:

Old radios/drivers/OSes might just not tune as fast (and so don't scan as quickly)
Driver versions can have a huge impact, making previously slow phones fast and vice versa on upgrade
Android 9 throttles WiFi scan speed (and is hard to de-throttle)
Android 10 and up also throttle scanning, but if you activate developer mode, you can turn that off.

Cheers,

-a

It's a pile of things:

Old radios/drivers/OSes might just not tune as fast (and so don't scan as quickly)
Driver versions can have a huge impact, making previously slow phones fast and vice versa on upgrade
Android 9 throttles WiFi scan speed (and is hard to de-throttle)
Android 10 and up also throttle scanning, but if you activate developer mode, you can turn that off.

Cheers,

-a

Thanks for that, Arkasha. Besides Android 9 and assuming that the throttle (if present) was disabled, is there any "best" Android version for wardriving? Or would the actual impact of the version itself be mostly minimal, and it is the internal drivers and age of the Wi-Fi module primarily affecting things?

Maybe phone models, but not necessarily OS versions. Just remember to disable throttling on 10 and up.

Just remember to disable throttling on 10 and up.

This is how I found out my phones been throttling my scans. I knew it wasnt getting as many as I thought there were but at least I know now hundreds of miles down the roads rather than thousands. Thanks arkasha!

I have an android phone, it's a five year old model and when it gets hot it shuts down the apps I'm using on its own, even it can't turn on location now, is there a way to fix this? I need navigation badly when I'm out and about. And I can't replace my phone at the moment.
https://yowhatsapp.org

Thanks in advance, and sorry for the intrusion.