What's New With Android 8.0 Oreo Part 15: Automatically turn Wi-Fi on near known networks

Android 8.0 Oreo makes many significant changes to the operating system, both under the hood and in the user interface. There are also a few minor features that aren't easy to find, especially ones that are part of stock Oreo and not exclusive to Samsung devices. One of these minor features is a new option in Wi-Fi settings that, when enabled, turns on Wi-Fi whenever the device is near a saved Wi-Fi network.

What's New With Android 8.0 Oreo: Wi-Fi turns itself on near known networks

This works through location tracking; the device keeps track of where each saved Wi-Fi network is located. It's a nifty feature, especially if you have ever forgotten to turn the Wi-Fi back on when you reach home after turning it off to avoid connecting to those saved public Wi-Fi networks that you don't want to log in to. Of course, it's also useful if you tend to turn Wi-Fi off to save battery juice when away from home or office, although the location tracking involved in making the Wi-Fi detection work is bound to negate any benefits that you'd benefit from disabling Wi-Fi.

But the feature works well, and the OS also notifies you each time it adds a particular Wi-Fi network to the list of saved networks. It's disabled by default, and to enable it on a Galaxy S8 running the Oreo beta, you need to go into the phone's settings, tap Connections, tap Wi-Fi, then go into advanced Wi-Fi settings by tapping the three-dot button on the top right. Here, toggle the Toggle on Wi-Fi automatically option. Naturally, keeping Wi-Fi on is recommended until the phone learns the location of your most frequently used networks.

To see more of what Android 8.0 Oreo brings to Samsung devices, check out our What's New With Android 8.0 Oreo series.

Abhijeet Mishra - Editor-in-Chief

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First Samsung device: SGH-D500

Abhijeet's writing career started with guides for custom firmware for Samsung devices (including the original Galaxy S), and he moved to SamMobile in mid-2013 and worked up the ranks to Editor-in-chief. In addition to phones and mobile devices, his interests include gaming on both PC and console, PC hardware, and spending countless hours on YouTube watching videos on tech, movies, games, politics, and internet dramas.

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