You Don’t Need to Use Airplane Mode on Airplanes
You Don’t Need to Use Airplane Mode on Airplanes
gizmodo.com
You Don’t Need to Use Airplane Mode on Airplanes
79 comments
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"You have a reminder set for 5pm today," my phone said.
"A reminder? What is it?" I asked.
"It's a notification to ensure you don't forget something, but that's not important right now," the phone replied.
Then I remembered I'd left it in Airplane! mode.
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"5pm today" can also get ambiguous if you're flying across time zones.
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If you keep in flying in the right direction, it could take more that 24 hours until you finally catch 5pm.
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I think it's still worth doing so your phone isn't rapidly trying to connect and disconnect from nearby cell towers as you ascend and descend. Maybe there's already protections in place for this case but it makes sense that it could add a lot of unnecessary strain on certain cell towers.
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This is the primary reason I do it, although more for my battery life than the cell towers.
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I thought that's what the Pico cells are for - each plane has a mini phone tower in it so phones happily connect to that instead of looking for ground stations
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I used to turn Airplane Mode on during my LSD trips many years ago, pretty useful.
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I haven't heard drifting referred to as limited slip differential trips before, but that's good that you aren't texting and drifting.
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Airplane mode is a blessing. If the OS is trustworthy (i.e. FOSS Android) then it actually works, it turns off that crappy unprivate cell connection and you have anonymous Wifi only.
It saves battery and you can use your phone without anyone being able to track you easily.
Btw Google hides the GPS quicksettings toggle for a reason, edit the shortcuts and add it.
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... What? You think WiFi is anonymous?
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WiFi isn't as safe as they apparently think it is lol
If the SSID you connect to is unique enough, there's a site that can literally pinpoint your location. If you have any other SSIDs around you, it's basically guaranteed. That's why there's a bunch of apps that log the SSIDs around you, to get your location without having to ask.
That's not even considering the entire rest of WiFi that's not anonymous
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It can sometimes triangulate you better than the cell towers.
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If you randomize your Mac address (which is default on GrapheneOS and Fedora now) you are pretty anonymous to the wifi network.
Of course websites see where you are, they always do that. Use Tor or a VPN.
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More importantly, you don't need to be on an airplane to use airplane mode.
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Why don't they just call it "avoiding people" mode instead
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All the comments about technical details and practical details...
Are we forgetting that when dealing with millions of people, plus bureaucracy, in a potential death risk, it's worth being slow and cautious about relaxing former safety rules.
That was my understanding, that once upon a time it was legitimately feared that mobile phones could caused accidents (and thought they had indeed caused one). So, besides the other issues people have highlighted in the comments, to walk back from the safety rule of turn-them-off is a slow process.
Commercial air travel is not known for going, "ah, it's probably fine, don't worry;" except in the case of emergency exit door bolts.
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Also, I'd like to add:
You don't need to use airplane mode on airplanes
... Please do follow the rules, and do what the cabin crew ask you to do. Otherwise, even if you don't directly endanger the plane, you make it harder for them to do their jobs and keep everyone safe.
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Ive always forgotten to set this anyway. No planes taken down so far (but it will drain your battery)
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Then why flight attendant says "switch your devices to flight mode"? It was a week ago in domestic european flight.
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They usually only ask you to do so for take off and landing. Also based on experience from a European flight
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I feel like this has been common knowledge. Airplane mode is more about "we don't want some asshole talking to their client on the phone while we are trying to do the safety briefing and take off"
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In my country, 2G phones could interfere with radios with that da-dada-da-dada sound. I know people who have personally had that happen to them while trying to land airliners and it made listening to ATC more difficult.
I don’t think it’s an issue anymore though.
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That's because phones and airplanes were operating on the same frequency. They don't do that anymore... in part because there's a dozen phones on every flight that haven't been put in airplane mode.
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Definitely not an issue in the US anymore. T-Mobile is the last carrier to support 2G and they're shutting that down in April this year. I think most Android phones explicitly disable 2G now too because it's not secure.
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Mine has it disabled, but available if I want to enable it (with a security warning.)
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Mine had it disabled by default, but still available for emergency calls, and the option to enable it.
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That problem relates to landing an airplane with a 5G tower near the airport. Nothing to do with passenger phones.
And honestly it's a faulty radio in the airplane. They shouldn't be disrupted by 5G towers at all... but Boeing doesn't want to pay for replacement parts and neither do the airlines.
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I didn't make any claims to the effect. In fact, I wanted to make it clear that even these worries over 5G towers aren't really relevant or a reason to keep such a claim alive. There is no need to take my word for it. The FAA has already covered it.
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Last time i forgot and the phone connected to “aeromobile”. Would have cost me a packet if i had left roaming data on
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Thanks for rendering my little private rebellion worthless. It's all I had left.
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I never fly anyways!
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I am not a very frequent flyer. In fact last time was over a year ago. even then, we were insteuctes to set lelectronics to flight mode only during take off and landing.
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How to use WiFi in plane if you put your phone in airplane mode? nonsense.
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My phone allows me to independently choose Wi-Fi and Bluetooth state separately from the cellular state.
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Airplane mode is no longer about shutting down all wireless communication. It's been for some time.
Now it's shutting down the cellular connection only, wifi and bluetooth stay on.
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I always have my phone on. No one can tell me to turn it off as it's my right
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79 comments
The article is crap, but it is correct in that you don't need to use airplane mode. I would, however, advise to still use it purely to preserve battery life of your device as otherwise it will very aggressively keep scanning for networks and drain it.
It is Gizmodo after all
Yep. I do wish there was a toggle for the cellular radio by itself (rather than just mobile data). It's annoying to have to go airplane mode then turn WiFi and BT back on.
On Android you do have that toggle
Weird. On iPhone it remembers if turned BT and WiFi on while Airplane mode is on and will only turn off the Cell antenna. Do that every time I travel.
Meh - flights have USB ports now if your battery is low.
USB ports and outlets lol I haven't been concerned about preserving my phone's battery life while flying in a long time now lmao
But that’s just a waste of electricity then? And battery health?
How old are your phones? I don't notice any "aggressive scanning" when I don't have airplane mode on. The other user is not able to switch WiFi on in airplane mode, my last two phones did that no problem and they go like 4-5 years back.
Cell towers, without mountains/buildings blocking them, reach 10+ miles and airplanes don't fly that high... so you are within range of towers while flying unless you're over the ocean.
However, connecting to a tower that far away requires running the radio at maximum transmission power which absolutely kills your battery. Also the towers reject your phone's attempt to connect because they are programmed to ignore distant connections when they know a dozen other towers are within a few miles of that tower. If you're flying over remote areas where towers will accept any connection you might occasionally get enough signal to call 911 but i likely won't be a usable data connection due to how far away you are.
Wether it shows a connection or not, your phone is still reaching out trying to connect and doing handshakes with towers on the ground.