Ability to turn off 5G to save battery?

[apMechorse]

Since 5G became active at the begining of the month the battery life of my Pixel 5 has taken a huge hit. This hit would be livable if the payout in speed and reliability were there as well, but since the technology hasn't quite made it to the level of our expectations yet, I'd rather just go back to LTE for now and go longer between charges.

Which brings me to my question: Is there a way to turn off 5G while on Visible? I know that while using Fi I was able to specify what network type I preferred and that would effectively shut off the 5G radio antenna. That option does not seem to be available under Visible however.

Has anyone else run into this as well? Thanks in advance.

[devin37354]

There are also specific phones that allow you to do it in settings. I'm surprised pixel phones don't allow that with it being pretty much stock Android

[apMechorse]

It doesn't appear to be a hardware related issue, as when I have Fi active I do have that option when I got to Settings > Network & internet > Mobile Network > Preferred Network > [5g | LTE | 3g | 2g]. However when Visible is active the Preferred Network option disappears from the menu, so I assume it must be Carrier Services based. Just wondering if anyone else has found a work around or if anyone knows if Visible is likely to allow access to the Preferred Network menu.

[devin37354]

Gotcha. Now, OnePlus doesn't work on 5G yet for Visible, at least in my area, but my one plus device has the following options right now

5G/LTE/3G/2G

LTE/3G/2G

3G/2G

That's why I was hoping you had options. In my area, I can just choose option two which is LTE/3G/2G

[apMechorse]

Interesting. So it must be some combination of Hardware and Services software. Hmm. Well, I'm curious to see if others with Pixel 5s also are missing this menu option. I know it wasn't there before the 5g upgrade because I had looked for it to make sure it was selected and couldn't find the menu then either.

[bpositive]

@apMechorse 

If you don't see option to change your Network mode, you can download 4G LTE Only app from play store and try to change it to LTE. You can see some hidden features using this app. 

[CAZboy]

The option appears to be phone-specific.  The Blade X1 5G has this ability to select 4G as the preferred network.  My wife's Pixel 4a 5G does not.

[jerrodsdad]

I've had a 5a and Pixel 6 and the option to disable 5G via settings isn't available with the device on Visible for some reason. It's crazy annoying since Verizon's/Visible 5G is horrific where I live. 

[juancubo]

Same. it seems it's the way the eSIM is configured is disabling that option. I had a TotalWireless service before and it allowed me to do it in the same phone (both in Pixel 6 and Pixel 7). So there should be a way to configure the eSIM or even the APN to allow us to do that.