… or are notifications just really bad on Android?

For background, we’ve got an old, sick, dog and my wife often needs to get help from me urgently. I’m still running an old Pixel 4a - it worked really well for me until Google crippled the battery and even now it works well enough that I’m not tempted to upgrade.

My notifications always seem to be delayed - in batches. I have 3 buildings on my property and each has a Nest doorbell. Some days I can be walking around and I’ll constantly hear ding, ding, ding as I walk past each doorbell. Other days I can walk around and hear nothing, and then I’ll get 5-10 notifications all at once.

Today was a perfect example of why this is so frustrating - I’m sitting at my desk with my phone in front of me. It’s plugged in an charging. My phone starts ringing and it’s my wife upset that I have not responded to her messages. I go help her with the dog and come back to my phone and sure enough, 8 minutes ago there’s a notification from Google Chat, 6 minutes ago there’s a notification from Google Messages and 4 minutes ago there’s the phone call. The Google Chat and Google Messages notifications never came through - until the phone call came in!

I’ve been through and made sure that all the battery optimisations are turned off for all the apps that I want instant notifications from - but that shouldn’t have any impact here - my phone was plugged in.

Is this normal Android? (kinda rhetorical question - I’ve been running Android since my Nexus 4 and don’t think this is normal but it feels like it’s somehow the “new” normal)

I’m not running the stock Pixel launcher - does the launcher get involved in notification delivery at all?

  • Great Blue Heron@lemmy.caOPEnglish
    2·
    3 days ago

    What network connection are you using to get these notifications?

    In general a mix of WiFi and telco cellular. In the example today, my house WiFi - a UniFi U6-Lite on channel 157 at around -65dBm when at my desk.

    If it’s a telco, they might have modified their network and your coverage might have changed.

    Telco coverage is really poor here - I have UniFi access points in 3 buildings that I roam between. I understand I may see some issues as my phone roams between the access points but that does not explain the example today where I was just sitting at my desk.

    If it’s WiFi, your router or an antenna might have come loose, or a neighbour has updated their WiFi network and is drowning out yours

    The antenna of a UniFi U6 Lite is internal - I have no way to check if it’s come loose, but everything else works fine so I don’t suspect it. I live in the middle of nowhere. My closest neighbours are about 100m away - I see one of them at -75dBm and the other at -89dBm.

    Have you purchased and installed new equipment? It might be causing interference. An old piece of gear, a power supply, inverter, solar panel, could suddenly generate radio noise and stop things from working too.

    Not that I’m aware of. I do sometimes see a hidden SSID broadcast from " SAGEMCOM BROADBAND SAS" hardware that I can’t identify. I think it’s my Bell GigaHub that has WiFi turned off - maybe it turns itself on from time to time to scan etc.

    You might think of wireless communication as unchanging, but it’s constantly updating and reacting to local conditions which in turn can vary from second to second.

    Yeah, I get that. I have other radio comms issues not related to Android, so not really appropriate here. I’m a volunteer firefighter and have a Motorola Minitor VI pager sitting on my desk. My pages often come through really scratchy, or not at all. We (the fire dept.) have just spent a few thousand dollars installing a new antenna at the transmitter and this has not helped.

    Source: I’m a licensed radio amateur

    I’d be very interested to chat with you privately about my pager issues :-)

    • Onno (VK6FLAB)@lemmy.radioEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      Phone specific issues aside, which might well be the root cause, your pager issues might point at an issue that may be exacerbating your experience.

      If there’s wideband RF noise around you, many radio services might be affected.

      If you have a portable AM transistor radio handy, you can turn it on, tune away from any station and walk around your property. If the noise increases, try to find where it’s coming from. There’s also https://qrm.guru/ - it’s intended for radio amateurs, but we’re a friendly (mostly harmless) lot.

      As a volunteer firefighter, you might also have amateurs among you or known to members of your group, who might have local knowledge that I lack.

      Happy to exchange email. Not sure what the community rules are about sharing it here. I’m happy to send it via DM, it’s not a secret.