Knowing your exact signal strength

[TwitchyPuppy]

Hi! =)

For those of you who would be interested in knowing the exact strength of your carrier's signal in decibels, without jailbreaking your phone, here is how:

- Dial *3001#12345#*
- Press Call
- Hold down the Power button
- When prompted to shut it down, press and hold the Home button until this 'window' closes and voila!

If you want to revert:

- Tap the numbers once to switch back to the dots and vice versa =)

I tested it on an iPhone 4s, 5s (mine) a 6 (at my carrier, on iOS 8 like the two others) and 6s (mine on iOS 9) and it works =)

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[kch50428]

We've discussed this a time or two in the past... A good reminder.

 

[TwitchyPuppy]

Oh, I did know not that, my apologies!


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[kch50428]

Oh, I did not that, my apologies!

No worries... It's been a while since the last discussion... A fresh take is good once in a while.

 

[TwitchyPuppy]

No worries... It's been a while since the last discussion... A fresh take is good once in a while.

Great!!


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[Spencerdl]

I might be a little strange, but I actually like the circles/dots.....SMILE

 

[Ledsteplin]

I might be a little strange, but I actually like the circles/dots.....SMILE

Yes, you are!

 

[Spencerdl]

Yes, you are!

LOL

 

[Ledsteplin]

-110? And I thought mine was bad.

 

[TwitchyPuppy]

I was in a shopping mall =P


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[viewfly]

Thanks! For the longest time, this didn't work with earlier ios's!

For a temporary look, just dial without holding down the power button. You will get this.

To get rid of it, just hit the home button. Oh, and before you do that, tapping the dB numbers will let you go back and forth with the dots.

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[Septembersrain]

I think it's awesome that with a tap, it'll show the dots again.


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[viewfly]

I think it's awesome that with a tap, it'll show the dots again.


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Yep, and the tap works with the more permanent change as the OP described.


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[metllicamilitia]

Great, I forgot how to do this ha ha. I've just never known how to judge a good signal strength. What's the max signal strength number and what's the minimum? I would assume -80 is max because I have 2-3 dots depending on where I am in my hotel room and I'm sitting at -99 right now.


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[kch50428]

DB SIGNAL - A BASIC GUIDE

-50 to -60 (very strong, near a cell tower)
-60 to -70 (extremely good, rare)
-80 to -85 (normal downtown)
-90 to -95 (getting on the weak side)
-95 to -98 (weak, dropping calls)
-98 to -100 (bad, hard to stay connected)
-100+ (basically no usable signal)

 

[metllicamilitia]

Seems weird that I can have 3 bars and be getting on the weak side ha ha.


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[TwitchyPuppy]

Seems weird that I can have 3 bars and be getting on the weak side ha ha.


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Well, when I was at -110, I checked and I had two dots.


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[viewfly]

The dots are very skewed to the low side. Minus 76 is 5 dots. So less than 5 means your in the lower side. The visual is that 5, don't worry you have great voice landline quality. Showing more dots is pointless. 3 you might sound broken up at times ie what we call a 'cell phone' quality .

I've seen -34 in the city and a low of -115.


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[Ledsteplin]

DB SIGNAL - A BASIC GUIDE

-50 to -60 (very strong, near a cell tower)
-60 to -70 (extremely good, rare)
-80 to -85 (normal downtown)
-90 to -95 (getting on the weak side)
-95 to -98 (weak, dropping calls)
-98 to -100 (bad, hard to stay connected)
-100+ (basically no usable signal)

Not like that. I never drop calls at -102. I read calls get dropped at closer to -110 or less. I'm at 3 dots inside my house at -102.

OS X says:
"A signal number of -105 is considerably worse than a signal of -70. You?ll generally find that anything approaching -105 or lower is fairly bad reception, while anything above -80 is usually good, and if you tap the number signal it?s usually shown as full bars. The full range of the signal numbers extends from -40 to -120, with -130 being a nearly impossible number to see because it means no reception, and -40 would be about the strength you?d get being right alongside a cell tower. Technically, the number goes all the way to -140, but you will almost never see that because it basically means there is no signal to speak of, and most users will see -120 or -130 before it switches over to the ?No Service? indicator instead.

Once you get the hang of reading the numbers, you?ll find it?s much more accurate, and it becomes easier to predict when you may drop a call or start to get a bad signal or connection, which creates the weird artifacts and sounds on phone calls, often before it starts to cut out or even drop completely. That typically starts happening around -110 or so, before dropping the connection or call completely if it hits -120 to -130."

 

[Septembersrain]

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