Is there a way to tell if an android device is wifi-only?

Question

I am trying to find a reliable way to tell if an Android device is wifi-only. I tried a couple of ways:

-- Try to get device ID (IMEI/MEID), if I can not get the IMEI/MEID number, then I can assume the device is wifi-only. This doesn't work as some phones do not return a device ID when they are put in flight mode. -- Try to read TelephonyManager.getPhoneType. This doesn't work either as the wifi-only device I am testing with returns PHONE_TYPE_GSM, while I expect it to return PHONE_TYPE_NONE.

I wonder if anyone has successfully distinguish wifi-only devices and the non-wifi-only ones.

Answer 1

You could query the system features in your app to see if that works.

PackageManager pm = getPackageManager();
boolean isAPhone = pm.hasSystemFeature(PackageManager.FEATURE_TELEPHONY);

If you care about GSM/CDMA use the more specific FEATURE_TELEPHONY_GSM or FEATURE_TELEPHONY_CDMA.

If the device is lying there is of course not much you can do afaik.

Answer 2

Following solution worked for me better:

TelephonyManager mgr = (TelephonyManager)ctx.getSystemService( Context.TELEPHONY_SERVICE );
return mgr.getPhoneType() != TelephonyManager.PHONE_TYPE_NONE;

And following did NOT work on few devices like Nook Tablet:

PackageManager pm = ctx.getPackageManager();
return pm.hasSystemFeature( PackageManager.FEATURE_TELEPHONY );