license: Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the “License”); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

     Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
     software distributed under the License is distributed on an
     "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
     KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
     specific language governing permissions and limitations
     under the License.

connection.type

Checks the active network connection that is being used.

Description

This property is a fast way to determine the device's network connection state, and type of connection.

Supported Platforms

  • iOS
  • Android
  • BlackBerry WebWorks (OS 5.0 and higher)
  • Windows Phone 7 and 8
  • Bada 2.x
  • webOS
  • Tizen
  • Windows 8

Quick Example

function checkConnection() {
    var networkState = navigator.connection.type;
    
    var states = {};
    states[Connection.UNKNOWN]	= 'Unknown connection';
    states[Connection.ETHERNET]	= 'Ethernet connection';
    states[Connection.WIFI]   	= 'WiFi connection';
    states[Connection.CELL_2G]	= 'Cell 2G connection';
    states[Connection.CELL_3G]	= 'Cell 3G connection';
    states[Connection.CELL_4G]	= 'Cell 4G connection';
    states[Connection.CELL]   	= 'Cell generic connection';
    states[Connection.NONE]   	= 'No network connection';

    alert('Connection type: ' + states[networkState]);
}

checkConnection();

Full Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>navigator.connection.type Example</title>
    
    <script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="cordova-x.x.x.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">
        
    // Wait for Cordova to load
    // 
    document.addEventListener("deviceready", onDeviceReady, false);
    
    // Cordova is loaded and it is now safe to make calls Cordova methods
    //
    function onDeviceReady() {
        checkConnection();
    }
    
    function checkConnection() {
        var networkState = navigator.connection.type;

        var states = {};
        states[Connection.UNKNOWN]	= 'Unknown connection';
        states[Connection.ETHERNET]	= 'Ethernet connection';
        states[Connection.WIFI]   	= 'WiFi connection';
        states[Connection.CELL_2G]	= 'Cell 2G connection';
        states[Connection.CELL_3G]	= 'Cell 3G connection';
        states[Connection.CELL_4G]	= 'Cell 4G connection';
        states[Connection.CELL]	  	= 'Cell generic connection';
        states[Connection.NONE]   	= 'No network connection';

        alert('Connection type: ' + states[networkState]);
    }
    
    </script>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>A dialog box will report the network state.</p>
  </body>
</html>

API Change

Before Cordova 2.3.0, the Connection object existed at: navigator.network.connection.

To match the spec, this was changed to navigator.connection in 2.3.0.

navigator.network.connection still exists, but is now deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

iOS Quirks

  • iOS cannot detect the type of cellular network connection.
    • navigator.connection.type is set to Connection.CELL_2G for all cellular data. This is deprecated as of 2.6.0 and will be changed to return Connection.CELL in a future release.

Bada Quirks

  • Bada can only detect a WiFi or cellular connection.
    • navigator.connection.type is set to Connection.CELL_2G for all cellular data.

webOS Quirks

  • Only shows that a connection is available, but not which type.

Windows Phone Quirks

  • When running in the emulator, always detects navigator.connection.type as Connection.UNKNOWN.
  • Windows Phone cannot detect the type of cellular network connection.
    • navigator.connection.type is set to Connection.CELL for all cellular data.

Tizen Quirks

  • Tizen can only detect a WiFi or cellular connection.
    • navigator.connection.type is set to Connection.CELL_2G for all cellular data.