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 currently active network connection.

Description

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

Supported Platforms

  • Amazon Fire OS
  • iOS
  • Android
  • BlackBerry WebWorks 5.0+
  • Tizen
  • Windows Phone 7 and 8
  • 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.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">

    // Wait for device API libraries to load
    //
    document.addEventListener("deviceready", onDeviceReady, false);

    // device APIs are available
    //
    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

Until Cordova 2.3.0, the Connection object was accessed via navigator.network.connection, after which it was changed to navigator.connection to match the W3C specification. It's still available at its original location, but is deprecated and will eventually be removed.

iOS Quirks

  • iOS can't detect the type of cellular network connection.
    • navigator.connection.type is set to Connection.CELL for all cellular data.

Windows Phone Quirks

  • When running in the emulator, always detects navigator.connection.type as Connection.UNKNOWN.

  • Windows Phone can't 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.