Will constantly having Bluetooth on drain my battery too fast?

Question

I'm thinking about making an app which will require Bluetooth to be available at all times. However, if this reduces battery charge life significantly, then that's kind of a show stopper. Can anyone give me a general idea about how much drain constant Bluetooth use will put on the battery?

Discoverability is definitely the killer here on Bluetooth in terms of battery. — t0mm13b, Aug 16 '12 at 16:13
Also related: Does allowing Bluetooth discovery consume more power? — Izzy, Aug 17 '12 at 14:03

score 13 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 16 '12 at 16:19

13

What drains... my special. Here some data samples, based on a Motorola Droid:

+--------------------+----------+
| Mode               | Energy   |
+--------------------+----------+
| Bluetooth receive  | 751 mW   |
| Bluetooth send     | 487 mW   |
| Bluetooth standby  |   2,8 mW |
+--------------------+----------+

So if you use BT quite regularly (e.g. to be able to immediately pick up a call with your headset), having it in standby doesn't hurt that much (Compare: 2G StandBy 11,6 mW, 3G StandBy 18,3 mW, Wifi StandBy 7,8 mW -- and, often mistaken: GPS StandBy 0,4 mW).

But if, on the other hand, you use BT once a week (or even less) -- heck, you can manually enable it then, there are enough "toggle switches" and widgets available.

answered Aug 16 '12 at 16:19

Izzy

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@SachinShekhar If you are interested in the full list: What can I do to increase battery life on my Android device? – Izzy Aug 17 '12 at 14:05
How did you get this data? – Snekse Dec 19 '16 at 17:55
@Snekse simply follow the link in my previous comment to find out :) – Izzy Dec 19 '16 at 17:58

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 31 '10 at 08:42

7

Constant use of Bluetooth will put quite a significant drain on the battery, even having it on is known to drain the battery.

answered Oct 31 '10 at 08:42

Cry Havok

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It will certainly drain it faster than having it turned off. However, how fast will vary depending on the phone. – BBlake Oct 31 '10 at 12:29

score 6 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 31 '10 at 12:23

It really depends on what you are using Bluetooth for. I have a Bluetooth watch (MBW-150) that I sync with my phone using OpenWatch and it affects my battery life minimally. All it does is sync the phone's time with my watch, vibrates on certain notifications/calls, and gives me control of my music player (play/stop/next/prev/volume). So I essentially have Bluetooth turned on all the time and haven't really seen a battery problem because of it.

score 2 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 16 '12 at 16:56

2

I have a Samsung Galaxy S (Vibrant):

With Bluetooth & Sync turned on, but the Bluetooth not connected, I better have > 45% battery before I go to bed or else my phone will be dead by morning.
With Bluetooth & Sync turned off, I only use 1-2% battery overnight.

How much of that is Bluetooth and how much is Sync, I don't know. But the combination sure kicks the crap outta my phone.

edited Aug 16 '12 at 16:56

Zuul

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answered Oct 31 '10 at 15:14

Joe Casadonte

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 31 '16 at 15:02

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Personally i recently got a wireless earphones for making calls and sometimes i turn my earphones off but forget to turn off my bluetooth on my phone. I usually found this to be a problem since i would charge my phone before gping to bed and leaving it at 50%. Before it used to last me over night but lately i been waking up to zero percent battery... so personally i don't advice you to leave bluetooth on... plus for me it cause my phone to overheat while charging.

answered Oct 31 '16 at 15:02

Dani Ramone

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This is exactly the style of data I wanted to know, but that is a surprisingly high drain. The truth is what I want to know, but I'd hope that the current truth is better than that! Do you know what Android version you had installed; what kind of Bluetooth hardware your phone used; and whether it was connecting to any Bluetooth devices? – naki Oct 10 '17 at 22:36

score 1 · Answer 6 · edited Feb 21 '19 at 21:40

Below is an article from Techrepublic. There is a lot of anecdotal "yes" here, but very little scientific responses. I think if you look at the actual analysis responses using hard data, you'll see that bluetooth has little impact on battery. I never turn off bluetooth on my phone and have several apps that use bluetooth, and the only time my battery doesn't last all day is when I play a game or two on it.

10 common misconceptions about mobile device batteries

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered May 31 '16 at 11:10

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On my Galaxy S3 even if I have bluetooth turned on but do not use it at all it still drains my battery 30% faster as opposed to if it was turned off!

answered May 31 '16 at 11:10

Lance

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Hello and welcome to Android Enthusiasts Lance! :) While your answer is valid, it would be great if you could provide some data from your experience ( if you have some time available you could screenshot the battery life screen on multiple runs with bluetooth turned off/on) :) – benjamin Jun 01 '16 at 08:07

Will constantly having Bluetooth on drain my battery too fast?

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