Bluetooth headphones drain battery so much

[futurejetblackowner]

I got some beats by dre studio wireless headphones on sale for $250 at Best Buy earlier this week for 7+ (there's no way I'd pay the regular price of $400) my first pair of wireless headphones.


They're great. I love the noise cancellation and being able to leave my phone on the table/couch when I use the bathroom or get food and can still listen to music. But CRAP do they use a lot of battery. The 7+ has amazing battery life. I come home around 3:15pm and usually still have around 70% battery left but it's 9am and I have 81%.

Just felt like ranting

 

[Eduardboon]

I think it is the bluetooth connection. The Apple Watch drains the battery like crazy as well. I have Beats solo 3 wireless and those drain the phone as well. Nowhere near 40 hours of music, more like 5 when lucky. The beats themselves are great with battery though and Paired with an iPad they are amazing (the iPad does NOT drain)

 

[ericwn]

I think it is the bluetooth connection. The Apple Watch drains the battery like crazy as well.

The Apple Watch has almost no impact on the battery life of our iPhones in my household, from what we can see here. Headphones surely possible, but the watch is not a big consumer.

 

[Eduardboon]

The Apple Watch has almost no impact on the battery life of our iPhones in my household, from what we can see here. Headphones surely possible, but the watch is not a big consumer.

Where my iPhone 7 is at 96 percent after 5 hours of standby without watch, it's at 70 with the watch paired. So here it is a giant consumer. On my 7 and on my 5C. Not on my girlfriends SE, but that thing is a piece of magic.

 

[ericwn]

Where my iPhone 7 is at 96 percent after 5 hours of standby without watch, it's at 70 with the watch paired. So here it is a giant consumer. On my 7 and on my 5C. Not on my girlfriends SE, but that thing is a piece of magic.

Pretty striking! and if you disable Bluetooth for half a day the issue goes away? Thanks for sharing your observations btw!

 

[Eduardboon]

Pretty striking! and if you disable Bluetooth for half a day the issue goes away? Thanks for sharing your observations btw!

I can leave bluetooth enabled, just nothing paired . When I put the watch in Airplane mode, the drain completely dissapears.

Same for the beats; when I turn them off the drain is gone.

 

[3lionsbecks]

Where my iPhone 7 is at 96 percent after 5 hours of standby without watch, it's at 70 with the watch paired. So here it is a giant consumer. On my 7 and on my 5C. Not on my girlfriends SE, but that thing is a piece of magic.

That's surprising to me because I have the Nike Apple Watch paired with my 7+ and I don't
notice any excessive battery drain with it since I've got it.

 

[Newtons Apple]

I think it is the bluetooth connection. The Apple Watch drains the battery like crazy as well. I have Beats solo 3 wireless and those drain the phone as well. Nowhere near 40 hours of music, more like 5 when lucky. The beats themselves are great with battery though and Paired with an iPad they are amazing (the iPad does NOT drain)

WHAT?

I notice zero difference in battery use on day when I do or do not use my Apple Watch. It uses less in my opinion as I have to pull my phone out and use it less.

I use the Bose on the ear and Bose over the ear noise cancelling wireless headphones for hours and they do not see to effect my battery but very little.

If you iPhone is using that much power, there is something else wrong. Is your music on the device or are you streaming? All 79GB of my music lives on my 7+

 

[AppleB]

As far as the Beats Studio headphones I haven't used mine with my 7 Plus yet because I usually use them when I'm on the road traveling and I've been off the road since September so I'll have to give it a test.
My Apple Watch original model has very little impact on my 7Plus battery.

 

[ipulsecases]

can you try to update to the latest verison , and then turn on the battery saving mode . that is how we do . it gives me a long lasting battery

 

[Gav2k]

I have watch and headphones paired with no draining issues. Are you streaming music?

 

[Newtons Apple]

can you try to update to the latest verison , and then turn on the battery saving mode . that is how we do . it gives me a long lasting battery

You should not have to do that. The BT should not be using that much power even with the watch.

 

[blaugrana69]

I have an Apple Watch and Bose bluetooth in ear headphones - little effect on the iPhone's battery in my experience - that's 6 Plus, 6sPlus, 6s, 7 and latterly 7 Plus.

 

[Dormammu]

I think it is the bluetooth connection. The Apple Watch drains the battery like crazy as well.

False

Zero impact on my iPhone/iPad battery from my Apple Watch or any of my Bluetooth accessories.

 

[Eduardboon]

False

Zero impact on my iPhone/iPad battery from my Apple Watch or any of my Bluetooth accessories.

False for you then.

I get 2 percent drain overnight without the watch and a lot more with it paired.

I can make 2 days with my iPhone 7 with nothing paired and Siri turned off. But with a watch paired (Siri still off) I can only get around 15 hours of standby if I don't touch my phone, and it still shows hours of usage.

I wish it had no impact here but it does. On iPhone 5C and two different 7's. but not on the SE. I even tried three different watches. So yeah, I don't know. Other people in my environment also complain about the watch draining, even when setting all devices up as new.

I do not stream music, everything is local. My phone uses roughly 1 percent per 4 minutes of usage or 2 percent per hour of standby with the watch or headphones connected.

Otherwise it's around 1 percent per 8-10 minutes of usage and 1 percent per 2 hours of standby.

Added screenshot is 2 hours of playing local music over Bluetooth and having a watch connection. 30 minutes have also been spend using safari / Memrise.
Within 30 minutes this will be at 80% probably.

The standby drain is the worst though. If I forget to disable Bluetooth and put the watch on airplane (else it just uses wifi) I lose around 9-15 percent instead of 3-5.

So my reality is quite different. I would gladly switch phones with you though

 

[3lionsbecks]

False for you then.

I get 2 percent drain overnight without the watch and a lot more with it paired.

I can make 2 days with my iPhone 7 with nothing paired and Siri turned off. But with a watch paired (Siri still off) I can only get around 15 hours of standby if I don't touch my phone, and it still shows hours of usage.

I wish it had no impact here but it does. On iPhone 5C and two different 7's. but not on the SE. I even tried three different watches. So yeah, I don't know. Other people in my environment also complain about the watch draining, even when setting all devices up as new.

I do not stream music, everything is local. My phone uses roughly 1 percent per 4 minutes of usage or 2 percent per hour of standby with the watch or headphones connected.

Otherwise it's around 1 percent per 8-10 minutes of usage and 1 percent per 2 hours of standby.

Added screenshot is 2 hours of playing local music over Bluetooth and having a watch connection. 30 minutes have also been spend using safari / Memrise.
Within 30 minutes this will be at 80% probably.

The standby drain is the worst though. If I forget to disable Bluetooth and put the watch on airplane (else it just uses wifi) I lose around 9-15 percent instead of 3-5.

So my reality is quite different. I would gladly switch phones with you though

There's something wrong with your iPhone battery if you are losing 1% every 4 mins with Bluetooth headphones

 

[Mlrollin91]

False for you then.

I get 2 percent drain overnight without the watch and a lot more with it paired.

I can make 2 days with my iPhone 7 with nothing paired and Siri turned off. But with a watch paired (Siri still off) I can only get around 15 hours of standby if I don't touch my phone, and it still shows hours of usage.

I wish it had no impact here but it does. On iPhone 5C and two different 7's. but not on the SE. I even tried three different watches. So yeah, I don't know. Other people in my environment also complain about the watch draining, even when setting all devices up as new.

I do not stream music, everything is local. My phone uses roughly 1 percent per 4 minutes of usage or 2 percent per hour of standby with the watch or headphones connected.

Otherwise it's around 1 percent per 8-10 minutes of usage and 1 percent per 2 hours of standby.

Added screenshot is 2 hours of playing local music over Bluetooth and having a watch connection. 30 minutes have also been spend using safari / Memrise.
Within 30 minutes this will be at 80% probably.

The standby drain is the worst though. If I forget to disable Bluetooth and put the watch on airplane (else it just uses wifi) I lose around 9-15 percent instead of 3-5.

So my reality is quite different. I would gladly switch phones with you though

There is something wrong with your iPhone/Watch connection if you are experiencing battery drain. I lose 0% overnight with my 7Plus with my watch connected. There is absolutely no difference between having my watch connected or not. You must have a rogue app on your phone or watch that is using your phone's battery. Sounds like you need to unpair and repair your watch because you are definitely the exception, not the rule.

 

[Eduardboon]

There's something wrong with your iPhone battery if you are losing 1% every 4 mins with Bluetooth headphones

Except there isn't anything wrong. I have 2040mah capacity according to coconut. And I don't have weird drain when I unpair the watch and just let Bluetooth idle. I can go 2 days like that.
I just finished listening to music and the phone is now at 67 percent. I think that's just really bad. The headphones lost only 5 percent in the same period and somehow the watch lost 15 percent even though it wasn't doing anything.

I wish it was the phones battery, would be such a simple fix

 

[Mlrollin91]

Except there isn't anything wrong. I have 2040mah capacity according to coconut. And I don't have weird drain when I unpair the watch and just let Bluetooth idle. I can go 2 days like that.
I just finished listening to music and the phone is now at 67 percent. I think that's just really bad. The headphones lost only 5 percent in the same period and somehow the watch lost 15 percent even though it wasn't doing anything.

I wish it was the phones battery, would be such a simple fix

mAh capacity isn't what he is talking about. The issue is your iOS install. Something seems to be corrupt.

 

[Eduardboon]

There is something wrong with your iPhone/Watch connection if you are experiencing battery drain. I lose 0% overnight with my 7Plus with my watch connected. There is absolutely no difference between having my watch connected or not. You must have a rogue app on your phone or watch that is using your phone's battery. Sounds like you need to unpair and repair your watch because you are definitely the exception, not the rule.

Only stock apps on the watch. On the iPhone I use the exact same stuff as a few days ago when I didn't have my watch paired.

However now that you mention watch apps. Sometimes mail doesn't send notification to the watch and a lot of times I get a message saying I have no internet connection on the watch in the weather app. Calls and stuff go through fine though.

 

[Mlrollin91]

Only stock apps on the watch. On the iPhone I use the exact same stuff as a few days ago when I didn't have my watch paired.

However now that you mention watch apps. Sometimes mail doesn't send notification to the watch and a lot of times I get a message saying I have no internet connection on the watch in the weather app. Calls and stuff go through fine though.

You need to unpair and repair your watch. Something is wrong. You are experiencing a 'glitch'.

 

[Dormammu]

There's something wrong with your iPhone battery if you are losing 1% every 4 mins with Bluetooth headphones

There is something wrong with your iPhone/Watch connection if you are experiencing battery drain. I lose 0% overnight with my 7Plus with my watch connected. There is absolutely no difference between having my watch connected or not. You must have a rogue app on your phone or watch that is using your phone's battery. Sounds like you need to unpair and repair your watch because you are definitely the exception, not the rule.

mAh capacity isn't what he is talking about. The issue is your iOS install. Something seems to be corrupt.

You need to unpair and repair your watch. Something is wrong. You are experiencing a 'glitch'.

Yup.
Under normal circumstances should be no issues.

 

[Gjwilly]

I watch about 90-minutes of video on my phone daily -- on my 6S I used wired headphones and after switching to the 7 I use Bluetooth headphones. After the switch I've noticed no real difference in battery life at the end of the day.