Does bluetooth on 2011 affect battery life?

[micrors4racer]

Does bluetooth affect battery life? I know the 2011 Air uses bluetooth 4.0 which is supposed to use very little power.

I use an external monitor with a wireless keyboard and mouse when at home on my Air in clamshell mode. When I am mobile I tend to turn bluetooth off but I always forget to turn it back on when I get home and pull the air out of its bag and then plug it straight into the monitor, magsafe, and usb speakers. This leads me to open the lid, type in my pass, turn on bluetooth and plug everything back in whenever I do forget to turn on bluetooth.

It would be less of a hassle if I just leave bluetooth on (if it has minuscule battery draw) and I can just plug it into my external stuff straight from the bag in sleep mode and just click my trackpad or keyboard to fire it up and the external monitor.

 

[GGJstudios]

Does bluetooth affect battery life?

Bluetooth does draw some power, but has very little effect on battery life compared to other factors, such as screen brightness, Wi-Fi, apps/widgets/processes running, etc. There are many factors that impact your battery life. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.

The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​

It would be less of a hassle if I just leave bluetooth on (if it has minuscule battery draw) and I can just plug it into my external stuff straight from the bag in sleep mode and just click my trackpad or keyboard to fire it up and the external monitor.

I assume when you say "straight from the bag", you mean taking it out of the bag before using it!

 

[micrors4racer]

Bluetooth does draw some power, but has very little effect on battery life compared to other factors, such as screen brightness, Wi-Fi, apps/widgets/processes running, etc. There are many factors that impact your battery life. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.

The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​

I assume when you say "straight from the bag", you mean taking it out of the bag before using it!

Yes of course I'm taking it out the bag . I prefer to come home take it out the bag plug it in and click my mouse to turn it on. Sometimes I forget that I turned bluetooth off so I gotta reach back to it and unplug stuff to turn bluetooth back on (my desk is very large and the air sits at the corner with the wires cable tied for management so they dont go far). From what you say it seems like I will only lose a couple of minutes with the bluetooth on so thats fine as long as its not like 15-20 minutes less.