Does leaving Personal Hotspot on affect battery life?

[acousticbiker]

I notice it’s sometime turned on even when I haven’t turned it on and wondering whether I should bother to turn it off

 

[gsmornot]

I notice it’s sometime turned on even when I haven’t turned it on and wondering whether I should bother to turn it off

The only time it should make a difference is when another device is using it.

 

[acousticbiker]

Is that because it’s the same WiFi radio that’s already turned on?

 

[George Knighton]

I have been wondering for a while how “Instant Hotspot” works without causing a parasitic drain.

With the minor problem in 12.1.3 regarding Instant Hotspot, I think I will just leave it in and experiment with battery drain.

 

[gsmornot]

I have been wondering for a while how “Instant Hotspot” works without causing a parasitic drain.

With the minor problem in 12.1.3 regarding Instant Hotspot, I think I will just leave it in and experiment with battery drain.

It uses Bluetooth.(Assuming) Once a device is ready to connect it will alert the phone to wake the WiFi modem and offer access.

No drain when idle because your phone is doing nothing (basically) outside of its normal operation until it needs to feed data to another device. Once it does though, it will go though a fair bit of battery.

 

[AlliFlowers]

I use it rarely, but when I do, it's a real power drain.

 

[Shirasaki]

I used to leave it off and only turn on when needed. Now, I keep it on as I sometimes need to use my mobile network to, say, browse the web or play the game. I don’t notice a huge drop on battery life when I just leave it on.
Of course, when actually using Hotspot, the battery drop will be apparent.

 

[k0bayashi]

I notice it’s sometime turned on even when I haven’t turned it on and wondering whether I should bother to turn it off

Well, just to be sure turn it off once you have no use for it.