“Find My Network”, Do you use it? If not, Why? Battery life impact

[Benz63amg]

What’s the battery life impact of having find my network enabled? Im understanding of this feature is still unclear and I have it turned off. I do have find my iPhone turned on for my 15 Pro and my Apple Watch but I don’t have Find My Network enabled. Would appreciate any input on this matter especially what effect does having find my network on enabled have on battery life

 

[ManuCH]

I have it enabled and the battery impact is negligible. I think it's useful to leave it on as it will help other people locate their AirTags if they get lost.

 

[Benz63amg]

I have it enabled and the battery impact is negligible. I think it's useful to leave it on as it will help other people locate their AirTags if they get lost.

Have you done A/B testing with the feature on and off for a set period of time to determine what the impact on battery life is? If so, i’d be curious to know additional details

 

[spikeymike]

Couldn't you just do your own A/B testing on your device and see what the impact is to battery life?

I'm curious as to why you would ask others to conduct this testing when you can just do it yourself... 🤷‍♂️

 

[Helmsley]

I have it enabled and honestly, I can't say I've seen any noticeable impact on battery life.

 

[ManuCH]

Have you done A/B testing with the feature on and off for a set period of time to determine what the impact on battery life is? If so, i’d be curious to know additional details

I have done A/B testing in the start when the feature was introduced, and I couldn't find any measurable difference at all in battery usage. As battery usage isn't identical every day, what I noticed is simply that my typical workday ended with the same amount of remaining battery as usual, no matter if the feature was on or off.

I believe you could squeeze a few little minutes of additional battery life if you turned off Bluetooth completely, but that's not something I wanna do (because I do use AirTags and I have an Apple Watch). I go to sleep with still 40% of battery left on my iPhone 15 Pro Max, so it doesn't matter to me if in the end I have 42% or 38%.

Just use the phone, it's built to be used 😉

 

[Benz63amg]

I have done A/B testing in the start when the feature was introduced, and I couldn't find any measurable difference at all in battery usage. As battery usage isn't identical every day, what I noticed is simply that my typical workday ended with the same amount of remaining battery as usual, no matter if the feature was on or off.

I believe you could squeeze a few little minutes of additional battery life if you turned off Bluetooth completely, but that's not something I wanna do (because I do use AirTags and I have an Apple Watch). I go to sleep with still 40% of battery left on my iPhone 15 Pro Max, so it doesn't matter to me if in the end I have 42% or 38%.

Just use the phone, it's built to be used 😉

Thanks you for the thorough response. When you performed the A/B testing, did you look at the battery usage statistics page to see what was going on with "Find My" there as far as the battery usage %? Did iOS show that FindMy was using more battery % with "Find My Network" enabled as far as background activity goes or was it more or less the same?

 

[ascender]

I would imagine that the battery impact is negligible given how it will have been engineered to send out a simple ping packet with very little information in it and how long its been around for now will have been refined massively. Actually, AirTags last for months and they're working off a single "watch" battery, so I think you're fine.

 

[twintin]

Have not done any A/B testing, but I have had it enabled since I got my iphone last year and have not noticed any particular impact on the battery life (Im charging at most once a day, sometimes every second day).

In the battery stats its always at the bottom consuming at most 1% or so.

 

[Benz63amg]

Have not done any A/B testing, but I have had it enabled since I got my iphone last year and have not noticed any particular impact on the battery life (Im charging at most once a day, sometimes every second day).

In the battery stats its always at the bottom consuming at most 1% or so.

That’s interesting, as stated above, I have find my network disabled and I never see find my in the battery stats page at all meaning it’s not consuming any significant battery to even appear on the battery stats page. Keep in mind, I have find my iPhone enabled, what is disabled though, is find my network.

 

[twintin]

I have all Find my options enabled. Also, to be noticed, the runtime is like 1 min (not sure how % is calculated from that).

 

[mw360]

That’s interesting, as stated above, I have find my network disabled and I never see find my in the battery stats page at all meaning it’s not consuming any significant battery to even appear on the battery stats page. Keep in mind, I have find my iPhone enabled, what is disabled though, is find my network.

Comparing percentages is pretty useless don't you think? If I do literally nothing with my phone, then background processes like the Find My Network will account for 100% of battery drain.

If you are the kind of person concerned with 1% battery drain, that might be because you are the kind of person whose phone battery doesn't make it through the day, ie a heavy user. So background processes will be crowded out of your stats.

Also I'm not even convinced the Find My entry in the 'Usage by App' stats actually covers the Find My Network. I would think the network is a background OS process separate from the app. Certainly the usage time in minutes (which is labelled 'minutes on screen') probably only mean the app itself. Unless anyone is adamant they don't use the app, but they still see stats for it?

 

[Reverend Benny]

So what is it that we do think is draining the battery when this feature is enabled?
Is it that we think its doing constant BLE talk? The data that is send to Apple? The utilisation of the U1 chip?

Does turning this off kill features such as stats from Airpods and so on?

Bluetooth Low Energy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Benz63amg]

So what is it that we do think is draining the battery when this feature is enabled?
Is it that we think its doing constant BLE talk? The data that is send to Apple? The utilisation of the U1 chip?

Does turning this off kill features such as stats from Airpods and so on?

Bluetooth Low Energy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It might be all of the above. One thing is for sure, it communicates with nearby apple devices via Bluetooth on a constant basis wherever you are.

 

[Reverend Benny]

It might be all of the above. One thing is for sure, it communicates with nearby apple devices via Bluetooth on a constant basis wherever you are.

The questions is how much, if an airtag that broadcast and talk to nearby passing phones can survive to long i'd say the receiving part isn't requiring much battery. But havin said that, a phone is collecting more data since it passes more devices.

Found some additional info here about the function and some security aspects.

Still not sure its using Bluetooth, think its only BLE. But haven't found any info about that its NOT using BT.

Send My: Arbitrary data transmission via Apple's Find My network | Positive Security

Apple AirTags: Arbitrary data can be uploaded from non-internet-connected devices by sending Find My BLE broadcasts to nearby Apple devices. We're releasing an ESP32 firmware that turns the microcontroller into an (upload only) modem, and a macOS application to retrieve, decode and display the...

positive.security

 

[ManuCH]

Thanks you for the thorough response. When you performed the A/B testing, did you look at the battery usage statistics page to see what was going on with "Find My" there as far as the battery usage %? Did iOS show that FindMy was using more battery % with "Find My Network" enabled as far as background activity goes or was it more or less the same?

Yes, I always look at my battery statistics page, and I actually hardly find any "Find My" activity there at all, no matter if it's on or off. So no, definitely not more % with "Find My Network" enabled. It was the same.