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Just how much of a drain is Bluetooth?

T

thelookingglass

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 27, 2005
2,211
689
Maybe the expert electrical engineers (or anyone else qualified to answer the question) can help on this one:

I plug my 2013 MBA into an external monitor at home, complete with Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. It's a little bit of a pain shutting off Bluetooth everytime I take my MBA on the road, just to conserve battery. How much less battery life should I be expecting if I just leave Bluetooth on the whole time? Would it be a significant hit?
 
...Why exactly is it a pain to turn off bluetooth, it takes like a split second to do it from the menu bar
 
If the Bluetooth on a MacBook is optimized like an iPad, the drain should be fairly negligible. (Maybe a few minutes' difference)

Also, FWIW, I have heard there are scripts and applets that can automatically turn off Bluetooth when you go to battery power.
 
Thanks for the responses. Very helpful. The only two devices I have connected are a keyboard and mouse. I'd assume if there's no input from either of these devices, that the power draw would be extremely small.
 
thelookingglass said:
Maybe the expert electrical engineers (or anyone else qualified to answer the question) can help on this one:

I plug my 2013 MBA into an external monitor at home, complete with Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. It's a little bit of a pain shutting off Bluetooth everytime I take my MBA on the road, just to conserve battery. How much less battery life should I be expecting if I just leave Bluetooth on the whole time? Would it be a significant hit?
Click to expand...

I have the same machine and use it just like you do at home. I have tinkered around with BT on vs. off and never noticed any difference at all in battery life either way. I just leave BT on all the time now rather than mess with it.
 
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