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Turned off Bluetooth on iPhone and battery life went up

mdelrossi

mdelrossi

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 22, 2005
123
71
I was having some issues with my iPhone battery. So I Turned off Bluetooth on iPhone and battery life went up on both the phone and the watch.

I’ve got to do more investigations, but somethings up.

iPhone 6s with a replaced battery from Apple.
Apple Watch Nike 4
mdr
 
I prefer to operate that way just because the watch behaves better for me using WiFi/LTE - Bluetooth I only use when I need to sync new apps, activity data, or something else that only talks over BT. Otherwise watch stays on WiFi/LTE.
 
No Bluetooth on the watch I believe is the most battery efficient way to run - that’s not why I’m doing it. WiFi on is very power efficient on the other hand.
 
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The watch will use Wi-Fi if the phone's bluetooth is off. If your phone is normally far away from the watch (in a bedroom while you are in the kitchen) bluetooth will consume more energy than Wi-Fi.

If no Wi-Fi connection is available, the watch will continue using energy as it searches for the phone using bluetooth.
 
tromboneaholic said:
The watch will use Wi-Fi if the phone's bluetooth is off. If your phone is normally far away from the watch (in a bedroom while you are in the kitchen) bluetooth will consume more energy than Wi-Fi.

If no Wi-Fi connection is available, the watch will continue using energy as it searches for the phone using bluetooth.
Click to expand...

but priority is bluetooth or wifi? what if the iphone is near and both are connected to the same wi fi (with bluetooth on on iphone)?
 
ipaddaro said:
but priority is bluetooth or wifi? what if the iphone is near and both are connected to the same wi fi (with bluetooth on on iphone)?
Click to expand...
From the comments I've read, the watch has to get pretty far away from the phone to switch from Bluetooth to Wi-Fi.

OP has an iPhone 6s, which supports Bluetooth 4.2. Apple Watch Series 4 and newer iPhones since iPhone 8 support Bluetooth 5, so the results OP sees might vary based on location (is there Wi-Fi) and device (Bluetooth 5 is more efficient).
 
tromboneaholic said:
From the comments I've read, the watch has to get pretty far away from the phone to switch from Bluetooth to Wi-Fi.

OP has an iPhone 6s, which supports Bluetooth 4.2. Apple Watch Series 4 and newer iPhones since iPhone 8 support Bluetooth 5, so the results OP sees might vary based on location (is there Wi-Fi) and device (Bluetooth 5 is more efficient).
Click to expand...

but if you have bt 5 on AW and not on the iphone, you will loose the low consumption benefits of bt 5? or only the iphone will drain faster?
 
ipaddaro said:
but if you have bt 5 on AW and not on the iphone, you will loose the low consumption benefits of bt 5? or only the iphone will drain faster?
Click to expand...
Both devices will use whichever version they have in common.

So an Apple Watch Series 4 would drop down to use the 4.2 protocol when connecting to an iPhone 6s.
 
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tromboneaholic said:
Both devices will use whichever version they have in common.

So an Apple Watch Series 4 would drop down to use the 4.2 protocol when connecting to an iPhone 6s.
Click to expand...

i have an iphone 7, maybe this is why i don't get same battery life as others
 
to be honest, sometimes i quite don't notice any difference during night with airplane mode, and day when it is connected to iphone... it's less at night, but considering that i don't use it.. 2% drop any hour at night vs. approx 3-4% during day
 
Thanks for the insights. I updated my phone to 12.01, and battery life on both seems better, but not as good with Bluetooth off on the phone.
My phone has been turning off and loosing battery life like crazy, so I’m going to nuke it and do a clean install.

How come there’s no way to turn off Bluetooth on the watch?

Thanks
mdr
 
mdelrossi said:
Thanks for the insights. I updated my phone to 12.01, and battery life on both seems better, but not as good with Bluetooth off on the phone.
My phone has been turning off and loosing battery life like crazy, so I’m going to nuke it and do a clean install.

How come there’s no way to turn off Bluetooth on the watch?

Thanks
mdr
Click to expand...

airplane mode i think.. and then activate only wi fi or lte... not 100% sure it works
 
ipaddaro said:
airplane mode i think.. and then activate only wi fi or lte... not 100% sure it works
Click to expand...

Thanks, but then I don’t get messages,calls, weather, etc.

I have it on theater mode all the time, unless I’m exercising.
 
mdelrossi said:
Thanks, but then I don’t get messages,calls, weather, etc.

I have it on theater mode all the time, unless I’m exercising.
Click to expand...

if you activate lte of wi fi i think you will get everything... maybe not phone calls on wi fi, depending on operator
 
I have never had to bother with the likes of whether to switch BT/WIFI/LTE on or off. I have everything switched on.
Battery life never drops below 60% on the phone or watch so I just charge them both up overnight. I keep LTE calls on the watch short and brief as that does eat up the battery....far far more than Bluetooth. There was a post on another threat where a guy said that he got an entire day out of his watch on LTE
 
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