It’s no secret that all wireless technologies need power.
And, despite the advances related to the use of Bluetooth, It is still quite common for people to think that turning off different wireless technologies will make their mobile phone consume less battery.
But, Is it really necessary to turn off Bluetooth to save battery?
Below you will learn about aspects such as: how much power you waste if you leave Bluetooth on when not in use or how much battery power is consumed by playing music via Bluetooth.
In this sense, with the aim of knowing how the use of Bluetooth affects battery life, Android Authority has analyzed 5 different smartphone models: the Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, the Huawei P40 Pro, the ZTE Axon 11, the Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro and the Realme X3 Superzoom.
Myth or reality: turning off Bluetooth will save you battery
After several tests, Android Authority noticed that Leaving Bluetooth on consumed only 1.8% more battery compared to phones that had wireless technology turned off.
Over a 26-hour period, on average, the selected devices consumed 49.4% of their battery with Bluetooth turned off. Meanwhile, phones that kept Bluetooth on consumed 51.2% of the charge.
So usually, Bluetooth consumes less than 4% of the battery.
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In this sense, Leaving it off could add 10 to 15 minutes of additional time to a device that typically allows 5 hours of use.
However, the Huawei P40 Pro and Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro showed a bigger difference with Bluetooth on and off, at 3%.
The Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus and Realme X3 Superzoom recorded slightly lower power consumption with Bluetooth on, likely due to a margin of error, which highlights how little impact Bluetooth has on battery life.
Currently, smartphones are programmed to, in a way, ignore wireless networks when not in use, which may explain the small difference in battery consumption between a phone with the technology on and one with it off.
That is to say, Bluetooth doesn’t really affect the battery when left on but not in use.
What is the battery consumption if you constantly use Bluetooth?
In the same way, Android Authority They conducted a second test in which they monitored video playback on the different devices for 4 hours straight.
Thus, they showed a similar difference in battery discharge in the 5 devices.
The results concluded that Playing a video while keeping Bluetooth on but not connected increased power consumption by an average of 6.6%.
But there was a lot of variation between different smartphones. The Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus recorded exactly the same result with Bluetooth on and off. Meanwhile, the Realme X3 Superzoom was the most affected, as recorded an extra 4% battery drain over 4 hours.
The reason for this discrepancy is probably due to hardware and software optimizations of smartphones.
In this sense, the Exynos chips in the Galaxy S20 Plus and the Kirin chips in the Huawei P40 Pro will use different radios than the other Snapdragon SoC phones.
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Similarly, each Android software variant likely has different algorithms for Bluetooth wake-up and pairing scan intervals, depending on the device. Android Authority.
And what about the use of Bluetooth headphones?
Currently, most people use Bluetooth for headphone-related purposes.
According to Android Authority, Bluetooth audio playback consumes essentially the same amount of power as audio playback through speakers or headphones with Bluetooth disabled.
On average, The devices tested recorded a 0.2% increase in power consumption when playing audio via Bluetooth.
However, the Galaxy S20 Plus and Poco F2 Pro They did not record any noticeable difference in battery drain over a 4 hour listening period.
This is because Bluetooth audio coding algorithms run efficiently on the digital signal processors (DSP) found inside advanced smartphones, consuming very little power.
Similarly, the audio amplification circuits are turned off when playing audio via Bluetooth, which, according to Android Authority, balances the power consumption of the Bluetooth wireless chip.
In fact, The louder you listen to music, the greater the energy savings.
Radar COVID apps are failing almost everywhere in the world: many claim high energy consumption to avoid downloading it
The effectiveness of the COVID-19 tracking applications that many countries are launching is conditioned by the number of people who decide to install them on their smartphones, he explained. Xataka.
In this sense, it is not having the impact it needs to help combat the spread of the coronavirus.
Convincing people that it is safe to install the app on their mobile phones is a challenge.
In addition, there are official reports that reveal that communication between the smartphones on which the app is based is not always successful.
In the same way, Many users highlight its impact on battery consumptionwhich is causing some users to choose to uninstall it.
Although there is no exact data on battery consumption with the Radar COVID applications installed, several experts have assured that the app uses a low-energy Bluetooth, which consumes less than the conventional one, so You should not notice a significantly higher consumption than usual.
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Tags: Curiosities, Mobiles, Technology