What to do if Bluetooth consumes too much battery. Today we will see with this guide what to do if Bluetooth consumes too much battery power on Android. Bluetooth gives way to be able to connect a device to other devices that use the same technology wirelessly. A common use that many Bluetooth users make is to connect their smartphone with a pair of wireless earbuds or to a wireless speaker, for example, and this allows them to be able to connect with their phone to other devices without any wires being in the way. It happens, however, that when the smartphone has the Bluetooth connection active, battery power consumption can increase dramatically, even if power saving is activated. So what should be done in this case? If you do not know what to do if Bluetooth consumes too much battery power on Android, continue reading this guide where you will find several solutions to the problem.
It needs to be said as a first thing that it is not necessarily the case that the abnormal power consumption that you are noticing has to be related to Bluetooth. You first have to be sure that the excessive battery consumption you’re noticing depends on Bluetooth, and in fact this will be the first thing we’re going to check, since maybe the Bluetooth connection might not be the culprit, but it might depend instead on some application you’ve recently installed.
how to check if abnormal battery consumption is caused by a Bluetooth connection
We said that as a first step you have to make sure that the abnormal battery consumption depends on the Bluetooth connection and not on some application you are using. To check if there is abnormal battery consumption due to the Bluetooth connection on your Android smartphone, just follow these simple steps on your phone with the green robot operating system:
- Tap on the Settings icon on your Android smartphone or alternatively lower the status bar by sliding your finger from the top of the screen down and tap on the gear icon
- Once you are inside the Settings screen, scroll down to the Battery item, then tap it with your finger to access it
- You should now see a graph indicating battery consumption, or rather, what the battery consumes. Below the graph, you will in fact find the hardware and software items, with the corresponding percentage of power consumed. If you notice that there is a high level of consumption in the Hardware item, this is already a sign that the problem you are experiencing could depend precisely on the Bluetooth connection; if, on the other hand, you notice the higher percentage of consumption in Software, it probably means that there is some application that is draining your battery. Tap on Hardware and check the percentage of consumption there is from Bluetooth. If you notice that there is very high power consumption, then Bluetooth is the cause of the problem you are complaining about
- Now that you have ascertained that the battery consumption is caused precisely by the Bluetooth connection, you can move on to solutions that will allow you to mitigate the consumption. If, on the other hand, the consumption was caused by an app, all you would need to do would be to uninstall it or at most figure out the cause why there was excessive battery consumption. The steps you find in this guide, are given using as reference a Samsung Galaxy smartphone with One UI 4.1 interface and with Android version 12 installed.
block Bluetooth scanning of devices
If you have Bluetooth enabled on your smartphone, but it is not connected to any devices, it will result in continuous scanning for new devices that you can pair with. In a nutshell, this results in excessive battery consumption as scanning obviously requires power. If it is not necessary, you should therefore stop the process of scanning for new Bluetooth devices in the following way:
- Access the Settings app on your phone
- Then tap on the Connections item
- Tap on Bluetooth and then immediately on Stop. This will immediately stop scanning for new Bluetooth devices that might be nearby. Bluetooth will still remain active, however
turn Bluetooth off when you’re not using it
Many people keep Bluetooth always on, even when there is no need to use it. This is an ill-advised practice, particularly if you are not even stopped from continuously scanning for new devices nearby that you can connect to. If you are not using Bluetooth, turn it off and the battery will last longer. Bluetooth on Android can be turned off in two ways:
- Pull down the status bar by sliding your finger from the top of the screen to the bottom
- Press on the Bluetooth switch as in the picture to turn it off.
Alternatively, you can also turn off the Bluetooth switch in the following way:
- Go to Settings on your smartphone
- Tap on the Connections item
- You should now see the Bluetooth item with its switch on beside it. Turn it off
If you notice excessive battery consumption when paired with a device
Have you used the Bluetooth connection to pair your Android smartphone with another device, but notice that in such a case there is an exaggerated consumption of the phone’s battery? You need to make sure in this case that the Bluetooth device to which you are connected with your smartphone, is placed a short distance away, this is because, if the two devices are connected to each other but are also far apart, the device may attempt a continuous establishment of the Bluetooth connection, thus consuming quite a lot of battery power. The solution is quite simple in this case: just bring the two devices closer together. So if you use, for example, your smartphone in one room and your Bluetooth speaker in another, the wall separating the two rooms, as well as the distance between the two devices, could trigger the smartphone to continuously establish a connection, thus consuming more battery power. Move the smartphone closer to the speaker if they are far apart and you will see less battery consumption by the phone.
reset network settings
If you have incorrectly changed your network settings, you may experience abnormal battery consumption when you activate Bluetooth on your smartphone. You could try to figure out what settings you changed that led to excessive power consumption when using Bluetooth connection or more simply you could directly reset your phone’s network settings to fix the problem once and for all.
Here are the steps you need to follow to reset your network settings on Android:
- Tap the Settings icon on your phone
- From the search bar at the top of the Settings screen, type Restore Network Settings or Network Settings
- Tap on the item that refers to reset network settings
- You will now be sent back to the screen that allows you to reset your network settings. Select the SIM (if you use more than one), for which you want to perform the reset
- Pressing on the Reset network settings button, as an action will reset the network functions affecting Wi-Fi, mobile data, and Bluetooth
- Then wait for the device to automatically reboot and try to see if the consumption by Bluetooth is still excessive or if it has returned to normal
keep location services active only when you are using the app
If you are using a location service on Android, Bluetooth might be used to be able to get an approximate location. If an app abuses the permission that is given by the user to be able to get the location, even when the app is in the background, you might get more power consumption. Fortunately, Android allows you to be able to give the app certain permissions only if you are using it. Here’s how to limit an app to location permission so that it can only have access to it when you are using it:
- Go inside the Settings on your smartphone
- Tap on the Location item
- See which apps can have access to the device’s location at any time
- Then tap the name of each app that can access your location at any time and select the Allow only while the app is in use item
update the operating system
There may also be a problem with the Android operating system you’re using that specifically relates to abnormal consumption due to the Bluetooth connection. Usually these bugs are detected in beta versions of the software and that have not yet reached a stable level, but they could also occur in stable versions released too hastily. Especially if your same problem has been encountered by other users, you should check if there is a new update that affects the smartphone software, so if you find it you should download and install it. A software update with the corrected bug will be able to restore Bluetooth to its normal use, so if it is present download it to your phone. To search for and download a new update if available, do the following:
- Go to Settings on your smartphone
- Scroll down to Software Updates and tap on the item
- Scan for new updates. If you find a new software update, proceed with downloading it
- Check if you still detect excessive Bluetooth consumption after the update, perhaps by going to the Settings > Battery > Hardware screen
Perform a reset
The problem with Bluetooth consuming too much battery may have appeared suddenly for no good reason or after you have updated the system software. If it is a problem that is not common to other users this of Bluetooth, there are chances that you could solve it by performing a reset to the factory state of the device. The reset will erase everything on the phone, from photos to apps, returning the smartphone to how it was when it was first turned on. Before performing a factory state reset of your device, it is recommended that you make a full backup so that you do not lose your most important data. I suggest you follow this solution only as a last resort.
Conclusions
If you’ve realized that Bluetooth has been consuming too much battery power lately, it’s probably not a normal thing, and the causes why this can happen can be different. The solutions seen above, however, should help you get everything back to normal, thus preventing your Android phone’s Bluetooth from consuming too much battery power. Until the next guide.