Does leaving the GPS/Bluetooth on drain the battery?

[androidfreekz]

wifi WILL drain your batt. It will constantly look for a wifi connection if it is left on (even if you don't see the wifi symble at the top). With wifi on my droid only lasts about 8 hrs. with it off it will last for 2 days. I leave my GPS on and BT off at all times. I have wifi on off app and turn it off when I don't want to use wifi.

This is the most accurate statement yet. To add further clarity to the subject, how the GPS receiver works is inherently different when compared to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. If you leave your GPS "enabled" it does absolutely nothing until needed. It will set there passively until an application registers a listener saying that it would like to start receiving GPS coordinates. You can tell if the GPS is running because you will see the satellite dish icon in your icon tray. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on the other hand are not passive. They continually look for available connections, hence the battery drain. Again, if you have GPS enabled and an application is not using it... no battery drain. Wi-fi or Bluetooth you will get battery drain. They work differently.

 

[Droids]

I leave my wifi on 24/7 and my battery does fine. That's because I'm usually in a wifi location, home or work. I have found that Bluetooth and GPS drains it faster. So I use the Power widget to turn BT and GPS off most of the time. The power widget is just a good thing to have on the home screen. You can do your own testing that way.

 

[Sleeve]

Try this. Leave Bluetooth on all day. Check the Battery Usage feature in Settings/About Phone.

I leave mine on all day. I use bluetooth headphones for over an hour each day.

Mediaserver typically uses more battery power playing the music I'm listening to than sending it to my headphones over bluetooth. Six percent for the tunes, 4% for BT. I can afford 4% for the convenience of having BT on when I want it.

As you'd expect, and find in your own results, lighting the display takes the most juice. Since the 2.0.1 update, I've noticed a big drop in display power used based on the faster screen shut off when left locked. In the two weeks prior, I'd find my phone unlocked in my pocket because the keyboard shifted open slightly. One time, my home pages were rearranged and I was sending garbled text messages. I explained to my confused recipients that my Droid was disgruntled with being in my pocket. Brain the size of a planet, and all I do all day is bounce off his thigh...

If you haven't stumbled into the Battery Usage feature, it's fairly amazing to be able to see feature-level AND app-level battery stats. Makes it pretty easy to spot a pig, and I'm sure developers are aware it exists.

Wifi is going to actively scan for open hotspots and consume battery, but ONLY if your device is unlocked. Unlike an overcaffeinated co-worker, the wifi is not going to bother notifying your pocket lint that you're near a hotspot. It only activates a scan based on turning wifi on, unlocking the screen, and it probably checks for coarse location changes, jumping towers, as you drive/walk around but I have no way to know that, I'm only speculating. I've also never walked out of range of my wifi then back into range with my Droid locked and in my pocket to determine if it reconnects to wifi while locked or just quickly reconnects when I unlock it. Sorta have more interesting things to do...

GPS, I never actually shut off so that it can be available when I open a GPS-using app. It actually is off most of the time. GPS is only really in use when the satellite icon with the green radio beams is visible. The rest of the time, it's sitting idle waiting for an app to ask for fine location. It consumes zero battery while idle.

IMHO, a lot of care went into allowing these features to be enabled, but if you use your Droid a lot you'll likely find you can't afford the battery power for their added up effect of being on all day. That'll increase based on how often you have the screen unlocked and you're using your Droid. It's designed to assume that if you're interacting with it and you have BT and wifi on, you're interested in knowing about BT and wifi devices near you. That's going to use battery power.

 

[Martin030908]

Maybe I don't know what I'm doing but I've never found a way to turn GPS on or off. What I mean is when I use the car I press navigation and I see the GPS icon come on but once I navigate away from it the GPS icon disappears. I also don't see any battery use at all for GPS.

What am I missing people? Still got lots to learn it's only been two weeks.

Menu > Settings > Location & security settings > check/uncheck "Use GPS satellites"

 

[coolkidd]

Just so you know (if anyone asks)... Turning On the GPS, Bluetooth, Wifi, won't drain your battery if its plugged in!

 

[hookbill]

Maybe I don't know what I'm doing but I've never found a way to turn GPS on or off. What I mean is when I use the car I press navigation and I see the GPS icon come on but once I navigate away from it the GPS icon disappears. I also don't see any battery use at all for GPS.

What am I missing people? Still got lots to learn it's only been two weeks.

Menu > Settings > Location & security settings > check/uncheck "Use GPS satellites"

OK and mine was turned on. But when I check my batery use, it doesn't show any drain from GPS. Not even 2%.

Thanks after I got there of course I remembered. I'm getting older, I forget things from time to time. :embarrassed:

 

[Martin030908]

no embarrassment needed... not uncommon with all the settings on this device to 'forget' where things are... i've done it numerous times :tongue:

 

[keiichi25]

You can also use the Default Power Control Widget where it displays WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, Sync and Auto-Brightness toggle switches.

As many others have pointed out too, GPS doesn't drain the battery too much, from what I have seen, the GPS receiver only flips on when you wake your phone (Usually an app kicks in to GPS locate you, then checks the GPS once in a while where you are at. Navigation uses it more heavily as it needs to update and navigate people more, but Maps and other apps can use it a little infrequently.

WiFi and Bluetooth, while not connected, will be actively searching for a WiFi access point or a Bluetooth device it should be pairing to, so that would be more battery intensive as it is reaching out for a signal than just passively receiving information.