A few days ago we talked to you about whether it was worth turning off WiFi when it was not being used and today it is the turn of another of the wireless technologies that we use the most in our day to day: Bluetooth.
Bluetooth is very present in our day to day. It is a technology used by many devices such as mobile phones, tablets, watches and a large number of home appliances. In addition, we can have these devices linked to each other, such as the mobile and the smart watch. Should we keep Bluetooth on always on our phone?
How much battery does Bluetooth consume?
Let’s go first to one of the factors that may concern you the most: the longer you have Bluetooth on, the more battery you will consume. This is not a fixed variable, since, with the passing of the versions, these are optimized to save battery .
A recent Android Authority test showed the data collected on 5 different terminals (Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, Huawei P40 Pro, ZTE Axon 11, Xiaomi Poco F2 Pro and Realme X3 Superzoom) in two different scenarios: with Bluetooth always on and with Bluetooth always on. disconnected to compare the energy consumption in both cases.
The results showed a minimal difference. Leaving Bluetooth on consumed only 1.8% more battery compared to phones that had wireless turned off. On average, the devices consumed 49.4% of their battery during this 26-hour test with Bluetooth off versus 51.2% with Bluetooth on. Extrapolating this to a full charge cycle, Bluetooth consumes less than 4% of additional battery life .
Continuous sending of data
One quirky thing about Bluetooth technology is that whenever it’s turned on, it’s going to be sending data, regardless of whether it’s paired to a device or not. The Bluetooth interface periodically sends our UUID (Universally Unique Identifier) so that other devices in range can connect.
Bluetooth Fingerprint
The problem is the data that can be extracted from that UUID, starting with geo-locating the sending device. This sending of information happens even if we have the device hidden within the detection, it will continue to send this type of information. As you can guess, this can be a significant security hole and put the security of our smartphone or any other type of wireless device at risk.
Minimizing the use of Bluetooth, to only activate it when in use, means that we minimize the exposure to possible attacks. Over time, different threats and targeted attacks against Bluetooth devices have emerged, such as the so-called BlueBorne , which allows a device that has this wireless technology activated to be attacked through a series of vulnerabilities.
The conclusion in this case is simple: as much as Bluetooth technology has advanced since its origins, it is from a security point of view that we should consider turning it off. At an energy level, there are no major changes in devices compatible with the latest version of Bluetooth, but the risk of having it activated and being able to suffer attacks and intrusions is high and not worth it.