I’m trying to eke out the maximum battery life out of my new Windows 10 laptop and have heard that Bluetooth can consume lots of battery. How do I disable it?
The single biggest consumer of battery on most laptop computers is the display screen, so your best way to get more life out of your battery is to turn down the brightness. Seems so simple, eh? Bluetooth also consumes some battery life, as every mobile phone owner knows, but it turns out that it’s not actually very much if it’s just sitting and unused. The power saver options in Windows are pretty flexible, and it’ll doubtless warn you if your brightness is too high. You want to ensure that you have your display set to sleep after just a few minutes of inactivity and your computer to go to sleep after a relatively short amount of time unused too.
More than that, however, if you go to the Battery settings (use Cortana for a shortcut!) you can actually view your apps sorted by “Battery usage by app”, which can help you pinpoint apps that keep running in the background and suck up all that valuable juice. Still, it’s useful but doesn’t show you low level OS subsystem power consumption so it’s only a part of the solution.
And so, let’s circle back to your question. How do you turn off Bluetooth. Turns out that’s ridiculously easy in Windows 10 thanks to Cortana. Just type in “disable bluetooth”:
But let’s say you prefer the more complicated solution or for some reason Cortana’s not enabled on your computer. In that case, find the bluetooth icon on the Taskbar, lower right:
Not sure why it isn’t white like every other darn icon in this area, but… so it goes. Click on it and a menu shows up:
A surprising number of options because Bluetooth in Microsoft Windows 10 is more featureful than you may realize. Choose “Open Settings” to get to the Bluetooth settings…
Lots of choices, types of devices, and even a convenient link that lets you “Add Bluetooth or other device“. But right in the center, that’s what you want to change: The Bluetooth “On” switch. A click and it’s now off and… the bluetooth icon on the Taskbar vanishes too!
Either way, mission accomplished. I don’t think it’s going to make a substantial difference in your battery life, but give it a try and make sure you also turn down that darn brightness!
Pro Tip: While you’re here, check out our extensive Microsoft Windows help area!
Speaking of Bluetooth, I’ve had a weird issue and I was wondering if you know what’s up with it. On Ubuntu, I can connect on my Bluetooth headphones just fine. However, that just doesn’t happen on Windows 10. It pairs with the headphones but refuses to connect. I’ve tried reinstalling the drivers but nothing. Any tips would be appreciated.