Lenovo utility for bluetooth control in Win8?

I'm annoyed and amazed in equal measure at how complicated it apparently is to simply turn bluetooth on and off in Windows 8.1, which makes me wonder if perhaps I'm missing some utility from intel/lenovo that might make things easier (this on a T440p with the Intel 7260AC card). Currently turning it on or off requires drilling down in PC settings, making it a 3-4 click process. Surely there's an easier way?

 

Well, I don´t know an easier way to turn of Bluetooth, but maybe you can save 1 or 2 clicks if you press FN + F8 (if the FNLk is active). In Windows 8 this activates the airplane-mode (turns of both WIFi and Bluetooth), but in Windows 8.1, this "elevates" you directly into the PC-Settings where you can click on the Tab "Airplane-Mode", where you then can disable Bluetooth. This is the fastest way I know, maybe someone knows one even faster.

 

Airplane mode seems to be the only real option for easy on/off, but not perfect. Why on earth MS doesn't have a BT switch along with WiFi and Airplane mode in the network settings panel I've no idea. That's why I was hoping for a Lenovo utility of some kind.

 

Just discovered that using airplane mode to turn off bluetooth is apparently NOT an option for the T440p (and other quad-core machines). I discovered this when I restarted my machine that I'd left in airplane mode and got a strange power error stating "AC power is detached from your docking station" (which it wasn't) and saw it was now running on battery.

Apparently this is by design. When airplane mode is enabled, it also enables airplane power mode that uses only 65W of power (the maximum that's delivered by aircraft power supplies). And since quad-core machines do not recognized a 65W power supply (since they need more power than that) the machine essentially does not see any power supply at all. Yes, this also means the T440p will not charge at all if being used on an aircraft in airplane mode.

There is a workaround for this but it requires changing a registry value: W540 charging bug - WiFi OFF = no charge - Lenovo Community

 

The newest version of the Lenovo Settings app includes a setting to turn off the Airplane-power mode.

 

but then every time you enable airplane mode you have to go into settings to turn off airplane power mode, which is by no means ideal (disabling airplane power mode in Lenovo Settings only works until the next time you enable airplane mode)

 

But why do you want to use the airplane mode? Just disable Bluetooth alone:

 

well using F8>airplane mode is marginally better than drilling down within PC settings, but when my machine is in a dock with the lid closed F8 is not an option, which is why I was wondering if there's something as straightforward as a Bluetooth switch in the Network pop-up panel of Windows 8.1 (where there's currently the WiFi and Airplane mode switches).