How does BT affect battery life?

Hello. I am planning on buying myself a nice bluetooth mouse. Now, normally, i always keep my bluetooth off. With this purchase, i will be thus turning bluetooth on, however i will only be using the mouse when i am corded. Thus, i am wondering, how does bluetooth affect battery life when it is merely turned on but not actually communicating with a peripheral? Note that my Wireless Adapter is the Intel Centrino 2230 with Bluetooth 4.0.

Please and thank you.

 

My M$ bluetooth 5000 depending on usage last about 4 months on AAA batteries so alot depends on how much you use the BT mouse. I usually turn mine off when not in use to save battery life. And if your not needing portability using cordless mouse probably will not be of benefit to you currently but that will be your choice. When it is turned on it is still communicating with the Bluetooth hardware wifi it will go to sleep mode but maintains the connections but in sleep or idle mode. But as anything with battery turn it on and the battery will drain from usage or sleep or idle mode turning it off will extend the battery life for the time being. But for laptops unless your gaming which is another matter a cordless mouse is good to have BT or not but I like BT as my Dell 1525 comes built with BT so I don't loose USB ports another very important part of laptop now days should you need enough of those ports. I have 4 but some have 3 or less and that can be a tricky maneuvering to use the ports. But I would say of the cordless mouse if you get internal BT to save USB ports that is a plus for me.

 

Bluetooth affect on battery performance will be about the same as having wireless on. I turn mine off unless Im actually using it which is rarely. I use a 2.4ghz logitech with the radio in a USB port.

 

In terms of laptop battery life, I recently started to use an el cheapo $ 10 Bornd C170b Bluetooth mouse (not for gaming of course, I still prefer wired over any wireless when gaming). My Bluetooth radio is always on all the time and I don't perceive that much difference in battery life compared to when the radio is off. IMO, screen brightness, CPU, GPU and HDD are the main battery eaters while Bluetooth is the least factor in battery consumption followed by Wi-Fi (medium power saving on the power options).

 

It depends on the Bluetooth version. The newer versions (BT 4.0) have a much lower impact on battery life.

 

My wireless is always on.

I will not be using the mouse when the laptop is not plugged, so bluetooth will be on for the sake of convenience, but no actual devices will be paired when the laptop is running on battery mode.

Basically, i use my laptop as a Gaming DTR/Workstation on AC and as a light-use college/web browsing device when on battery. I do not use a mouse when on battery.