“Turning Off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Will Save Your Battery Life”

At a glance, this seems sensible – you don’t want your phone constantly connecting to Wi-Fi or Bluetooth when you aren’t using those features, so turning them off would help save battery life, right? Unfortunately, no, it’s not a solution.

The latest Wi-Fi and Bluetooth standards are excellent at saving battery life by controlling just how they work and when devices are actually connected. In other words, if the services are on but aren’t actively being used, they’re designed to “sleep” to avoid draining battery life. Even when they’re actively working, these standards are so efficient they don’t really make a marked difference in battery drain anyway.

Cellular data connections are a different story. Data connections to cell towers are generally more of a drain on your battery, especially 5G. This is especially true if you are driving, flying, or on a train passing through many zones with spotty connections, where the cellular connection gets dropped a lot. This is when Airplane mode comes in handy.