understanding WiFi & battery life

[expatCanuck]

Greetings -

I seem to recall reading that having WiFi on drains battery life.
Do I only need/use WiFi if I'm in a WiFi hotspot?

Thanks.

- Richard

[fratts]

Absolutely, there would be no need to enable Wifi unless you intend to connect to a Wifi hot spot.

[aiharkness]

Wirelessly posted

You'll see some posts from people that they leave wifi and bluetooth on all the time with no noticeable hit on battery life. I know I turn on wifi along with mobile network also on when I'm home, and I don't think battery life is any less during those times. (EDIT: I have the device set to wifi preferred.) Still, I turn wifi off when I leave the house and only use it when I'm in range of wifi. Ditto bluetooth; I only turn it on when I'm using it.

There are a lot of variables that affect your battery life. Wifi and bluetooth may very well be in the noise. If you are experiencing short battery life, though, you need to look at all those variables and remove or reduce the causes that are significant in your case.