I have been spending a lot of time working remotely with my laptop in random locations. And usually just plug my mouse in via the USB dongle. But just curious if there is a noticeable battery difference doing this? Seems like Bluetooth would be better because it’s already powering other things anyway.
Edit: seems like it’s Bluetooth. Going to have to change my habits. Thanks all.
Bluetooth (BLE) is impressive, I have seen a BLE device being stuck to a window in an office, and with just the vibration of the glass, it created enough energy to send small data packets to a PC 10ft away.
I’m not sure of the answer, but I feel like other commenters are just guessing.
My reason for doubting the dongle is that Bluetooth is designed to be ultra-low-power. We’re talking in the low milliwatts range.
I don’t know how much power a 2.4gHz dongle uses, but I would be surprised if it was less than Bluetooth. However, in terms of laptop battery life, it’s probably not significant enough to really matter. It’s not like either one will cut your batteey life down a noticeable amount.
Assuming you mean for the battery life of the mouse: In my experience, USB dongle.
The communication protocol is simpler, and it’s often unidirectional rather than BT which has bidirectional handshaking, etc.
I’ve always assumed the dongle uses bluetooth as well. Why invent a new protocol when there’s one that does exactly what you want?
Dongles are usually 2.4ghz radios, supposed to be lower latency and more stable than Bluetooth.
Edit- in reality though, bluetooth has come a long way and generally more convenient, users likely wouldn’t notice a difference in day to day work. Personally I still wouldn’t recommend gaming on a bluetooth connection when latency and micro stutters matter.
That’s the same frequency as one of the main Wi-Fi bands, I would imagine they’re probably just reusing that technology for this communication
Not sure but im pretry sure both a so negligible its completely irrelevant
Years ago it was relevant (like 15 years ago). I had a BT mouse then, and it was a power hog. So much so it was rechargeable with its own charging dock. And yes, when you walked away for the day you better dock it!
But I’m sure it’s far, far better now. Logitech advertises some of their’s as having 1 year battery like, on a single AA battery
Less power on the side of the host computer or the mouse?
