XBox One controller: Bluetooth vs dongle

[Sarra]

Is there a significant difference in battery usage between using bluetooth vs a dongle?

 

I'm running rechargeable NiMH batteries, and they're ancient, but I only get about 3 hours of play time before they die. Would brand new NiMH batteries and a dongle increase my battery life on my controller?

[schwellmo92]

I don't know about the specific Bluetooth implementation that the Xbox One controller uses but in general Bluetooth uses less battery than 2.4GHz.

 

Two AA batteries should last 20-30 hours in a controller, if you are only getting 3 hours those batteries must be absoloutely ruined.

[Sarra]

1 minute ago, schwellmo92 said:

I don't know about the specific Bluetooth implementation that the Xbox One controller uses but in general Bluetooth uses less battery than 2.4GHz.

 

Two AA batteries should last 20-30 hours in a controller, if you are only getting 3 hours those batteries must be absoloutely ruined.

Yeah, I was only getting around 8 hours from a pair of Duracell AA batteries. The rechargeable batteries are... Old. I mean, 15 years old. I'm going to pick up some new NiMH batteries, and recycle the old ones.

[schwellmo92]

36 minutes ago, Sarra said:

Yeah, I was only getting around 8 hours from a pair of Duracell AA batteries. The rechargeable batteries are... Old. I mean, 15 years old. I'm going to pick up some new NiMH batteries, and recycle the old ones.

If you use the headset that plugs in to the controller the battery life is about halved.

[Sarra]

44 minutes ago, schwellmo92 said:

If you use the headset that plugs in to the controller the battery life is about halved.

Nope. Just using the controller itself, nothing else.

[schwellmo92]

53 minutes ago, Sarra said:

Nope. Just using the controller itself, nothing else.

Ok well yeah it’s most likely your batteries are just trashed at this point.

[WereCatf]

5 hours ago, schwellmo92 said:

but in general Bluetooth uses less battery than 2.4GHz

Bluetooth also operates in the 2.4GHz - frequency, so that comparison doesn't really make sense.

[schwellmo92]

56 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

Bluetooth also operates in the 2.4GHz - frequency, so that comparison doesn't really make sense.

You know exactly what I mean there’s no need to be an ass. Bluetooth vs typical 2.4GHz wireless communications that controllers/mice/keyboards use. Bluetooth uses less energy and has higher latency vs the other non-Bluetooth 2.4GHz that use more energy with lower latency.

[WereCatf]

1 minute ago, schwellmo92 said:

You know exactly what I mean there’s no need to be an ass. Bluetooth vs typical 2.4GHz wireless communications that controllers/mice/keyboards use. Bluetooth uses less energy and has higher latency vs the other non-Bluetooth 2.4GHz that use more energy with lower latency.

I'm not being an ass, you are just over-generalizing things. There are a billion different protocols that all work on the 2.4GHz and you can't just make a sweeping claim that they're all worse than Bluetooth.

[Sarra]

9 hours ago, schwellmo92 said:

Ok well yeah it’s most likely your batteries are just trashed at this point.

Yeah. I'm going to buy a new set of NiMH AA's today. That should reduce the amount of waste that I produce by gaming for ridiculous amounts of time with this thing (I have been playing Mudrunner lately).

4 hours ago, schwellmo92 said:

You know exactly what I mean there’s no need to be an ass. Bluetooth vs typical 2.4GHz wireless communications that controllers/mice/keyboards use. Bluetooth uses less energy and has higher latency vs the other non-Bluetooth 2.4GHz that use more energy with lower latency.

This was another issue I was having, actually: Latency. In my game, the A button triggers the AWD, and frequently, when I press the button, it isn't registered. Sometimes, the rumble stops working, and I suspect it's a problem with bandwidth or excessive latency, so I went ahead and grabbed the XBox dongle last night off Newegg, along with a replacement case fan for my PC. If the dongle works better and gives me better battery life, then that's fine. If not, I still have my bluetooth radio, so again, it's not a big problem. If the dongle doesn't really work, then I can pop it up on local CL, and sell it to someone else that needs/wants it.