Bluetooth "idling" at 83% CPU usage - killing battery life?

[twentysided]

OK this is weird. Overall I have been having decent luck with batteries. The original would get me to 10pm or so on a normal day, and I just got an extended one (1750) a couple weeks ago. Fine.

So I install a few apps here and there - nothing serious, and I've been running live backgrounds constantly. The new battery was coming along ok - slight improvement, which is exactly what I expected.

Right as I thought I should be hitting my stride with it - 6+ full charges or so - all of a sudden I see it die at 2pm after coming off the charger around 7am.

I thought the extended battery might be defective, so I swapped to the regular - same deal. My phone was heating up in my pocket for no apparent reason, and it was sluggish also - like it was always busy with something else. I took off a few of my recent apps and nothing fixed it.

I finally got a CPU usage monitor today (after struggling to get Handcent to respond normally), and I see that system/bin/bluetoothhd is steady at 80-85% CPU usage. I disable it, and bam - everything seems back to normal.

I will keep manually disabling it when I'm not in the car over the next couple days, but has anyone else experienced anything like this? I have been leaving it on constantly so it's ready whenever I get in my car - this is REALLY out of nowhere...

Anyone else had this? No idea what would cause it to flip out like that all of a sudden...

 

[terpitude71]

that much drainage from bluetooth seems excessive, but BT will drain the battery constantly if toggled on but not actively connected to a BT device, as it doesnt stop searching for a BT connection.

 

[SeeK]

What terpitude said. You'll have to disable it when you're not using it if you want to keep it from draining your battery. I can see how it would be such a prevalent drain on your battery - if there are many other Bluetooth devices around, it'll constantly keep searching for them, checking connection quality, negotiating visibility, etc. A turned on radio does a lot more than you'd think even when it's idle.

 

[cr3amy]

Is there such thing as an idle mode that just waits to be pinged by the bluetooth device without constantly seeking?