Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Battery Life Time Calculator

Similar to cellular IoT, BLE battery life is paramount. The calculation is also based on an average current model but is driven by advertising or connection events. This Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Battery Life Time Calculator helps you estimate the battery life of your BLE devices based on various parameters such as transmit power, connection interval, and battery capacity. Simply input the required values to get an estimate of how long your BLE device will last on a given battery.

BLE Battery Life Calculator Example:

Scenario: A BLE beacon with a CR2032 coin cell battery (225 mAh) advertising once every second.

INPUTS:

• Battery Capacity = 225 mAh
• Connection Interval (T_interval) = 1000 ms
• Sleep Current (I_sleep)= 0.002 mA
• Advertising Interval (T_adv) = 3 ms
• Advertising Current (I_adv) = 8 mA

OUTPUTS:

• Average Current Consumption, I_avg = 0.026 mA
• Battery Life = 8655.84 hours (or 360 days)

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Battery Life Formula

Where,

• Battery Capacity (in mAh) = Capacity of the battery used in the BLE device
• Average Current Consumption, I_avg (in mA) = Average current drawn by the BLE device during its operation
• Connection Interval, T_interval (in ms) = Time interval between consecutive connection events
• Sleep Current, I_sleep (in mA) = Current drawn by the BLE device when in sleep mode
• Advertising Interval, T_adv (in ms) = Time interval between consecutive advertising events
• Advertising Current, I_adv (in mA) = Current drawn by the BLE device during advertising
• Battery Life (in hours) = Estimated battery life of the BLE device
• Battery Life (in days) = Estimated battery life of the BLE device in days

References

• Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Overview
• Calculating Battery Life for BLE Devices
• BLE Power Consumption Optimization
• Understanding BLE Connection Intervals
• Application Notes from Chipset Vendors: Companies like Nordic Semiconductor (“Power Profiler Kit” documentation) and Texas Instruments provide the best and most practical resources for these calculations, as the exact current values are specific to their hardware.