How to disable Bluetooth power saving?

keyboard 20.04 bluetooth

6,412

Maybe try this...

The comment in /etc/bluetooth/input.conf says it should already default to '0' so this shouldn't be needed, but explicitly setting IdleTimeout to 0 like this seems to have worked for me, I am using Ubuntu 20.04

sudo sed -i 's/#IdleTimeout=30/IdleTimeout=0/g' /etc/bluetooth/input.conf

6,412

Author by

ams

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

ams almost 2 years

I've been using a Bluetooth keyboard with Ubuntu for years now. To begin with it was quite tricky to get it to pair, but for the last several releases it's been rock solid.

After updating to 20.04 (from 19.10) it still works great, but it has acquired a new feature in which the keyboard goes to sleep if I don't type anything for a while. I presume this is deliberate and meant to be an improvement, and it reconnects just fine when I do press a key, but it takes a few seconds and drops any key presses in the meantime, so it's annoying.

How can I go back to the old always-connected mode, please?
- Random Person almost 4 years
  
  Are you using any USB Bluetooth adapter? If yes, please mention the name and model of it in the question.
- ams almost 4 years
  
  No adapter; just the built-in bluetooth of my machine, although lshw does list it as a USB device. The vendor is Intel. If there are other useful details I don't recognise them.
- Random Person almost 4 years
  
  So I guess you're having a laptop. If yes, mention the name and model of laptop.
- ams almost 4 years
  
  Dell Precision 7710.
- GunJack almost 4 years
  
  Could you verify that tlp is on the system?
- GunJack almost 4 years
  
  also the contents of /etc/modprobe.d/99-local.conf
- ams almost 4 years
  
  TLP is not installed.
- ams almost 4 years
  
  There is no /etc/modprobe.d/99-local.conf on this system.
- João Pimentel Ferreira over 3 years
  
  Hi, did you happen to solve the issue? I'm having the same issue
- ams over 3 years
  
  @JoãoPimentelFerreira Unfortunately not.
GunJack almost 4 years

This will turn off the bluetooth entirely. He wants to disable the power saving feature of bluetooth, not the bluetoot itself.
Avishek Acharya Av almost 4 years

i think this feature disable the devices if they are not in use in long period of time
ams almost 4 years

I turned that off and bluetooth was disabled immediately. The label does seem misleading; I had assumed that this was some kind of smart feature also.
Chaim Eliyah over 3 years

I was unable to control my computer after this.
ams over 3 years

I've set this, but there's no obvious difference. :-(
João Pimentel Ferreira over 3 years

I also did this, but did't work
thewebjackal over 2 years

IdleTimeout value defaults to 0. Hence, this is a misleading answer.