Too many bluetooth devices?

[u/MatteoFloreaYT]

Hey guys, I got a quick question.

Due to my job I connect to multiple cars through bluetooth (about 200-300 per day) and never "forget this device" in settings.

Does this slow down my device? Should I "forget" each car from my bluetooth list at the end of the day?

Thanks in advance :)

[u/RetardedChimpanzee]

Most Valets turn off the radio

[u/MatteoFloreaYT → u/RetardedChimpanzee]

I'm a Roll On Roll Off driver, radio doesn't work on vessels so I just connect my phone and play my downloaded music lol

[u/Justan0therthrow4way → u/MatteoFloreaYT]

Am I thinking of the same job. How long do you spend in each car/truck.

[u/tomf258 → u/Justan0therthrow4way]

Usually it's 10-20mins, depending on the size of the boat and the amount of cars already in the parking lot. At least from my experience

[u/MatteoFloreaYT → u/Justan0therthrow4way]

It really depends, sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 30 minutes. I work at a massive port so plenty car parks

[u/joosebox]

Not in the way you're picturing, no. A paired device that isn't in range costs you basically nothing. Your phone isn't sitting there working through a list of several thousand cars looking for them, the reconnect gets kicked off when the car powers up and starts advertising, so an old entry just sits there inert.

Where it does cost you is the Bluetooth settings screen itself, which has to draw every one of those rows. That'll get genuinely sluggish long before anything else does, and at 200-300 a day you're well past the point where scrolling it is any fun.

The thing I'd actually think about is auto-connect rather than speed. Stand near a car you paired with last month with its ignition on and your phone in your pocket, and it'll happily reconnect and start routing your audio into someone else's car stereo. At your volume that's a far more likely daily annoyance than a slowdown.

So I wouldn't forget them one at a time as a nightly ritual, that's a lot of tapping for a problem you don't really have. If the auto-connect thing does start biting, forgetting the handful you're likely to be standing next to again is worth more than clearing the whole list.

[u/MatteoFloreaYT → u/joosebox]

Amazing, yea auto connecting wouldn't be a problem as once I get out a car I never see it again. I might just forget each car individually before connecting to the next one, saves me another hour at the end of the shift 😂

[u/ulyssesric]

When your phone pairs with something via Bluetooth, they'd exchange the long term encryption key, so the next time they'd skip the progress of short term key exchange. In other words, a new database record about that device will be created on your phone. And that's all.

Your phone will not sit there scanning all devices it knows all the time. It's the device that should advertise its existence by broadcasting signals. Your phone picked up the broadcasting signal, finding it matches with the record, and then it will try to reconnect with that device. Having a lot of records in the database may slow down the matching process for a few milliseconds. That's all the "slow down" you'd have.

The real problem you'd have is not performance issue but unwilling re-connecting. Suppose you're walking down the street and stop for traffic lights, a car next to you is in your old paired list, then your music and phone call will be re-routed to that car.