I am sitting here writing this article in my Bose Bluetooth headphones. I absolutely love them and use them every day for work. The performance is incredible and the battery seems to last forever. I listen to music for a few hours every day and I only recharge them for a couple of hours each week. As they are wireless, it requires an in-built battery and consumes their own power. But how much electricity do headphones actually use?
Below we will discuss and test Bluetooth headphone wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts Are Bluetooth Headphones?
Bluetooth headphones use between 1 and 5 watts.
The exact number depends on the model of your headphone. During my tests I found no real correlation between size of device compared to the wattage pulled while charging or running.
For example, a set of earbuds can draw more than 3W, while large over ear headphones can use under 2.5W.
As you can see, there is a small difference between devices but they are all low power consumption electronics. You will find that headphones rarely draw over 5W.
How to Find Out Your Headphone Wattage
There’s 3 ways you can work out the wattage of headphones.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the headphones’ specifications. The watts (W) is usually written on a sticker with the wires or charger. If not, you can check the user manual or the manufacturer’s website for technical details.
- Use a Wattmeter
A wattmeter is brilliant for getting a live wattage reading and tracking total energy usage of any appliance. You can simply plug it into your headphones to get instant information.
I used one to test two pairs of headphones which gave a live reading of 2.5W for Bose Quiet Comfort and 3.6W for Skullcandy earbuds.
- Wattage Formula or Calculator
If you know the amperage and voltage of your headphones you can use this to find the maximum power draw. Simply use the formula Amps x Volts = Watts. Or you can head over to the ‘Watt Calculator’ to work this out.
Headphone Wattage Examples
Let’s take a look at specific examples of how many watts headphones draw. Below is a collection of modern headphones with their listed power ratings.
| Headphone Model | Power Rating (Watts) |
| Bose Quiet Comfort 2 | 2.5 |
| Skullcandy Indy Evo | 3.6 |
| Apple Airpods | 5 |
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different headphones. So you should take the time to check your own appliance.
How Much Electricity Do Headphones Use?
You can use a headphone’s wattage to work out how much electricity they use. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to charge and run your headphones.
A watt (W) is a measurement of power at a single point in time. A watt-hour is the total amount of electricity used in an hour. For example, headphones drawing 3W would use 3Wh when changing or plugged in for an hour.
Happily, electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So 3W headphones running for 1 hour use 0.003kWh.
In reality, you charge wireless headphones for 2 hours a week. This means headphones use about 6Wh or 0.006kWh electricity a week. That’s 0.312kWh a year.
That’s a rough electricity cost of $0.04 a year to keep your Bluetooth headphones running and fully charged.
How Many Watts Do Headphones Use Summary
I hope you now have a clear understanding of how many watts headphones use.
Listen up. Headphones use virtually no electricity. It’s the most efficient way of listening to your favorite tunes and podcasts. If you’re changing up wireless headphones or even running them directly from a power source you won’t notice much change to your power consumption. In fact, you could even charge them via USB from equipment like portable solar panels while hiking or backpacking!
