Why You Should Enable Airplane Mode on Your Nintendo Switch
Airplane mode is built into almost all of our devices and can be turned on whenever we board a plane. Usually when you’re not flying this is of limited utility (unless you really want someone to call you). After all, why would you purposely disconnect yourself from the internet? Well, actually, there are a couple of reasons when it comes to your Nintendo Switch: battery life and download speed.
The Switch is a very Internet dependent device. You must be connected to Wi-Fi to download new updates, play online games, and tag friends. However, you probably don’t do these things most of the time you use it. Unless you play exclusively online, you are more likely to play solo and play something that you can easily play offline.
Internet connection consumes battery power, but not only when you are actively using it. It makes sense that accessing an online store, installing updates, or joining an online match with a friend will eat up some battery, but there are many other, perhaps more resource-intensive, Internet activities going on whenever your system is turned on.
Your Switch is constantly connected to Wi-Fi, looking for new updates, checking to see if friends are logged in and what they’re playing, and sends push notifications to tell you to buy new things. What’s more, it will continue to do all of this even when it’s asleep, meaning that if you don’t keep it docked all the time, you’ll have much less battery life when you wake it up. Simply turning on airplane mode when you know you don’t need internet stops all of this.
There are other benefits of turning on Airplane Mode that simply increase battery life. It seems that many games – even those that don’t require an Internet connection to play – check for one of these before final download. This can slow down the download process, especially if you’re not in Wi-Fi range but Wi-Fi is still on.
Airplane mode disables this internet check, which can result in faster game loading. Anecdotal evidence from this Reddit thread confirms this: One user reported that Super Mario Odyssey ‘s “game with Joy-Cons detached” screen moves much faster when Airplane Mode is enabled. This benefit of Airplane Mode might inspire you to turn it on even when battery life isn’t an issue, such as when your Switch is docked or charging.
One word of caution: if you’re a Nintendo Switch Online member, which includes cloud saving, the prospect of slightly faster load times or slightly longer battery life may not be worth sacrificing this feature, especially since you’re paying for it.
Additionally, Airplane Mode disables Bluetooth communication, which will cause communication with your disconnected Joy-Cons to fail. If you need to use the Joy-Cons offline, you will need to manually enable Bluetooth in System Preferences > Airplane Mode > Controller Connection (Bluetooth) .
How to Enable Airplane Mode on Nintendo Switch
To put your Switch into Airplane Mode, hold down the Home button to access Quick Settings. From here, select Airplane Mode , then press A to turn it on. You can also enable Airplane Mode in System Preferences.