Q: Does Apple Pencil have an on/off button?

The Apple Pencil does not have an on/off switch.  It uses very little power.  It tries to stay connected via Bluetooth to your iPad Pro.

Use Apple Pencil with iPad Pro - Apple Support

Yea the battery life isn't that great, no off button but it needs a better battery. I literally watch my percentage go down while my pencil is on the dresser chilling And I'm watching videos on my iPad.

It must be awful having to wait that 15 seconds to charge it enough for 30 minutes use. 

Keiron Smith wrote:

 

Yea the battery life isn't that great, no off button but it needs a better battery. I literally watch my percentage go down while my pencil is on the dresser chilling And I'm watching videos on my iPad.

If you turn off BT the pencil will go into sleep mode. Similarly, if the iPad Pro is in sleep mode, so is the pencil. You can charge both the iPad Pro and pencil to 100% and leave them sitting side by side overnight, with the iPad in sleep mode and in the morning the pencil will still be at 99-100% charge. But as long as the iPad is in use and BT is on, and the pencil in range, then yes, the pencil maintains an active pairing.

That's not a good solution. I use a Bluetooth keyboard, so if I'm not using the Pencil and typing instead, the battery is going to drain rapidly. I've already checked it out. We must be missing something here or Apple needs to offer a solution.

It's not the drain on the Pencil's battery that's the issue, but the drain on the iPad. The battery on my Pro doesn't last nearly as long as my Air when the Pencil is nearby.

If you are not using the pencil just swipe up from the bottom in the iPad and turn off Bluetooth. once the BT connection is cut, the pencil will go into standby mode and the iPad will no longer be connecting as well.

even with the pencil nearby and a Logitech create keyboard drawing power from the iPad pro I can still work for 6-7 hours straight using pages and a freehand notes app, email and safari.

Thanks, Michael, but that won't work if I want to use a Bluetooth keyboard. Actually, I have Bluetooth off right now for the reason you gave, but I type using a BT keyboard so when I turn BT back on to use the keyboard, the Pencil will start using power again. I'm surprised that there's no way just to turn off the BT pairing with just one device (Pencil) and leave the other devices paired. Of course, I could just use the "forget this device" each time but that seems kind of a hassle. Using the Smart Keyboard from Apple would solve this problem but that keyboard cover doesn't allow one to have the iPad at the position with the rear up a little, like the Smart Cover does, which is a good position to use when using the Pencil. Even if it did, the keyboard would be in the way. I'm saying that based on photos of the keyboard. I have a class at an Apple Store on Sunday and I will check out the demo keyboards and also discuss the Bluetooth issue. However, they may not have an answer because I was told a few days I was their only customer that actually had a Pencil from their store - don't know if that's true, of course. I happened to be their Wednesday when one came in - yes, just one, ha ha.

How do I check the charge level on the Apple Pencil?

Critchey wrote:

 

How do I check the charge level on the Apple Pencil?

Swipe down to bring up the notifications panel.  Under the today view go and edit the list of active widgets to include the battery widget.  Now you can swipe down to bring up the notifications window, select widgets and see the pencil and other BT connected device's battery level.

If you properly read the thread you would see that yes this does work even with a bluetooth keyboard. Here are the steps.

1. Shut off bluetooth - apple pencil goes into standby mode

2. Turn bluetooth back on, apple pencil will not automatically reconnect like your keyboard will.

3. Now you can keep working on your keyboard

4. If you want to use apple pencil, remove cap and stick into lightning port on ipad and it will re-repair with ipad.

5. Repeat as needed, simple on/off of bluetooth.

yes this is a pain, but it is a work around.

I don't know why nobody has thought of this, but just simply unpair your pencil.
Go into your Settings, then bluetooth, then click on apple pencil, and Forget this device.

Boom, problem solved. Need to use it again?
Plug it into your pro and take the 5 seconds to re-pair it.

This makes it so you dont have to disable bluetooth to shut it off.

(edit) My bad, just looked again and this was mentioned already.

Sorry for repost

Lol...

Llol I know .. I think it's simple and easy lol !! We. On the same page man lol