Modern smartphones can last hundreds of hours on a single charge. Well, this is in theory, but in practice the scenario is different. When you actually start using today’s best smartphones, they squeeze out 18 to 20 hours at best. And we often wonder how to increase battery life. This depends on the usage of various apps on your phone. Some of the apps drain battery more than the others. With most smartphones equipped with big bright touchscreen screen, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, 4G network etc. — it is anyway impossible to make the battery charge last longer. So, most of us end up charging the mobile phone or tablet multiple times a day. In fact most of us rarely leave home without a mobile charger! This article will help you with a few tips to extend your phone’s battery life.
How to Increase Phone’s Battery Life
The following tips are mainly related to various Settings that are already available on your device. You just need to use them efficiently. These tips do not require you to install any new app. The tips apply in general to most smartphones.
If you’re using an iPhone, first of all you should activate the Low Power Mode.
Delete Apps You do not Use
As per 2014 Neilson Study, on average, smartphone users download about 42 apps in the USA, but use only 10 on daily basis. India is not far behind, with it being in the top five nations that download apps from Google Play. The best way to preserve battery life is to get rid of the apps that you have downloaded but are not using. Do not Disable or Force Stop the apps, rather completely uninstall such apps. However, all mobile phones include in-built apps that cannot be deleted or uninstalled. These apps come pre-installed from factory and you can not remove them.
Control the Apps that Run 24 x 7
Many apps like Facebook and Gmail continue to run in background even when you are not using them. Apps run in the background so that you receive notifications as soon as you receive a new email, message or comment. Some games and music player apps too run in the background unnecessarily. Depending on the device you are using, you can always turn off the background data on an app-to-app basis or you can restrict the background data.
If you are using iOS or Android, then you probably know that both are equipped with battery monitors. You can check the power that each app on the device is using. Identify the ones that are consuming maximum power and exit the app. If you are not using the app then uninstall it.
Disable Unsolicited Notifications
Some Apps, such as those for weather, news, and sports will automatically send you the “Push Notifications” throughout the day. If the notifications are of no interest to you, simply disable them. Unsolicited notifications anyway are unnecessary distractions.
Turn off Live Wallpapers
Live, animated, dynamic wallpapers looks indeed cool but their constant motion drains your phone’s battery. If you want to extend your battery time, immediately turn off the live wallpaper. It is always better to use a static wallpaper as it consumes much less battery power.
Turn Off Location Services
You GPS location is used by map and weather apps, but what about certain social media apps? These social media apps keep your exact location in mind so that they can tag every post, status and photo with the corresponding city or neighborhood. Do you really need geo-tagged posts? No? Then just turn off the location services.You can increase battery life by being smart while granting permissions to apps. Unnecessary access will only drain your phone battery.
Dim the Mobile Phone Screen and Increase Battery Life
Your phone’s screen brightness is a major culprit when it comes to consuming maximum power. Viewing your phone’s millions of pixels at full brightness is a guaranteed battery drainer. Mobile phone’s auto-brightness feature sometimes overdoes it on luminescence; in short span you could be losing many hours of battery life. Instead of dimming the display at once, dim little at a time. You will be surprised, how quickly your eyes adjust to the new settings.
Forgo Vibrations
When it comes to increasing battery life, ringing is a lot less taxing than rumbling. Most of us think of a vibrating phone as a low-key alternative to a noisy ring but it is not. Turn off vibrations entirely to extend a little more of the battery life. If you think a noisy ring is disturbing during office hours and meetings then just keep the phone in view so that you can “see” the incoming calls and messages. Rumbling can be as disturbing as a shrill ring tone.
Reduce Display Time
Another single biggest battery drainer is the phone’s display. We often leave it on even when the phone is not in use. It is left on sometimes accidentally and sometimes by carelessness. It is advisable to set your device to turn off the display after 30 seconds or less. The minimum timeout may vary depending on the type of device that you are using.
Turn off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
Bluetooth does not drain the battery much; however, it is advisable to turn it off when not in use. It will definitely increase battery life to some extent. On the other hand a Wi-Fi radio is a sure shot battery drainer. Turn it off when not in use.
Android users can add the Wi-Fi toggle widget to their home screen while the iOS users can use the Control Centre to turn off the Wi-Fi.
Switch to Power Saving Mode to Increase Battery Life
Some smartphone manufacturers provide the device with power saving mode feature. This feature is designed to help increase battery life and save you time by automatically performing tasks you might otherwise perform manually via the Settings option on the device. The mode restricts most background data usage. Email, messaging, and other types of app that rely on receiving new data may not update until you open them. It is not advisable to enable the mode all the time, as the feature comes with significant downsides. Enabling the power saving mode lowers performance, prevents background sync, and limits GPS access. Enable this option only when necessary, wherein you desperately need to extend the battery time when it is on the verge of dying.
Go Ahead and Charge
This advice holds true for all batteries. The classic advice about charging batteries is to “let your battery drain all the way, then charge it to 100 per cent and repeat”. By doing so you are actually teaching your battery to remember its full charging capacity than confusing it with frequent, inconsistent charges. Smartphone battery technology, however, is advanced enough to not require any special treatment. It only needs smart settings to extend the battery life.
Calibrate Battery
Sometimes, the battery might be alright but your mobile may show incorrect battery charge percentage. You should calibrate your phone battery so that cellphone shows the correct charge.
Last but not the least; do re-start your phone from time to time to overcome many minor glitches including battery related issues. Restarting phone will also help your phone to perform better.
The above mentioned tips can be applied on almost all the smartphones. Depending upon the model and OS — the feature locations may be different and some settings may or may not be supported.
Should you have any question on this topic, please feel free to ask in the comments section. We at TechWelkin and our reader community will try to assist you. Thank you for using TechWelkin!
Thanks techwelkin for the advice you have given us because I couldn’t have known more about my phone.The tips were good.