After the smartphones have transformed into an extension of our hand, we want everything to be fast, search results, travel, food delivery and whatever, but we don’t want the battery or its life to drain fast. Regardless of the research and development from the chip makers and software companies to tweak and speed up the charging and optimize the battery life, we still search for the options to extend our electronic buddy’s battery life.
As we depend on our gadget for managing emails, make an appointment, play games, video calls, social media and chat and more, we’ll tell you the dos and dont’s and a few tips to squeeze out little extra life on your phone’s battery without much affecting its performance and keep it going longer.
Quick tips to extend your phone’s Battery life
- Battery Draining Apps: First comes first, find out the apps which consume much of your battery from the last time you’ve plugged it for charging. Close such apps which run in the background and drain its life. Even better if you could remove apps which you were not using it for the last 2 months.
- Adaptive Brightness: Are you feeling comfortable with reading and playing games on your phone with its full brightness on? yeah it’s comfortable but it’s not good for your battery and for your eyes too. Choose adaptive brightness which can help while you are under the sun or reading an ebook in a dark room
- Adaptive Battery Mode/Battery Saver mode: Though the word may differ depending on the manufacturer(Apple, Samsung or Moto) or OS (Ios or Android) but not the function. They may block a few apps and reduce the performance and brightness, but still, you have a control over it in the settings and configure panel to customize it as per your need.
- Vibrate and Haptic Feeback: Yes haptic feedback(touch response) may feel nice in our hands and the vibrate mode really good for meetings while your phone is in silent mode or while you are in an auditorium where it may help you notify with the vibration. And did you think the ringtones consume the battery than vibration? No, its the vibration which eats the battery than the former with the motor inside your phone. So choose to switch off the vibration and haptic feedback notification when you don’t need it
- Location Settings: GPS is a great tool to assist you to drive to a destination or choose a pizza shop or to book a cab, but they do drain your battery. Choose which apps can use the location services or opt to switch it off while your battery is at its 20% it’s draining fast.
- Always on Display( selective devices): People are addicted to checking their phone screen as not to miss any notification. This eats your time and battery as you switch the screen on/off to check for notifications, check for Settings > Display > Advanced > Glance view, select always-on display. Even while you screen turns off with minimal battery consumption than the former and just shows time, date, notifications and battery status.
- Screen Timeout: Next to AOD, you can choose to the screen sleepout time to a minimum count, as after the screen wakeup and our job is done, the screen remains idle and awake for a long time and it results in wasted battery life. Settings > Display > Advanced > Sleep
- Ditch Extra Widgets: Having widgets is handy, but they often check for updates and which drains your battery. Choose wisely and ditch the widgets you need for everyday routine.
- Volume Down: Though we said that vibration consumes your battery than a ringtone when you phone rings louder its gonna compromise your battery life. We suggest you reduce the volume which is audible enough for you.
- Avoid Overcharging: Overcharging definetly going to cause damage to your phone’s battery, avoid overcharging or leaving the phone on the charger for a full night.
- Avoid Full Charging: It’s going to boost your battery’s life by skipping the rule to fully charge it up to 100%. Charging up to 100% and waiting till 5% – 10% to plug it again for charging hurts your battery. The best option is to choose to charge from 15 – 20% and pause charging at 80 – 90%.
- Avoid Overheating: While your phone is plugged with the charger, avoid watching videos, phone calls or gaming. Overheating damages your battery, as they are extremely sensitive to heat and it brings down its life and rare chances of accidents too. Also, avoid charging the phone in a sunny location and we also suggest you remove the cover before plug it for charging, as it helps your phone to breathe.
- Limit your requests to your PA: Yeah Personal Assistant – Using “Okay Google” or “Hey Siri” often is going to run down your battery, even when your screen is off it will constantly listening to your voice commands.
- Bluetooth and Data settings: Whenever possible switch off the Bluetooth, data, and hotspot, though you are going to use it or not it’s gonna drain your battery. And prefer to switch on aeroplane mode when you are in an out of coverage area, and your phone will be constantly searching for a signal.
Few more dos and avoid
- Reduce your push notifications at Settings > Apps & Notifications
- Close the apps when you are done, as background running contributes its part to drain it
- Disable app notifications, except for the ones you definitely can’t live without 😉
- If don’t need the auto-rotate feature, set it in portrait mode (reduces accelerometer sensor)
- If possible switch off your mobile phone during night time, so your phone is not working 24×7 and gets cool off time to extend its life
- Avoid Cheap chargers
- Avoid using or placing your phone at extreme temperature locations (exposure to extremely hot or cold climate), you can place it inside pocket or jacket.
- Clean your charging port and headphone socket and keep it free from lint and dust.
- In case you dropped your mobile phone in a fish tank or pool, immediately take the phone out as fast as you can and if possible remove the batteries, else switch it off quickly and remove the memory cards and sim card and let it dry for hours (more the better). Chances are there your phone to could survive.