These days, it seems that all of us are absolutely glued to our smart phones. With that in mind, nothing is quite as frustrating as losing power because your battery has run out. Here are 10 tips for prolonging battery life:
- Dim the smart phone’s screen.
This is an often overlooked – but highly effective – means of conserving battery life. That LCD screen is a major power guzzler, and just dimming it by a few percent is likely to significantly reduce your consumption without making much of a difference on your user experience. - Turn off the phone’s Wi-Fi.
Of course, this is only going to be practical when you are not currently using a Wi-Fi network. The problem here is that – when Wi-Fi is on – your phone is constantly searching for and otherwise communicating with local wireless networks. - Turn off Bluetooth.
As with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth capability requires the phone to continually line up potential devices that it could connect with. This is a constant drain on power, and it’s completely unnecessary if you are not actively using Bluetooth. Only turn it on when you need to use it. - Switch off vibrate
If you aren’t expecting any important calls or messages, you might as well switch off the vibrate function; it can use up quite a bit of juice according this article. - Tone down GPS accuracy.
Whilst some of your apps may consistently call upon GPS data, they don’t necessarily require a high level of accuracy. Go into settings and ratchet the accuracy down to save power when you’re not actively navigating. - Look into special apps.
There are a few apps that you can use to charge your phone on the go. The aptly named Charge App is one such example. - Keep things cool.
You may have noticed that your battery is likely to run out more quickly when it is hot. Simply keeping it in as cool a location as possible is going to extend the life of your battery (i.e. avoid leaving it in your car). - Charge your battery correctly.
Different batteries require different charging styles in order to maintain their lifespan and capacity. Your battery is either a lithium ion battery or one of two types of nickel batteries. Knowing the difference can make an enormous difference. - Turn off mobile data when not in use.
There will certainly be times when all you need to use on your phone is its cellular connection. If you have no need to go online at the moment, then switch off mobile data and just get by on the bare essentials. - Limit notifications.
Some app notifications are essential; others are less important. But all notifications cause your screen to light up, which in turn kicks your phone into a higher power mode. Minimise this to save on battery life.
As you can see, there are plenty of ways to limit the drain on your phone’s battery. Put all of these to work and your phone will last longer.