Mobile phones have become an indispensable part of our lives. The most annoying thing a mobile user can face is a low battery. We all use smartphones too much that the battery of the phone drains fast than we can predict. Years ago, Nokia’s 2100 model would work for days without the need for charging. Nowadays, we need to charge our smartphones every day as the battery drains faster.
Though fast charging facilities and long-life batteries have evolved, the battery life of smartphones is just not enough for all the activities that we do with our smartphones in a single day. Sometimes, the battery of our smartphones drains even without us engaging in any activity. We would wonder what has led to the battery drain in the smartphone.
The background applications in our smartphone consume more battery as they keep running in the background even if we don’t actively use the phone. This leads to the battery draining by the end of the day, even if we do not use the phone much. This is going to be one of the most important articles that you have ever read, as we are going to cover some of the efficient ways to help your smartphone’s battery last longer. First, let us see some of the common ways through which our smartphone’s battery gets drained.
Common Ways for Battery Drain in Smartphones
- Even if your smartphone is idle, the background applications keep running. These applications are sometimes so intense that they will drain the majority of your battery.
- The constant usage of GPS facilities in the smartphone will also drain the battery sooner. At times, you will not even realize that the GPS option is ON in your phone.
- Next is the involvement of mobile data, which will consume more battery. If you didn’t know, more than Wi-Fi, mobile data will consume a larger amount of battery. These are some of the common things that drain your smartphone battery without you even knowing about it.
Easy Solutions
Now, let us look at some practical solutions to help your phone battery last longer.
1. Prefer Low Brightness
Many of us do not bother about the phone’s brightness. We keep it high to get a complete experience while watching photos, videos, or streaming content online. If the phone’s brightness is constantly high, it will easily drain the battery soon. This is one of the common ways in which your phone battery drains faster. Therefore, try to keep the brightness at an optimum level of either medium or low when you are not really in sunlight or a brighter place, as brighter places demand higher screen brightness.
2. Less Screen Time
Sometimes our smartphones will take much time to automatically lock itself. You should change the lock time to a few seconds or minutes to save screen time. If you are an Android user, then, go to ‘Settings‘ and click the ‘General Setting‘ option. The auto-lock option will show different timings from which you can select the least time. This might be 15 seconds or 30 seconds or 1 minute.
If you are an iPhone user, then click ‘Settings‘ and go to ‘Display & Brightness’ and modify the Sleep option. You can also manually click the lock button once you stop using your smartphone. This is an easy way to save the phone’s battery from wastage.
3. Use an ad Blocker
Ads that pop up during internet browsing are not just annoying, but also battery draining. We might have seen random ads popping up while we browse websites on the internet. When you browse certain websites on the internet, you will see random flashy ads popping up with videos, photos, or GIFs.
These ads will drain your smartphone’s battery. You can block these ads using an ad blocker. If you use the Chrome browser, you will have the extra benefit of having a free adblocker. You just have to click ‘Add to Chrome’ to block ads that you don’t want to see in the future.
4. Fetching Email Notifications
If you are unaware, email notifications will also drain your smartphone’s battery. Most of us would have set the Sync email option in our email app. This will let a new email pop up in the notification tab and let us be alert of personal and work-related updates.
Though push notification will alert you about new emails, it will also consume some amount of battery. So, you can fetch email instead of push email to save your phone’s battery. You can go to your email app whenever necessary and refresh to see new emails.
5. Listen to Music Offline
You would have come across several online music apps like Google play music, Amazon Music, Spotify, Pandora, Wynk music, Apple music, etc. These music streaming services or apps will consume battery as they eat away at your internet. These music applications will also require mobile data to play music or songs.
A smart way to save your phone’s battery from these applications is to download songs and music offline. You can also download and store songs in your local internal or SD Card storage. This will allow you to play songs, even when you are not connected to the Internet, and will also increase your smartphone’s battery.
6. No Extreme Temperatures
This is one of the strange factors that consume your phone’s battery. If the outside temperature is too hot, then it will affect the quality of your smartphone battery. And, not just hot, if the outside temperature is very cold, that will also impact your battery quality.
So, make sure your phone is placed in optimum temperatures and not in too hot or too cold temperatures. At higher temperatures, your phone’s battery life is cut short. Lithium-Ion batteries cannot withstand extreme temperatures. Your phone will either shut down or quickly drain the battery if it is placed at extreme temperatures.
7. Bluetooth Over Airplay
If you are an iPhone user, you can use Bluetooth instead of AirPlay to listen to music in Wireless mode. AirPlay is a feature that is specifically applicable to Apple devices, which allows Apple users to stream images, videos, music, and podcasts from an Apple device to another device.
Though AirPlay will let you listen to music in high-quality audio format, it will also consume a higher amount of battery. To save your smartphone’s battery, you can listen to songs through Bluetooth, which will not consume much battery like AirPlay.
8. Switching to Airplane Mode
You can switch to airplane mode or low-power mode whenever you cannot attend to your calls or messages as you are traveling. During your travel, this is one of the best ways to save the smartphone’s battery life. As traveling will not allow charging, you can save your phone’s battery life through this method.
If you keep it in normal mode, your phone will easily drain the battery using the background applications. So use airplane mode when you travel or use the low power mode, which will consume less battery when compared to normal mode. During airplane mode and low power mode, the phone will automatically shut down the applications and services that are running background. This will automatically increase the phone’s battery life.
9. Switch off Data During Bad Signals
When you travel to an area where there is a low signal or poor network, you should switch off the mobile data or Wi-Fi. Because the Wi-Fi or mobile data is ON, it will consume more battery as the area is weak in the signal. Your phone will try to find the best network range by using a high amount of battery. Therefore, it is wise to switch off data when you are in areas with poor signals or weak networks.
10. Identify Power Consuming App
Through your smartphone options, you can also identify which app is consuming more power. If you are an iPhone user, go to settings and check the battery option from the battery usage menu. You can check which app is consuming more battery. If you are an Android user, go to settings and click on the battery option. You will be able to see a list of applications that consume your phone’s battery.
From the list, you can disable the app that consumes a high amount of battery. You can also check the CPU total and CPU foreground options. These options will clearly show which app was actively running in the background and consuming more battery. These options will also show the exact time the apps consumed battery.
10. Opting for a Power Ban
A normal smartphone comes with a battery which is of 3000 to 4000 mAh. Recently, new smartphone models have emerged in the market, which comes with a battery range of 5000 to 6000 mAh. While the 3000 to 4000 mAh battery lasts for about 13 to 15 powers, the 5000 to 6000 mAh battery will last throughout the day or even for two days if you use your phone lightly, without carrying out any intense tasks.
If the battery life of your phone is just not enough for your daily activities, you can always opt for a branded good quality power bank. A power bank or battery pack usually comes in the 10,000 mAh to 20,000 mAh range.
Track Your Phone’s Battery Usage Through These Simple Steps:
Some more practical solutions to track your battery usage and save your battery are:
- Switching OFF the GPS option.
- Disabling unwanted push notifications in ‘settings’.
To do this, both Android and iPhone users can click ‘settings‘ and choose the ‘Applications’ option and click the app that you want to disable the notifications. You can click the app and select the notification options and switch it off.
In some phones, the push notification option also comes with a phone vibration setting. If you do not want vibration during push notifications, you can switch off the vibration, because the vibration will also consume the extra amount of battery.
Tips to Extend the Battery’s Lifespan
Some of the tips to protect and extend the lifespan of your smartphone’s battery are:
- You should charge your phone when the battery level reaches below 50 %. Always maintain the battery level above 50 %, do not let it go below 30 %. Some battery manufacturing companies say that a standard battery’s lifespan is 300 to 500 Cycles.
- You can recalibrate the phone’s battery by recharging it from zero to a hundred percent once a month or once in two months. You can also remove the phone case if you are going to charge it overnight as it will avoid overheating.
- Make sure you do not leave your phone in extremely hot or cold temperatures like we already mentioned. Batteries of smartphones are made of material that cannot withstand very hot or very cold temperatures.
- Always use your phone’s charger that comes with the packing and does not use another phone’s charger to charge your phone during travels. Make sure you do not buy those cheap chargers from the market that are sold at lesser prices.
- Do not let your phone stay at 0 to 10 percent battery level. You can also use a power bank if you are someone who uses a smartphone throughout the day and also travels frequently.
- Applications that you don’t use frequently. There will be some apps on your phone that you use very rarely. If an app is not necessary, you can uninstall it instead of just keeping it as it will save some amount of battery.
By following all these steps, you will not only extend the battery life of your phone but also extend the battery’s lifespan.
Battery-Saving Myths
Myth: Turn off Bluetooth
Myth: Turn off Wifi
Myth: Closed unused apps
Myth: Use battery-saving App
Myth: Disable Location service completely
Myth: Always choose wifi over cellular
Myth: Should I stop charging at 80?
Myth: You should completely discharge your battery before charging
Myth: Always use the official brand charger for your phone
Myth: Never use your phone while it’s charging
Conclusion
There are some myths around battery-saving methods. Some of them include turning off Bluetooth or closing unused apps in your smartphone. Some even say choosing and installing a battery-saving app and disabling the location app completely will save your phone’s battery. These are very minute things that will consume one or two percent of your phone’s battery, but not more. So, be aware of myths surrounding the battery life of your smartphone. All the above tips will help you prevent battery wastage and extend your battery’s life.