The most common complaint about smartphones is the battery and how quickly it can run out. Here are 10 tips to help you drastically improve your battery life.
Today’s devices are always in our hands and constantly being used, which is why the battery can take a beating and be almost exhausted by the afternoon.
It’s not like the old days when you owned a Nokia phone that you charged every three days because all we did was make calls and send text messages.
Today’s smartphones are actually a computer in our pocket and connect us to the internet, social media while also being our music and movie player, our diary and a way to keep us entertained.
But here are the top ten tips to improve your smartphone’s battery.
10. TURN OFF YOUR WI-FI
You don’t always need to have wi-fi on but when it is, it will always be looking for a network to join and using valuable power every single time.
9. TURN OFF LOCATION SERVICES
To offers users a better experience, apps often ask to know your location but having this running in the background all the time requires data transmission which means more battery power.
8. TURN OFF BLUETOOTH
In a similar way to wi-fi, Bluetooth can also hog some of your power trying to look for devices to connect to. Best turn it on only when you need it like when you get in your car and need to pair with your in-car hands-free system
7. TURN DOWN SCREEN BRIGHTNESS
Your screen is actually quite bright and it can easily be turned down to half the brightness in the settings and still be easy to read. There is also an auto brightness setting which is a good idea to have activated.
6. UPDATE YOUR SOFTWARE
Whether you’re using an iPhone or an Android smartphone, it’s a good idea to keep up with all updates of the operating system. The latest software versions are always optimised to conserve your battery.
5. TURN OFF DYNAMIC BACKGROUNDS
Dynamic backgrounds are pretty because there is some sort of movement or animation happening on your lock screen or home screen. But the downside of this is it is sucking your battery dry as well. Having a static background uses far less power.
4. TURN OFF BACKGROUND APP REFRESH
Many of the apps we use, especially social media apps like Facebook and Twitter and communication apps like Skype, are still running in the background even when we’re not using them so that when we do go back to them they have the latest updates ready to go. Turn off background refresh and you’ll notice a remarkable improvement in your battery performance.
3. DON’T AUTO UPDATE APPS
Now apps can be set to update automatically but this can use up the power we were hoping would take us through the afternoon. Disabling this feature means you can update apps when you know you can spare the power and not be left high and dry.
2. SET YOUR PHONE TO AUTO-LOCK FASTER
The longer your screen is on the more power it uses. This also applies to the time it takes for our phones to auto lock and black out the screen. If you have this set to minutes rather than seconds it’s going have a bigger impact on your battery across the course of your day.
1. TURN OFF PUSH EMAIL AND SET TO MANUAL
Push email means your messages will automatically be pushed to your device after constant checks with your mail server. These checks could be occurring as often as every minute and you are alerted about each new message but all the while your battery is taking a hammering. If you set your email to fetch new messages manually you can download all of your new message when you want – and when you have plenty of power left on your battery.
Related Stories
The apps that are draining your smartphone’s battery
Plox 6000 PowerBox has a built-in Lightning cable to stay charged on the go
