There are a number of factors that contribute to a phone’s poor battery life. Thinner cases, brighter screens, faster processors, more background software, and faster internet connections all take their toll on phone batteries. Still, manufacturers are trying to build powerful batteries to compensate.
If your phone can’t keep up with your work schedule, here are some ways to keep it going throughout the day:
1. Reduce the Brightness of Your Screen.
Reducing your screen brightness can significantly extend your battery’s life especially on devices with larger and sharper screens as there are more pixels. The only time you’re likely to need 100% brightness is outdoors, at midday when the sun is at its brightest. In all other cases, you can reduce your phone’s brightness to 75% or less. Most newer phones also have an adaptive brightness setting that allows the device to adjust automatically.
2. Switch Your Screen Theme and Wallpaper to Dark.
It may sound absurd but switching your theme and wallpaper to dark will save battery. Also, the Dark Mode feature is specifically designed to increase battery life and save your eyes later in the day. You can even set a schedule for the dark mode so that it turns on at a specific time each day.
3. Lessen the Time Before Your Screen Goes Into Sleep Mode.
Do not forget to lock your screen when you are done using or lessen the screen timeout. This way, you will prevent accidental touches to the screen. This feature is also available through the settings on most phones, and screen timeout can be set from 10 minutes to 15 seconds.
4. Adjust the Settings for Power-Hungry Apps.
Many apps are real power consumers: they wake up your phone to download content and send you notifications while you’re on the go. I suggest you limit the background usage of your apps.
You should download Google Maps, Spotify, and other streaming apps over Wi-Fi in advance before leaving home to ensure you have maps, playlists, and podcasts prepared. You can also disable notifications from other apps and limit their background activity. These changes all together will significantly reduce battery drain.
5. Turn On the Power Saving Mode.
When your battery drops to below 15 %, drastic measures are required. Power saving mode is a smart feature that automatically reduces screen brightness, reduces screen resolution, limits processor speed, and stops background network usage.
6. Disable Location Services
Your smartphone’s GPS receiver is one of the biggest power drainers, as a number of apps have access to it. To solve this problem you can turn off the GPS altogether, but this will result in the loss of many important services. Alternatively, if you can find out which apps request the location and turn off the unnecessary apps individually, it would be better.
7. Turn off Data Roaming
Like GPS, 4G and hyper-fast 5G modems can also consume power, especially when the cellular signal is poor. If you are travelling in a remote place and your battery life is more important than connectivity, you can temporarily disable data roaming. A quicker solution is to activate airplane mode, but it blocks all services, including Wi-Fi.
Many people also recommend disabling Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to save power. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth each use a fraction of the power of GPS and cellular connections. Some people don’t like these trade-offs. You can save some power by disabling notifications when a public Wi-Fi network is available and turning off Wi-Fi when your phone is sleeping.
If you find these battery-saving tips exhausting, it may be time to work around the problem by switching to a smartphone with longer battery life.