We feel amazing when we find the latest technology with us, isn’t it? But this technology is nothing if you don’t know how to use it properly when in need. Low battery is such an obstruction that does not let us use our Phone as long we need or want to.
Our smartphone is one of the great companions that provides a lot to do with it until and unless its battery is dead. Once, if the juice is over, we get stuck. Given its form factor and weight limitations, it has become increasingly difficult to squeeze any more power to the batteries with current technologies. Hence, we have to know about where is our battery draining and how can we make them run longer?
The Android operating system offers many exciting features, including WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, 3G/4G and countless apps. Unfortunately, many of the features can take a toll on your device’s battery power and cause it to drain quickly. Also, those big, luscious AMOLED and LCD screens can drain your battery. Fortunately, there are many ways you can try to extend the life of your device’s battery.
Tips To Increase Android Battery Life
Let’s explore how to boost your smartphone’s battery life.
Making Simple Changes
1. Turn off Wireless services when not in use.
Wireless services like WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS use battery power, even when you are not using them. For example, the wifi on your mobile keeps searching for new networks at regular time intervals, as long as it is turned on. This uses battery power, even if you are not browsing the internet. Similarly keeping the Bluetooth on constantly drains the battery.
Android achieves long battery life by quickly entering and exiting from sleep cycles. But GPS prevents it from going to sleep. So switch on GPS only when required.
To turn these features off, simply swipe down from the top of your screen. Scroll sideways along the menu, and deselect the items. Or simply, turning on Airplane Mode will knock out all of them in one fell swoop.
Turning off your mobile data in favor of an available Wi-Fi network can also make the difference. If you have the choice between using Wi-Fi or cell signal, always choose Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi drains far less battery than cellular service.
2. Turn on the Airplane Mode
When you are traveling on long journeys, your mobile will keep changing the base station from which it receives signal, resulting in faster battery drain. Even, if you are in an area where cell service is patchy, your phone can expend a lot of battery power trying to get the best connection it can. So use it in airplane mode if you are not expecting any calls and want to listen to music for long hours.
3. Turn off any apps that you are not using
Closing the app by just pressing the back or home button is not enough; the app may continue to run in the background and drain battery power. You should keep clearing your device’s recent and background apps manually, using ‘The Recent Apps’ menu. Although this feature’s primary intent is to make swapping between apps faster, it is also possible to “swipe away” apps. This will usually ensure they are not running in the background and using battery power.
4. Use fewer widgets
Widgets that are displayed on the home screen are constantly updated to display new content. This prevents that particular app from going to sleep. So, to boost Android battery life, keep your widgets at a minimum.
5. Turn off vibration and haptic feedback
Vibration is wonderful if you are at your workplace, in a meeting or in a situation in which you wouldn’t normally be able to hear your cell phone, such as being on the road. However, to produce that vibration effect, your device has to spin up a small vibration motor every time, which can be really draining on your battery. So, switch off vibrate mode, unless you really need that added awareness. It might be a good idea to turn off vibrations for text messages too.
This goes for haptic feedback (that light buzz you get from typing on the keyboard) as well. Sure it feels cool, but it doesn’t really add anything to your experience, and it’s another battery drainer.
Head over to Settings > Sound & Display. You can disable the vibrate on touch and other options if not required. Custom keyboard apps also provide additional settings to turn off vibrations while typing.
6. Use Battery Saver
Here’s a pretty straightforward solution. Battery saver reduces your device’s performance and automatically limits vibration, location services, and background data. For most devices, all you have to do is swipe down from the top of the screen to bring up a menu. Scroll to the side until you find the “Battery Saver” option, and select it.
Or you can go to Settings > Battery and then tap the three-dot menu in the top right of the screen. Then, choose the only option available in this menu, “Battery Saver.”
When you are down to the last remaining juice on your Android, use the battery saver feature to make it last for a little more.
7. Manage your apps
Only keep the apps on your phone which you require frequently. Keeping too many apps can slow down your phone and reduce battery life. You can view how much battery an app is using by heading to Settings > Battery. Uninstall the apps which use more battery. Instead, try to use the lite version of that app or use an alternative app.
In Battery menu, tap in the top-right corner of the window and select Battery Optimization. A “Not Optimized” app will run in the background on its own schedule. Apps that are not required to run at all times should be optimized for better battery life.
8. Turn off notifications for apps
Go to Settings > Notifications and there you can view app specific settings for notifications. Turn off notifications for an app by clicking on it and select ‘Block All.’ This will stop the processor from checking on it from time to time, thereby making your phone battery last longer.
Making Advanced Changes
9. Turn off Adaptive/Auto brightness
Don’t use display auto-brightness. It may sound useful, but auto-brightness is usually way brighter than you really need. It’s better to manually set the brightness to a level that is low but comfortable, and increase it when necessary. This is one of the best ways to improve your battery life, because the display consumes most of the battery power, apart from the processor.
To ensure your adaptive/auto brightness is off, go to Settings > Sound & Display > Brightness. And there, you will see Brightness level and in it, you’ll find the auto settings. Uncheck this box and your auto will be off. With some devices, you might need to go into the Settings, and select “Sound & Display.” Tap on “Brightness,” and move the slider to the side to reduce the brightness.
10. Set your auto-lock time to the shortest time possible.
This setting reduces the time the screen remains ON after you have stopped using it and thereby saves battery. It tells the device to turn off the screen after the selected period of inactivity. The shorter the period, the less power your display will use.
The setting options vary from phone to phone. You can find this option under your Settings > Sound & Display > Screen Timeout. Set the Sleep option to one minute or less. 15 seconds is a good amount.
11. Use a dark wallpaper, and a dark theme or night mode if possible
If your device has an AMOLED screen, use a dark-colored background. Black wallpaper can increase battery life because AMOLED screens only illuminate the colored pixels. Black pixels are unlit, so the more black pixels you have, or the more darker pixels, the less power is needed to light them up.
Many apps also have night mode option in them. Apart from improving battery performance, it reduces the strain on your eyes too.
12. Disable auto synchronization and background data.
Various synchronization processes run in the background and hence consume battery. Hence if you don’t need every single Google account updated every 15 minutes, turn off auto-syncing for Google accounts.
Just go to Settings > Accounts. Tap the three vertical dots in the upper right corner and uncheck “Auto-sync data.” You can also manually adjust which apps to sync and how frequently. View the auto-sync services on your accounts and turn off those apps you don’t need constantly updated.
Some apps like ’email’ let you manually refresh when you launch them, rather than running multiple auto-refreshes throughout the day when you may not need them to. The same goes for Twitter, Reddit, etc. Unless you need constant updates or push notifications (like for Facebook), just sync when you actually use the app.
Many apps keep consuming mobile data while running in the background which in turn harms battery life. Go to Settings > Data Usage, click on apps which are not required to run in the background and click on ‘Restrict app background data‘ to limit its background data usage when it is not being used.
13. Turn off animations
Animations are another factor affecting battery life. Animations look nice as you navigate your phone, but they can slow down performance and drain battery power. To control animations, you need to access ‘Developer Options’ in your Settings. So, consider disabling animations only if you feel confident about using your device’s developer settings.
Go to the Settings > Developer Settings on your Android phone. If you don’t find Developer Settings there, then go to Settings > About phone and then tap on ‘Build number‘ a few times (around seven times), until you get a notification saying that “you have been promoted to Developer status. Congratulations!” This will enable the Android Developer Options.
Go back to Settings, and access the “Developer Options” (It should be above the “About Device” section). Be careful with the things you change here, as you could significantly change the way your device functions.
Tap on “Developer Options” and scroll down quite a ways. There you will find three options namely ‘Window animation scale,’ ‘Transition animation scale,’ and ‘Animator duration scale.’ Turn them off and restart your Android device. This will save and apply the new settings on your device and you will see a considerable change in performance and improved battery life. This may stretch your battery life a little bit, and your phone may run faster as well.
14.Use Greenify
Greenify (3rd party app) saves your battery life by pushing apps into a sort of ‘hibernation’ mode when they aren’t in use. Not only it stops an app from running in the background, but it also prevents it from starting until you open it again. Just select the apps you want to hibernate and notice an increase in your battery life and performance.
Did we miss anything? What are your best battery saving tips? Tell us about them in the comments.
