Fed up with charging your phone every night? In this article we offer you some simple tips and tricks that you can use to increase the autonomy of your smartphone.
At the end of 2018 it is still difficult to exceed 24 hours without charging your smartphone. The technologies are advancing but a real optimization of the battery is not there, which means that it is up to us to reduce the use of more or less energy-intensive software and functionality to prolong the charge as much as possible.
Unfortunately, we will never have a week of use from a smartphone because of those big and bright screens along with WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and 4G. However, by following these tips and making some changes to your phone’s settings (and perhaps even changing the way you use it) you should be able to extend battery life.
Moreover, nowadays there is a wide choice of power banks, which can be used to recharge the phone when you are around. Also, if you have a popular cell phone, it is possible that there are specific cases that incorporate batteries to provide more power at the expense of a slightly higher weight and weight.
Here are 5 ways to increase the battery life of your smartphone …
Reduce screen brightness or use automatic brightness
You love the big and well defined display of the smartphone, but it is the deadly enemy of the battery. More than any other component of the phone, the display consumes the battery at a devastating rate. Most phones include an automatic brightness feature that automatically adjusts the brightness of the screen based on the ambient lighting levels.
This mode consumes less power than constant screen operation at full brightness, of course, but you’ll get even better results by reducing the screen brightness to the lowest setting you can tolerate and leave it there. Even if you do not do anything else, we suggest you follow this advice to greatly extend battery life.
Keep the short screen timeout
Under the phone display settings menu, you should find an option called “Screen Timeout” or something similar. (On an iPhone, look for Auto-lock in the General Settings menu). This setting controls how long the phone screen stays on after receiving input, such as a touch.
Every second counts, so set your timeout at the shortest available time. On most Android phones, the minimum is 15 seconds. If the screen timeout is currently set to 2 minutes, it is advisable to reduce this amount to 30 seconds or less. On an iPhone, the minimum you can set is 1 minute.
Turn off WiFi
As with Bluetooth, your phone’s WiFi connection is a true battery-drain. While in the home or, for example, in the office it is customary to use the WiFi connection, when you are around it does not make much sense to leave the WiFi on. Turn it off when you leave the front door and turn it on again only when you plan to use data services within the reach of your WiFi network. Android users can add the WiFi activation widget to their home screen to make this a one-tap process, or scroll down from the top of the screen (twice if you have Lollipop.)
In iOS, it’s easier than ever to turn Bluetooth and WiFi on and off. Just swipe up from the bottom of the screen to view the Control Center.
The exception to this rule is for location services, since WiFi can help your phone get a GPS correction using less power.
Do not leave applications running in the background
Multitasking – the ability to run more than one app at a time – is a powerful feature for smartphones, but it can also burn a lot of energy, because each running app uses a portion of your phone’s processor cores.
Some applications are particularly heavy: for example, Facebook has confirmed that it is investigating its app for iOS as it could be the cause of a significant depletion of the battery.
By disabling apps that you’re not actually using, you can drastically reduce your CPU workload and reduce power consumption.
In Android, touch the multitasking button, usually the rightmost part of the three icons at the bottom of the screen, and you can browse apps to close them.
In iOS, double-tap the Home button to view the multitasking screen, then scroll up to close the app.
Do not use vibration
Do you prefer to have your phone alert you to incoming calls by vibrating rather than ringing a ringtone? We understand the inclination; unfortunately, the vibration uses much more energy than a ringtone does. After all, a ringtone only has to make a small membrane vibrate in the phone’s loudspeaker to produce a sound.
In contrast, the vibration motor rotates a small weight to make the whole phone shake. That process requires a lot more energy. If you do not want to be disturbed audibly, try turning off all notifications and leave the phone in sight so you can see when a new call arrives.