Battery Life
We get a lot of people come in to see us, asking us to replace the batteries in their devices. Sometimes the battery is old and needs replacing, while other times the battery is perfectly healthy, but there are things happening on the phone or tablet making it run down faster and faster.
I’m going to go over some tips and tricks you can use at home to extend the time you get from each battery charge:
Turn down your screen’s brightness.
It may seem simple and we all love to see a nice bright screen, but it really does take a lot of battery power to blast the light out of the screen. Consider dropping the brightness down to an acceptable level; for example 70%. It may not feel like a big difference, but could potentially give you an extra hour or two of time. This is done under Settings, and then Display Settings on most devices.
Delete Facebook or Messenger.
The Facebook and Messenger apps are notorious for being battery hogs. They are constantly awake and requesting information from the internet, using your wifi and therefore also your battery. You can use Facebook without the app, by opening the web browser application and simply heading to Facebook’s website.
Try not to let your battery drain to 0%.
Batteries can lose efficiency when they drain entirely, to the point where your overall battery life (in terms of months and years) can degrade if the battery frequently empties. It’s usually the case where the battery indicators on devices are misleading somewhat and adding a few extra percent onto the real level to try and avoid this issue. If a phone is telling you it has 5% left, letting it die will use up that extra buffer.
Install a Battery Monitor App.
Most devices have some basic level of battery monitoring installed as part of the system, but to get a better idea of what is really using your power up, installing a battery monitor from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store can help you keep on top of runaway apps.
Try and avoid extreme temperatures.
Leaving your phone in the car on a hot day, or leaving it outside on a cold day, can cause problems with battery cells, which will de-grade your overall battery life. Try and keep temperature in mind when putting your phone down. Most batteries will even refuse to charge up under 0º Celsius to avoid damaging batteries.
Bonus tip:
Set a dark theme. Some phones, typically phones that use an OLED or AMOLED screen design, will use less power when displaying black, as that part of the screen simply doesn’t turn on. Generally it’s higher end phones that use these screens, so you may not notice a difference in a budget phone. It is also known that it is much easier on the eyes to use a darker theme, so it may be useful to use even without the battery saving possibility.