12 Ways To Make Your Smartphone Battery Last Longer

We all know the wonder that is a brand new smartphone – the pristine screen, the (mostly) flawless operation, and, of course, the gloriously long battery life. As time goes on though, we drop our phones, they get system updates that may not run as well on our aging device, and the time between charges seems to get shorter and shorter. While we can’t necessarily change the former two, there are a few ways that we can be proactive in preserving our battery life and helping our devices last a little bit longer when we need them most.

Below is a short list of quick changes you can make to your smartphone to help improve the battery life, and as a result, the life of the device.

1. Reduce Screen Brightness – The brighter your screen is, the more energy it will take to power your device. Reducing brightness won’t just help your battery, it’ll also be kinder on your eyes.
2. Turn Off Vibrate – This function can eat away at your battery life if you have it on for calls and text messages. Turning off any vibration settings from your phone will go a long way in preserving your battery life.
3. Use Airplane Mode or Power Down – If you’re in a poor reception area, your device will constantly be searching for a network to connect to which will put unnecessary stress on your battery. Power down your phone or place it in Airplane Mode until you’re in an area with better reception.
4. Monitor GPS/Bluetooth Usage – GPS and Bluetooth are two mobile device features that can eat away at your battery life without you knowing it. If you’re working with an application that uses the GPS or Bluetooth features, make sure that these are shut off afterwards as they will often run in the background even after the application has been closed.
5. Limit Notifications – Many applications we download today have their own set of notifications, whether it’s a game bonus, a fitness reminder, or a social network message. While some of these notifications are helpful, other times they are simply using up our battery life. If you’ve noticed that you’ve started to ignore some frequent notifications, turn them off to save power.
6. Close Applications – Even though you return to the home screen of your device, the application you were just in is most likely still running in the background. Inspect your open applications and close ones that you don’t use frequently.
7. Reduce Screen Timeout – Limit the amount of time your phone is lit-up after it’s last interaction. Simply reducing this from 2 minutes to 1 minute, or 1 minute to 30 seconds will allow your phone to run in the more efficient sleep mode more quickly.
8. Charge Before Empty – Letting your battery run extremely low or until it turns off can put an unnecessary burden on your device. Always try to charge your battery before it gets too low.
9. Avoid Extreme Temperatures – If you’ve ever left your device in a hot car or taken it with you on a cold run, you may have noticed that they have optimal temperatures at which they function. Either extreme will force the device to power down in order to preserve itself, so avoiding these high and low temperatures will help preserve your overall battery life as well.
10. Limit Steaming & Gameplay – No matter what, playing games with high quality graphics and streaming videos from Netflix will burn through your battery faster than you can imagine. Not only is your screen on and active, but in the case of streaming, your device will constantly be using data resources. While we all like to take breaks with our devices, if you’re out and trying to preserve your battery, avoid these types of applications.
11. Limit or Remove Widgets – Widgets may seem like a great addition to your device, but running these will make your phone work constantly. Limiting their usage or removing them altogether will reduce the non-stop data stress.
12. Avoid Animated or Video Backgrounds – Many smartphones allow you to use animated or video backgrounds which means that your devices is constantly in motion. Avoiding these perpetual energy eaters will help increase the life of your battery.

Implementing some of these practices in your device’s life may help you preserve the overall life of your device. If your battery-life is a daily struggle, you may want to consider an external cell phone battery for those no-charge situations.