Android phones and gadgets have become amazingly powerful with great features that make our lives easier while on the go. Unfortunately, the batteries have not kept pace with the other hardware and are always running low, sometimes several times on a busy day.
There are several factors that have aided to the limited battery life on Android devices, these include:
• Designs which have limited space
• Faster multi-core processors such as the dual-core, quad-core and octa-core
• Larger and brighter screens
• Power-hungry radios, such as the GPS, Wi-Fi, 3G, and Bluetooth
• Capability to run heavy apps such as 3D games
Before we look at the various ways of extending the battery life of Android devices, let us first see the type of batteries commonly used for these portable gadgets.
Rechargeable batteries for Android devices
There are different types of rechargeable batteries, each utilizing a different technology. The type to use is determined by power requirements, duration, space, and environment. Some technologies are more suitable for certain applications than others, and that is why a lead-acid car battery is quite different from a lithium ion battery for a cell phone.
Lithium-ion technology is most popularly used in portable electronics. This technology has several advantages over other types such as the Nickel-cadmium (NiCad) and lead acid. The Li-ion battery:
• Is relatively light
• Has less leakage when not in use
• Packs a lot of power in a very small size due to its high energy density
• Lasts more charge and discharge cycles (between 300 and 500)
• Has a flexible form factor and can be manufactured to any shape or size; - does not limit manufacturers to standard cell formats.
The above combination makes Lithium-ions the most energetic and rechargeable batteries suitable for portable electronic gadgets such as cell phones, tablets, laptops, PDAs, iPods, GPS devices and more.
Need to extend battery life
The Lithium ion technology is always undergoing improvements, but it is still difficult to go through a busy day without depleting the battery. In particular, business travelers and users with tight schedules can have a rough time when they cannot get the time or find a place to charge their phones.
However, all is not lost, and there are plenty of things you can do to save juice and get more service between charges. Extending the battery life of your Android device involves changing the way you use your phone, as well as making adjustments to the hardware and software settings.
Battery saving tips for your smartphone
The tips below apply across most Android phones; however, they can be used on other portable devices such as tablets and smartphones running other operating systems.
1. Check what is consuming the most juice
Knowing what is sucking the most juice is helpful because you can make informed decisions on what to turn off and what to leave on. You will be able to gauge whether finishing a 3D movie will leave enough juice to see you through to the next charge without dying.
It also gives you a hint on what you have to avoid whenever you are not in a position to charge your phone.
2. Determine the remaining battery charge
Keep track of your battery and check the amount of charge left as you use the phone. This will show you the number of hours or minutes left before the phone dies, hence helping you plan on when to charge the phone, what features and settings to use, and what to turn off.
If you are not likely to get a charge soon, it may be time to take drastic measures such as putting it on Ultra Power Save mode so that you can extend the battery to the next charge.
If the option of checking the remaining charge is not unavailable on your Android device, you can use a third party app to display the time.
3. Explore battery saving modes and see what suits different situations
Different phones will have varying levels and modes of power saving. The modes are very effective and can squeeze extra hours of standby time out of the very little battery power.
The schemes will automatically turn off some features and some can be customized to include web browsing and social media activities such as Twitter and Facebook.
Find out all the available modes and what they do to determine what works best for different situations.
4. Operate the device in power-saving mode
Most Android-based phones have a special power mode that can be toggled to extend the battery charge. This power-saving mode turns off most of the power consuming functions such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS and reducing the screen brightness. Since the mode greatly impacts the system performance, you may need to only turn it on when the battery level starts getting very low.
However, there are some phones with configurable settings, and one can set the handset to enter the safe mode once the battery level reaches a certain level of say about 30 or 40 percent.
5. Use extra power-saving mode if available on your phone.
Some phones have more than one power-saving mode and may include more intensive ones such as Extreme Power Saving or Ultra Power Saving mode.
These extreme power saving modes turn off majority of the apps and features while leaving a simple black screen that only accesses essential applications such as the dialer, contacts, text messages and clock.
6. Use third-party apps to monitor and save battery
There are various battery management apps on the market; some are free while others are premium. They have different capabilities and can be useful in detecting power hungry apps running in the background, controlling the charging process, monitoring temperature and warning you when apps, battery or temperature are abnormal.
Top 5 of my favorite apps are:
Juice Defender
Greenify
Go Battery Saver
Green Battery Saver
Tasker
7. Reduce brightness
The screen is one of the main power consumers and any activity that requires that the screen be on will likewise drain more juice. A high brightness means more juice and reducing this light is a sure way of extending the battery life.
8. Turn off auto-brightness
The auto-brightness feature doesn’t help either and may contribute to more battery drain. This adjusts the brightness based on your surroundings and may consume a lot of power since it must use the sensor to monitor the light and then adjust the brightness, sometimes to a level that you do not require.
Instead use the manual setup and dim the screen to an acceptable level that you are comfortable to work with.
Go to Settings, then Display, and turn off Automatic Brightness or Adaptive Brightness; slide the Brightness level to your preference.
9. Use a short Screen timeout interval
The sleep option in Android turns off the display after some period of inactivity. The time is adjustable and can range from a few seconds to several minutes or never. Since the screen is one of the biggest energy consumers, you may be wasting useful battery life when the phone is idle.
Use the shortest practical time possible even if its 15 seconds, which is the lowest setting on Android devices.
Go to Settings, then Display, and choose the desired duration from the Sleep options.
10. Using dark background themes to extend battery life for your Android device
Using dark backgrounds on AMOLED displays can extend the battery life by about one hour. The AMOLED displays do not render the black pixels and leaves them off, a black background will therefore require less battery energy. These types of screens are available on the newer phone models
11. Dump the live wallpaper and home screen widgets
The home screen widgets may appear inactive but in the actual sense, they do post status updates in the background thus consuming the battery. The same goes for those animated and pretty widgets as well as the live wallpapers.
To maximize the battery life, it is important to customize the home screen and only allow the widgets that are active and turn off that ones that are not used.
12. Turn down the volume in Music player
The high volumes mean more energy must come from the battery, hence the battery drains faster. When playing audio files or music, use a lower volume that is just sufficient otherwise, your battery will be dead within no time.
If you can avoid playing the audio files that is better, especially if you have a low battery level. Headphones are another alternative you can use in place of internal speakers, and this will save some energy too.
13. Use low volume for the speaker
Use just enough for clear communication. Some settings are so loud that you cannot even place the phone close to the ear. The higher volume requires more power for the amplifier hence more stress on the battery.
14. Avoid using the speakerphone whenever possible
This is another battery killer due to the loud sound that will put a strain on the battery, both for the speaker and the microphone, which now has to amplify a weaker signal as compared to when the mouthpiece is near the mouth.
15. Limit radio use
The radio has a tuner circuit and amplifier that put a strain on the battery. Unless very necessary, it might be advisable to avoid extensive usage of the radio.
16. Select a softer ringtone and pick the phone up immediately after it starts ringing
Some ringtones will require more juice, especially if they have heavy beats. Use softer tones to save on the juice. In addition, try to pick up the calls as soon as the phone starts ringing. It might not save more, but the combined effect can be significant.
17. Limit camera use
The camera is another power hungry feature that can drain your battery very fast, particularly when using the flash. If you have a low battery, it is recommended to limit the camera use and avoid the flash as much as possible.
18. Minimize the use of the Torch/flashlight
Avoid switching on the torch every time you require some extra light. The super bright LED consumes quite a lot of power and can drain the battery very fast.
19. Turn off unused radios on the phone
Android phones have various radios for different purposes, these includes Wi-Fi, LTE, NFC, and GPS. If left ON, the radios consume battery life even when they are not transferring files or browsing the internet. To extend the battery life and extract a few more hours, turn off these radios until you require them. Always ensure that you turn them off once you are finished.
20. Boost battery life by turning off or limiting Wi-Fi use
The smartphone’s Wi-Fi card radio is another battery drainer. Unless the mobile data plans are inexpensive or you have a superior Wi-Fi signal, it is much more economical to use 3G or 4G networks.
It is always better to turn off the Wi-Fi connection whenever it is not in use and only enable it when within the Wi-Fi range of your home, office or public network.
21. Switch to GPRS or EDGE network instead of 3G or 4G
If you do not require very high internet speeds, switch to the lower 2G networks. These will not deliver continuous data and voice streams to your phone. However, it is adequate for occasional email updates, talking and SMS. The slow 2G network uses much less power and will therefore save you some juice.
22. Turn off Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a great feature based on a short range wireless technology that allows devices such as smartphones to connect with others. It is used to exchange files, connecting to sound systems, enables the smartphone to work as a TV remote and more. It doesn’t consume as much power but it is advisable to turn off unless you are using it, otherwise it will drain juice that can be used for other purposes.
This easily toggles on and off under your Settings.
23. Disable or optimize Location Services
The phone drains the battery as it tries to monitor the location. This is due to the phone using the GPS, Wi-Fi and the mobile connection. There are options of completely turning off the Location services or either selecting between the power saving mode using Wi-Fi or mobile data connection, or high accuracy mode using the GPS.
24. Extend battery life by turning off GPS-provided time
This feature uses a power consuming GPS service to determine the time based on location. Instead of leaving the GPS on, you can set the time manually or use the network provided time.
25. Check the signal strength
The phone works harder and expends more juice in weak 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi signal environments as it tries to scan and boost the weak signal.
If you notice a low signal or no cellular signal, it would better to turn off the radio or physically move to a place with a stronger signal and if all else fails, put the phone on Airplane mode where it consumes very little.
26. Turn off notifications
Most Android apps will notify the user whenever there is an update or when something happens in the background. This requires that the app must poll the network at all times to find out what is happening. This will drain the battery especially if there are many apps that are polling and the polling frequency is high.
Besides the polling, the notifications in the form of sound, vibration or any other means will also consume power and light the screen; these are some of the most power consuming operations.
To disable the notifications, you will have to go to each app individually and then turn its notification off. Twitter and Facebook are two of the biggest offenders and should be turned off if they are not that critical and you can do without them.
27. Turn off vibrations and limit ringer only to essentials
The vibrator uses a motor to rotate a small weight that in turn shakes the phone. The process consumes more power compared to the ringer and can drain the battery, especially if all notifications are on vibration. You can customize this according to personal preferences and use the ringer only for certain notifications while others will be visual pop ups at the top of your screen.
If possible, turn the ringer on and disable the vibration and you will be able to stretch the battery life significantly.
28. Remove the haptic feedback
The haptic feedback notifies the user with vibration whenever one presses a key on the keyboard as well as tapping on other areas of the screen or going through certain functions. And just like the vibration, the feature can put a strain on the battery and should be disabled.
29. Avoid power hungry apps such as games and other high-impact apps
Some apps use more processor cycles, graphics processor, memory and other resources than others. Apps such as 3D games and location-based apps will drain the battery much faster than reading apps like Kindle book and lighter-impact applications.
It is therefore important to determine battery capacity and avoid power hungry apps when on low battery.
30. Close Apps not in use
The smartphones are very good in multitasking and will let you run several apps simultaneously. However, most people never close the apps even when there are not using them. And as long as they are open, they continue using the processor cycles and battery energy. It is therefore advisable to kill some of the apps not frequently used in order to save on battery.
In an Android phone, you can bring up the open apps by pressing the home button for an extended time and then swiping away what you want to close.
31. Stop background apps
There are several apps that often run in the background but not really need to be running all the time. These will continue draining the battery unnecessarily. Determine which of these apps are running from the settings. Tap each of the ones in doubt and see what they are doing or what they are for.
You can go through them and stop the non-essential apps which won’t affect the operation of the phone. These can always be re-activated whenever they are required.
32. Reduce Facebook, Twitter and other social media polling
These applications will drain the battery if they keep on periodically connecting to the internet to check for updates. The strain on the battery can be reduced by setting the messaging apps to manual or by reducing the polling frequency.
33. Disable push email option
When the phone keeps on checking the emails constantly, it consumes more power. Instead of letting emails be pushed to the phone, you can configure it to be fetching the new mail twice or thrice an hour, or only when required. This is advisable especially if you do not have to respond to the emails very often or immediately.
34. Use mobile site versions
When browsing, find and bookmark mobile versions of the website that you often visit. Google search has options that can help you determine the mobile friendly pages. Additionally, use the mobile tools that pare down pages to their basic elements. This saves the android device from draining the battery when downloading huge banner ads.
35. Turn off smart features
Some smartphones have smart features such as the smart scrolling and the air gestures which consume power and are hardly used on a daily basis. Turning these features off will therefore save you some battery power in your android device.
36. Turn off IndexService to save battery power
The IndexService constantly works in the background to index the data for easy access at a later date. Since it keeps on scanning your phone storage for the data, it puts a strain on the battery. This can be turned off to extend the battery life.
37. Turn off auto sync, cloud services and drives
Auto syncing Google accounts, cloud drives and other services can put a strain on the battery and should be turned off and done manually whenever required.
38. Save your Android device battery by turning off “Ok Google”
This is a Google voice search feature that allows one to search the internet using voice instead of typing. You just say a word or a phrase and the phone will search the spoken text using Google. It is a great feature but you may not always be using it.
Turn the feature off under Google settings in the Apps folder, and then tap on voice and select “Ok Google detection”
39. Keep your apps updated
Applications are often updated to become more efficient and to use less battery energy. You can configure automatic or manual updates (recommended), the automatic updates will happen as soon as the updates are released, while the manual will require you to regularly check for the updates from the Google Play store.
40. Delete apps that you never use
There are some apps which just sit in the phone and are never used. Go through those installed and delete those that run in the background without adding value to your operations.
41. Reduce the frequency of checking your phone
Statistics show that an average user turns the cell phone on over 100 times a day. Each turning on uses extra juice to light the screen and open up some apps. Try self control and limit the number of times you turn on the phone unless you are answering a call, have received a text message or need to check email. Most users check their phones by reflex and will turn it on every other minute.
42. Keep the phone away from extremely cold and hot temperatures
At high temperatures, the battery gets hot and discharges faster. The components in the battery deteriorate faster and corrosion of the contacts is also higher. All of these contribute to poor performance of the battery and a shorter service life.
Avoid placing the phone on hot surfaces, exposing it to the sun for long periods of time, or holding it in your hands when it’s hot.
For better performance of the battery, temperatures should be within room temperature, between 20°C and 25°C. Avoid using the phone in temperatures below 0°C (32°F), or above 90°C (194°F).
43. Reboot the device once in a while
Android phones are similar to computers (to be more technical, they are computers, just a smaller version) and may have a lot of stuff, especially in the memory which may slow down the gadget. This means that you spend more time when achieving a task that could be accomplished much faster. By rebooting the phone, it clears the memory and starts afresh with nothing in the memory and with few apps running in the background.
44. Automate some of the phone rules
Apart from important calls or text messages, other services such as email and social media updates are not necessary when you are asleep.
When at work during the day or when you are using the laptop or desktop, the phone will not be used much and you can remove the internet access and reduce the screen brightness.
45. Do not let the battery to discharge completely
Avoid letting the battery drain all the way to zero on a regular basis, or keeping a fully discharged battery for long periods. Charging a completely discharged battery will strain the components resulting in a reduced service life.
Keep track of the remaining battery to enable you to plan on when to charge the phone before it hits zero. If not in a position to charge, use the appropriate power-saving mode to get some extra time out of the leftover juice.
The only time you may allow the battery to discharge completely is when you want to do calibration which can be after a few months or longer.
46. Use Original batteries and chargers
Always stick to the original charger from the manufacturer and avoid cheap universal chargers that may hard your battery and shorten its service life. The same goes for the batteries. There are cheap generic batteries. However tempting it may be to purchase these, they can be a source of trouble.
Always stick to the original batteries or those recommended by the manufacturer.
47. Get a portable USB power bank or phone case with a battery
If you are likely to stay out for longer period of time without access to a charging socket, you will be better off carrying a spare battery, a portable USB power bank or using a phone case with an integrated battery. This will come in handy when you are travelling or in a remote location without easy access to power. This allows you to charge your phone while on the go and is not necessarily only useful when in remote areas.
The external battery packs or cases are ideal for users who are always on the go and don’t have time or a place to charge their phones. The external batteries can be used to charge Android devices several times and the cases have very slim batteries integrated into the protective cases.
48. Turn off your Android device to save battery
To survive a weekend out of town, or a long power outage, you may need to turn off the phone and only switch on a few times, only in cases of an emergency. Ensure the voicemail is activated when you go offline. Some operators also have ways of notifying you if someone called when you were unreachable.
49. Calibrate the battery once a month
While this may not extend the battery life, it will give you the exact estimate of the level of the battery. In Android systems, the Battery Stats feature keeps track of the battery capacity, whether full, empty or in between.
The Battery Stats data may get corrupted and display inaccurate data, something that may cause the phone to go off before reaching zero. Calibration allows the Battery Stats information to reflect the correct battery status.
The calibration is done by letting the battery completely drain to zero, charging the phone up to 100% when in the off position and then switching it on when fully charged. If the battery doesn’t show 100%, charge it again while off, turn it on again when at 100% and repeat this until it shows 100% charge when switched on.
Conclusion
Phones are becoming more powerful. They now have great features which consume power at a faster rate. And you hardly go for a day without recharging your device. However, you can still get more from a single charge by simply changing the phone’s settings, and changing the way you use your Android gadget.
This will not increase the battery capacity, but it will extend the life by minimizing the power consumption. And it does not mean that you will stop using features in your cell phone, but rather you will use them more efficiently as far as energy is concerned.
The battery drains faster when running certain power apps, and when used more intensively or more often than usual. Try optimizing the device settings and usage, as well as limiting the use of some power intensive apps, such as location and GPS services, for long periods of time. Other intensive apps include using the camera, watching video, constantly browsing the internet, playing graphics-intensive games, streaming music, and more.
There are plenty of options in the settings which you can use to turn off features and sensors that you hardly use, those you use less frequently, and other services that are not always required. While some of these consume very little energy from the battery, their combined effect can be significant in extending the battery life of your Android device.
Do you have a juice saving tip of your own? Share it in the comments!