Mobile phones have been increasing camera pixels, storage capacity, RAM, etc but why batteries are not made efficient? I’ll obviously provide a few tips for saving battery but this question is pretty legit.
The main reason is that we have not developed any technology which will make batteries slimmer with more capacity. If you still want a large battery life then your phone will become a brick of a kilogram or two.
The companies are trying to provide you more and more battery life but still, you face shortage some times.
I’ll tell you a few ways to preserve your battery for a slightly longer duration.
Tips for Saving Battery
1] Screen
Since the screen is the biggest culprit for your battery drainage, I will divide this section into two parts:
A) Screen brightness
As smartphones are getting larger and more HD, battery consumption is bound to increase due to these screens. Every pixel is active to display the things on your screen.
Hence, try to keep your screen brightness to the minimum level and not too bright. I have seen people using their phones on the highest brightness level even in the darkness of night. Don’t do it.
Avoid using that auto-brightness feature because the sensors are continuously working to detect the light around you. Moreover, you can manually adjust the brightness level as per your convenience without using that sensor.
B) Screen Usage Pattern
Avoid using live wallpapers because the continuous motion on your screen keeps activating and deactivating the pixels. Try keeping a black or dark image as a wallpaper if you have an AMOLED display.
Secondly, set your phone’s ‘screen timeout’ to minimum time. I have personally kept it for 10 seconds. Most of the times we don’t lock the phone before keeping it and the screen keeps glowing for some 2-10 minutes. This is an unnecessary usage of battery.
2] Touch Vibrations and Sounds
Do you like those sounds and vibrations on every touch? Unfortunately, it consumes much of your battery.
Every time your phone produces those sounds/vibrations, a motor is working to make those effects. As a result, it consumes some of your battery with every touch you make. Now calculate the number of times you touch your screen while using it.
3] GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, NFC, and other Radio Networks
It is completely okay if you are using these services. Don’t be a miser. But it will be surely helpful if you turn off these radio networks when not in use.
I don’t see the point to keep your GPS on when you are not using Google Maps or Uber. Also, it makes no sense to keep Bluetooth enabled when none of your devices is connected to it.
I have seen countless people who keep these buttons enabled all the time. It is not really good for privacy concerns as well as battery life.
4] Background Data
There are tonnes of apps which don’t really need background data usage. For instance, social media apps and games are continuously fetching the data while in the background. Why do you even need that?
Firstly, the continuous notifications are anyway disturbing you. Secondly, these apps are consuming battery as well as data.
Instead, disable the background data for such apps and games. You can manually check all the notifications later.
Check Battery Stats
This is an important measure to keep checking battery stats from time to time. Are there any apps on your phone which keep draining your battery even when you don’t use them much?
Then something is fishy there. Either uninstall them or disable them when not in use.
5] Auto-updates
This has happened to me a lot.
I tried updating an application (mostly a game) on my Internet data when I am outdoors. Most of the times the data speed is so low that it takes much time to get updated ending up consuming much of my data and battery.
I would always recommend you to update your applications or OS only when you are at your home or getting high-speed internet.
Updating applications on low data speeds suck your battery. Turn off your auto-updates.
6] Disable Voice Commands for ‘OK Google’ and ‘Hey Siri’
We all know that all these smart assistants like Google Assistant and Siri are continuously hearing you by turning on your microphone.
They have to listen continuously because they need to pick up your command at any given time.
This consumes battery since your microphone is enabled 24×7.
The best way to deal with this issue is to disable voice commands. If you need then call it manually by long-pressing the home button of your phone.
7] Motion Sensors
I know not all the phones have these beautiful features but if your phone supports motion sensors while being in a locked state then you need to disable them for battery saving.
If you don’t know what I mean here, here are some examples.
Some phones lit their screens on as soon as you pick them up. Some phones get unlocked as soon as you double-tap the screen. Meanwhile, many phones have fingerprint sensors or face recognition sensors.
All these sensors are continuously running even if your smartphone is locked.
If you disable these motion sensors, your battery performance might slightly boost up.
Conclusion:
These are some tips for saving battery life of your phone which might not boost tremendously but it can help for sure. During an emergency, every bit counts.
If you still face issues with your battery then probably you need to change your phone or at least buy a power bank for yourself.
I have written a complete guide for power banks. In case you are interested, here is the link: 5 Things to check while buying Power Bank
P2
Bluetooth, Wifi, GPS consume a lot less power than Screen does. Like, in my case, I use Arogya Setu and so I have bluetooth turned on always and also my location(GPS) and Wifi are always enabled. But when I saw my battery usage stats, I was shocked to see that screen used 50% even though I keep brightness medium. And to my surprise, Bluetooth was just at 1%. And Wifi wasnt even in the top 15 of this list. All in all, this post had provided some very profound insights. If I had to add, I would say the first thing to do is check the battery usage stats in your phone. It will give you the big picture and then you can fill in small details by following this awesome post.
I would definitely try to reduce the power consumption of my screen by following the first point 🙂
I am glad you liked the post, Saatvik 🙂
It also depends on which screen is being used in a smartphone. For instance, OLED screens consume much battery than an LCD screen. Many factors come into the picture even if we analyze more 🙂