There’s nothing worse than discovering you have something around 10 per cent battery on your phone when you’re about to head out the door.
And the truth is, it happens to all of us, so with that in mind, phone company Mobile Phones Direct give us a few handy tips to help you save a little juice:
Turn off those good vibrations
Whether it’s vibrating to alert you to a message or while you’re typing on the pad, when your phone vibrates, it is using massive amounts of energy (even more than ringtones). Turn them off to keep the battery life steady!
Put that light out!
It’s very rare that you’ll need the entire light behind your screen – unless you happen to be somewhere very sunny. By simply dimming your backlight by 25% you can look to save hours of life.
Take a look in your settings to see if your phone has an automatic or energy-saving setting.
Shorten your time-out
The same goes for the amount of time that your screen is lit at all – the longer it’s on, the more energy it uses. It’s that simple.
You can go into the settings of any smartphone and check screen time out, which can usually be reduced to a matter of seconds.
Charge your battery efficiently
There are two types of batteries in our mobile phones, lithium batteries and nickel-based batteries. Interestingly, the battery capacity in nickel based batteries are actually reduced every time that you charge them (if only by a fraction).
That said, they actually have longer life spans than lithium batteries, therefore nickel-based batteries should be charged to their maximum capacity when they have the tiniest amount of life left in them.
When it comes to lithium batteries, they should be charged as frequently as possible to maintain their original capacities.
Turn off WiFi, data, and Bluetooth when not in use
There’s nothing worse than having all three on at once and doing so is a sure way of making sure that your phone dies when you need it the most.
One way to switch all of these off with a click of a button is to simply turn your airplane mode on if you are not expecting any messages or calls. At the same time, it is worth only using GPS when you need it, as GPS is one of the biggest battery (and data) drains on your phone.
Close down your apps that aren’t in use
A main reason why our batteries get drained is that many of us haven’t efficiently closed down the apps we‘ve just used. Being able to run more than one app at a time is an incredible benefit of smartphones but also drains a lot of energy because each app is sharing a part of your processor cycle’s.
Using an Android? Tap the multi-tasking button – usually the right-most of the three icons at the bottom of the screen – and you can swipe away apps to close them. iPhone user? Double-tap the Home button so the multitasking screen appears, then swipe upwards to close each app (you’ll be surprised how many are actually open).
Disable GPS (Location Services)
Location services are a big problem for sucking the juice out of your phone. In settings > location services you can adjust apps location services’ or turn them off completely. Obviously for apps such as Google Maps GPS is a fundamental part of it but you’ll be surprised at how many apps your location service is unnecessarily connected to. If you are an Android user, you can even set the levels to choose how much power they use and connect that with your Battery Saving Mode.
Streamline your home screen (For Android Users Only)
The busier your home screen, the more battery life it’s going to use. So get rid of widgets that you don’t need, and try to reduce refresh rates. Another tip to bare in mind for android users is that animation costs power, so ditch the live wallpapers.
Keep Cool
Interestingly, a smartphone will actually use more energy when it is hot than when it is cool. With this in mind, it is therefore an idea to keep it out of direct sunlight or on surfaces that exhibit a lot of heat.
Either way, your battery will work at its optimum level when it is cool – so it’s worth bearing in mind if you happen to live in a hot place.
Got your own tips? Share them in the comments below!
