Home | Guides

Simple Phone Battery Hacks

Most of us know that phone batteries can degrade really fast. The current lithium-ion batteries have a limited number of recharging cycles, and most of them aren't removable. Here are some practical tips that will help you prolong the life of your phone's battery.

Many smartphones use batteries that can be charged and recharged about 500 times. The main idea is to reduce the number of needed charging cycles, and thus increase battery lifespan. In a nutshell, the less power is drawn from the battery, the longer it will last.

For some people, this means activating, and then using the most extreme power saving modes. I'm not a fan of this method, though, because it will make you have a very poor user experience. My advice focuses on tweaking things that can have a significant impact, but preserve your dignity ;)

Don't allow your phone to get too hot or too cold. For best results, ensure that your phone operates in environments with temperatures which range from 40 to 110 Fahrenheit degrees. So, don't freeze your phone, and don't expose it to intense sunlight either, because that will diminish the lifespan of its battery.

Avoid using fast chargers like the plague. Many people state that fast chargers won't stress phone batteries because they've got those complex protection mechanisms inside, but the truth is that the slower the charging, the better. Most folks allow their phones to recharge overnight; to achieve the slow charging goal without damaging the battery, be sure to use a low-power overnight charger.

Don't drain the phone battery completely, and don't charge it fully; it helps to keep it in the 20-80% range. It is true that a fully charged battery may help you go through an entire day without worry, but those extra 20% can halve the life of your battery.

Reduce screen brightness; modern phones use big displays, which draw a lot of power. Also, the "display" settings section includes a feature that will automatically reduce screen brightness in less lit areas.

Big screen timeout values can be a problem as well. If you use the phone to read lots of articles and eBooks, you will probably need to set it to 1 or 2 minutes. On the other hand, people who flick through news and/or interact with their phones frequently (think action games, etc.) may be able to get away with a screen timeout value of 30 seconds, and this will improve battery life.

Phones with OLED and AMOLED screens can help you save battery power as well, because their black pixels don't use any energy. So, choose a dark theme for your phone and activate the dark themes for all the apps, whenever they are available. Battery life will increase, and your eyes will thank you as well.

Get rid of the apps that run background services, and thus use CPU power even when you aren't using the phone. Here's an example: Facebook does lots of things in the background, tracking your location, delivering updates while you are sleeping, and so on. You can either try to tweak the app's settings, choose a lightweight third-party application, or access Facebook using its web-based interface.

As a general rule, you should reduce the number of permissions to a minimum. Games which want to read your contact list should be uninstalled right away, for example. Apps that want to track your location without having your explicit consent should go as well. And if you really like an app, purchase the premium version; you will get rid of its ads, and thus improve battery life.