Smartphone batteries don't last forever, and some
devices have an almost-embarrassing screen-on
time. Those big, luscious AMOLED and LCD
screens and taxing apps are an obvious drain on
your battery, but there are lots of things you can
do behind-the-scenes to make your Android last
longer. Let's explore how to increase battery on
your smartphone.
Android battery killers: the worst apps for your
battery
Android smartphones with the best battery
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How Android batteries work
First, some background: most smartphones have
either a lithium-ion battery or a lithium-polymer
battery. Both are actually lithium-ion though, and
as such, do not have a 'memory', which means
you can charge them from any level – you don't
have to fully discharge them before charging them
up – and you don't have to charge them all the
way to 100 percent.
In fact, these types of batteries suffer from low
voltage problems, so it's actually better to partially
charge them (say, from 20 percent to 90 percent)
than to fully charge and fully drain them. Battery
care is always open for debate though, so for
every accepted tip there will be someone that says
it makes no difference. Just find the ones that
work for you and you can increase battery on your
Android device.
To our chagrin, most flagship devices released in
2016 don't have removable batteries. This looks
like it won't change anytime soon. And despite
most of them being close to 3,000 mAh they still
need to be optimized, especially for Pokémon Go.
Take advantage of some of the tips below and
really get the most out of your smartphone.
Black wallpaper can increase battery
If your phone has an AMOLED screen (like most
Samsung devices), use a dark-colored
background. Black wallpaper can increase battery
life because AMOLED screens only illuminate the
colored pixels. Black pixels are unlit, so the more
black pixels you have, or the more darker pixels,
the less power is needed to light them up.
To download a completely black wallpaper, tap the
link here. Now, save the picture and go into your
Settings . From there tap Wallpaper hit Choose
wallpaper and scroll down to Gallery . You should
be able to find the black wallpaper you just saved.
Hit set to wallpaper and lock screen . Watch the
video below to see how this is done.
Doze
With the arrival of Marshmallow came a new
feature called Doze , which helps you get more out
of your device's battery. Along with Google Now
on Tap, Doze is the most notable addition to
Marshmallow. It is enabled by default and
essentially allows your device to enter hibernation
mode when it has been sat unused for a prolonged
period of time.
The effect of this is that your phone now sleeps
when you sleep, and will lose just 3-5 percent of
its battery power during an average night, rather
than up to a quarter, as it would have done without
Doze. Apps are not obliged to use Doze, and you
can view which ones use it and which don't in
Settings and edit the list if you want to. In addition,
Sony has said it's planning to incorporate its own
enhanced stamina mode into Marshmallow for its
Xperia range.
Turn off Google hotwords
Stop your phone from always listening. Google's
OK Google voice searching is a fantastic and often
very functional feature. The problem is that it can
wreak havoc with your battery. Especially if you
don't actually use it or only use it occasionally.
Go into Google settings from your app drawer and
tap Voice heading. On the next page, select OK
Google detection. In this menu, the best option for
battery life would be to untick all the boxes, but if
you are a fan of OK Google, just tick the From the
Google app box to ensure your device is only
listening when you're in the Google app. Follow
along with the video below for the full process.
Don't let your apps fall behind the times
Keep your apps updated. There's a reason
developers constantly update apps, and most of
the time it's for memory or battery optimization.
Keeping your apps updated also means you have
the best optimizations available. Likewise, delete
old apps you no longer use, because these may be
running background processes that chew up RAM
and battery life.
Once you've ensured your apps are up-to-date
you can go through them individually and check if
they're optimized for battery life. This can be done
quite quickly. Just go into your Settings and tap
Battery . From there hit the menu button (three dots
at the top right of your screen) and go to Battery
optimization . From there you can see which apps
are optimized and change them. You can only
change the non-essential system apps. Watch the
video below to see how this is done.
Use Greenify
Unlike many Android apps that claim to optimize
performance and increase battery life, Greenify
actually works. Greenify allows you to put other
apps into hibernation when they aren't in use,
preventing them from operating in the background.
This frees up system resources and boosts battery
performance, but requires a bit of thought. For
Greenify to be effective you can't just hibernate
every installed app. But since there are a lot of
Android apps that perform actions you don't know
about, or necessarily want, this is a useful tool.
This can be helpful in many situations. For
example, you might use the Amazon app to
browse for things to buy, but don't want it to
operate in the background or send notifications.
There might be other apps on your Android device
operating in the background without a good
reason. Greenify stops this by sending those apps
into hibernation, which reduces their impact on the
system, saving battery life while improving
performance.
Doze promises to reduce battery drain while your
device is not being used. / © AndroidPIT
Greenify
Don't use adaptive/auto brightness
Don't use display auto-brightness. It may sound
useful, but auto-brightness is usually way brighter
than you really need. It's better to manually set the
brightness to a level that is low but comfortable,
and bump it up when necessary. This is one of the
best ways to improve your battery life, because the
screen is one of the biggest battery suckers.
To ensure your adaptive/auto brightness is off go
into the Quick settings in many devices and you
should see Auto with a box above and a
checkmark in it. Uncheck this box and your auto
will be off. With some devices you might need to
go into the Settings then tap Display. From there
you should see Brightness level and in it you'll find
the auto settings.
Save battery by using the manual brightness
controls. / © AndroidPIT
Turn off vibrate and haptic feedback to save
battery
Switch off vibrate. Unless you really need that
added awareness, turn off vibration alerts for
incoming calls. It actually takes more power to
vibrate your phone than it does to ring it. Turn off
haptic feedback too (that buzz you get from typing
on the keyboard). Sure it feels cool, but it doesn't
really add anything to your experience, and it's
another battery drainer. Watch the video below to
see how you can do this.
Set your 'Do Not Disturb' or 'sleep' schedule
Set sleep times or blocking mode to switch off Wi-
Fi and mobile data when you don't need them. If
your phone is basically off limits at work, set your
device to not ring, vibrate or connect to the
internet while you're at work. Many phones have a
Do Not Disturb setting for just this purpose.
Likewise, you can set your phone to airplane mode
when you're asleep or use sleep or blocking
modes to set up limits for what your phone does
during certain times of the day, whether that's
while you're asleep, at work or in a meeting. Cool
apps such as IFTTT let you create rules that can
help you save battery life too.
IF by IFTTT
You don't need to be connected 24/7
Turn off GPS, Bluetooth, NFC, Wi-Fi and mobile
data whenever you don't need them. Turning off
location data, or changing your location settings to
use Wi-Fi or 3G data rather than GPS works
perfectly well. This will increase battery on your
Android device.
Only turn on Bluetooth and NFC as long as you
need them (even though they consume very little
power), and there's no need to have both Wi-Fi
and mobile data turned on at all times, especially if
you know exactly when you'll need one or the
other.
If you use Wi-Fi a lot though, say at home and at
work, then it makes sense to keep set your Wi-Fi
to 'Always on during sleep' as this uses less power
than to have your Wi-Fi reconnecting every time
you wake your phone. Most of these can be found
in your Quick settings .
Don't get bogged down by widgets
Ditch widgets you don't need, especially those
connected to the internet, such as weather
widgets. If you have multiple widgets across
several home screens, which are constantly
syncing and updating (Twitter, reddit, weather,
Gmail and the like), you're not doing your battery
any favors. Just hit the apps when you need them.
If you already have a bunch of useless widgets on
your device then you just need to do a couple of
things and they'll be gone. Long press on a blank
space on your home screen. Now drag the widget
you don't need into the trash bin at the top or
bottom of your screen (it depends on the brand).
Explore the battery saving features on your phone
All ROMs, whether stock Android, OEM UIs such as
TouchWiz, or custom ROMs like CyanogenMod,
have various settings in the menu to help conserve
or optimize battery consumption.
HTC has Extreme Power Saving Mode, Samsung
has Ultra Power Saving Mode, Sony has STAMINA
mode and so on. Find these various options for
your device and ROM and make them work for
you.
Even if your phone doesn't have layers of battery
saving features like some (or you simply don't
want disable so many features), at least make use
of the basic battery saver mode. Even stock
Android Lollipop has it by default and Android M
has the great Doze feature (as mentioned above) to
help reduce battery consumption while your phone
is asleep.
Battery saver promises to reduce battery drain
while your device is not being used. / ©
AndroidPIT
Don't fall into the auto-sync trap
Turn off auto-syncing for Google accounts. If you
don't need every single Google account updated
every 15 minutes, just go into Settings and Google
account and turn off auto-sync for those apps you
don't need constantly updated.
Some apps – like email – let you manually refresh
when you launch them, rather than running
multiple auto-refreshes throughout the day when
you may not need them to. The same goes for
Twitter, Reddit and co. Unless you need constant
updates or push notifications (like for Facebook or
your calendar) just sync when you actually use the
app.
Did we miss anything? What are your best battery
saving tips? Tell us about them in the comments.
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