Increase Phone Battery Life

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8 Tips & Tricks

Keep your phone alive for longer (and keep your money in your pocket) with these tips

Updates in phone hardware are slowing down, making a weak battery a more common reason to replace your smartphone (remember when you could just pop out the battery and put in a new one? We do!). Daily smartphone usage leads to a dead battery at the end of the day - but it also leads to long-term wear-and-tear on your battery, meaning that even a full charge won’t last as long as it used to. 

Weak smartphone batteries are caused the same way they are in all other devices: over time, they lose the ability to hold as much power as when they were brand new. A battery’s lifespan is measured in the number of times it is recharged, and as a battery ages, it will hold less charge than it used to. One option is to replace your smartphone when you notice that a full charge isn’t lasting as long anymore. But that’s expensive - and bad for the environment - so the better option is to be mindful of your day-to-day battery usage to minimize wear and tear. Check out our tips below for some ideas on how to keep your battery alive longer - during the day and overall. 

Decrease your screen brightness

A high-wattage lightbulb uses more power at home, and the same is true of your phone: if you keep your phone screen bright enough to burn your retinas at all times, you’re chewing up your battery power quicker. Turn down your screen brightness, or set your screen brightness to auto-adjust to your surroundings, to keep your battery alive longer (and to keep your eyes happier). If your phone has a blue light filter, your eyes will like you even more, and so will your battery.

Check for apps running in the background

Despite what you may believe, clicking on the ‘home’ button after using an app doesn’t close the app, it just sends it to the background - much like if you had clicked the ‘minimize’ button on your computer. Apps running in the background keep using the phone’s power, even more so if they require location services or have ongoing downloads in progress. To make sure your apps are completely shut off, follow [this] guide for Apple and [this] guide for Android.

Turn off bluetooth

Bluetooth is one of those pesky little things that’s on by default on many phones - but unless you’re constantly hooked up to wireless headphones or screen sharing, it’s pretty unlikely that you’re actually using it. But when Bluetooth is on, it’s constantly sending out signals looking for other devices it can pair with - a huge energy suck. Protip: for Apple users, swiping up and pressing the Bluetooth symbol only turns it off temporarily, and it’ll sneakily turn back on afterwards. To turn off Bluetooth fully, go through the settings menu.

Update your software

You should be doing this anyways, because important security patches typically come through software updates. But here’s another reason to update your software: Apple recently released an iOS update that charges your phone at the best time of day and then stops charging at night, optimizing your battery schedule and keeping it from getting worn out.

Turn off wifi

Just like Bluetooth, wifi is a battery drainer - especially when you’re not actually connected to a network. As long as your phone’s wifi is turned on, your phone is desperately trying to connect to a network - any network - just like a bad date. When you’re in low-signal areas (hiking, for example) turn off wifi altogether. Conversely, you can also use airplane mode with wifi turned on when you’re in a low-signal area but near a router (my apartment, for example).

Use wifi for large downloads

The great thing about the latest smartphones and their software is that they keep themselves up to date - no more annoying app updates that have to be manually triggered. The bad news is, your phone is connection-agnostic when it comes to downloads, including music, apps, and large media files. Not only is using data more expensive, if you don’t have an unlimited plan, it’s also a bigger drain on the battery - leave you with a dead phone and a crazy phone bill. Instead, head into your settings and make sure that downloads are set to wifi only.

Turn on airplane mode when you’re … on an airplane

I know, this one seems obvious but there are more reasons than just FAA regulations for you to put your phone on airplane mode during flights. Airplane mode turns off cellular and GPS while still allowing you to wifi or Bluetooth individually to connect to your headphones or in-flight wifi. In low-reception areas (like an airplane), phones will actually divert more power to your cellular chip while searching for signal, killing your battery fast, so turning off this function with airplane mode is a great battery saver.