8 Hacks to Extend the Life of Your Phone's Battery

Ever heard of the saying "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link"?

For even the hardiest smartphone, its weakest link is still its battery. 

After all, a mobile phone is only about as useful as its battery life.

Today most mobile phones (and tablets and laptops) use lithium-ion batteries.

Although lithium-ion batteries stand up well to repeated charging, they still inevitably degrade with use.

Hence, you may find yourself having to replace your mobile phone every two to three years? Don't find it worth it? 

Here are eight gadget hacks for you to extend the life of your phone battery. 

1. Don't Let Your Phone's Battery Fall to 0%

It's better to avoid waiting until battery life gets too low before plugging in.

As soon as battery level drops under 30%, it’s advisable to recharge.

2. Avoid Charging Your Battery Beyond 100%

Similarly, there’s absolutely no need to charge your smartphone battery to 100% each time you recharge.

The high voltage induced to get lithium-ion batteries in one's phone all the way to 100 percent actually puts more stress on the battery and can shorten its life.

Instead, you should ideally charge it to 80%, then stop.

3. Adjust the Brightness of Your Screen

Your phone's screen is one of the most obvious (and biggest) battery-drainers. 

Dim the display to extend its battery life.

You can also adjust your phone's brightness settings (turn on the auto-brightness functionality) so that it adjusts to external light differences.

This will allow your phone screen to darken in dim environments and brighten in bright places.

4. Turn on Dark Mode

Modern smartphones feature a 'dark mode' setting that alters the appearance of what you see on-screen by adopting a color scheme that uses light-colored text, icons, and graphical user interface elements against a dark background.

Dark mode can save battery, but only if your device has an OLED screen. 

In a dark mode test, PhoneBuff found that dark mode on an iPhone XS Max used 5% to 30% less battery life than light mode, depending on the screen's brightness.

The test was conducted by using specific apps for multiple hours, so individual results will vary, as most people don't look at the same app for hours on end.

5. Turn Off WiFi and Bluetooth 

Having Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on drains your battery if you're not using  them. 

But if you're on a wireless network, it's more power-efficient to use Wi-Fi than cellular data, so switch to Wi-Fi whenever you can. 

6. Keep an Eye Out for Power-Hungry Apps 

Video-streaming applications like YouTube and Netflix drain the most battery. 

There are also background apps that eat away at your phone's battery life. 

While background apps may not use your phone's resources on their own, Android phones and iPhones will refresh background apps periodically by default.

The key here is not to close these background apps, which doesn't solve the issue, but to stop these background apps from refreshing, conserving battery.

7. Turn off Location Services

Turn off Location Services if you are not using them. 

This is because your phone’s Global Positioning System (GPS) chip needs additional power to run, draining battery.

8. Disable Google Assistant and Siri

While features like Google Assistant and Siri can be really useful to have, they add to the battery drain of your phone, especially if they're constantly listening out for your voice commands.

Final Words

Still find your smartphone's battery running low despite these hacks?

You might want to consider getting a power bank or wall charger from AUKEY to keep your smartphone battery's juiced up.