Obviously, the first rule for extending your battery life is not using
up all your battery life playing Candy Crush all day long and walking around with
Wi-Fi and GPS enabled, especially when you need your phone to last that extra hour. But aside from that, there are
some basic rules for care and charging, and they're the simplest
baseline for a healthy battery.
Never go to zero : If you're going to be shelving any lithium-ion battery for a long time, try to leave it with at least 40 percent battery power to tide it over. Lithium-ion batteries don't eat power when their not in use, but they'll lose maybe five to ten percent of their charge each month.
And when lithium-ion batteries get too low like, literally zero percent they get seriously unstable, and dangerous to charge.
To prevent explosion-type disasters when you go to charge one that's been sitting around for a month or two, lithium-ion batteries have built-in self-destruct circuits that will disable the battery for good, if it reaches rock bottom. And sure, that'll save you from a face full of battery-acid, but it'll also leave you short one battery.
Only charge fast when you need to : A lot of newer phones support some sort of "fast charging" feature. These suckers will let you juice your phone up from zero to around half-full in just about a half hour. It's a life-saver for when you've only got a few minutes to spare, but it's also not great for you battery. Surprise!
Lithium-ion batteries live their longest lives when charged and discharged at low, consistent speeds. Fast charging is not that. But since fast charging is only for the beginning of a charge cycle—and phones and their chargers are smart enough to only apply the extra voltage when it's useful—the damage isn't too bad. Still, if you're not in a hurry, it's probably better for your battery to apply a slow and steady charge through a low-voltage charger.
Power Down: Obviously this isn’t always an option, but if you don’t have reception, are going to sleep, or it’s after business hours then turning your phone off is the easiest way to save battery life.
Turn off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi: Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are power-hungry features so disable them when they’re not in use.
Turn off vibrate and keytones: Swinging a little weight is a lot of work and a premiere power drainer. Switch off your cell phone’s vibrate function and consider switching off your keytones if you can live without them. You can also set your ringtones to a low volume to save extra juice.
No flash photography: Avoid using the flash on camera phones. The little flashes are powerful and therefore use lots of energy, especially if you take multiple shots in a row. In fact, same goes for the camera as well.
Lower screen brightness: Cell phones can save power this way just like laptops. You probably won’t be able to decrease it by more than 50%, but your eyes will adjust to a moderate decrease. Also consider setting the display brightness to adjust automatically.
Close applications: Apps consume battery power as long as there open. Shut apps down if they’re not in use, including nonessential apps running in the background. We recommend Wakelock Detector as a great way for Android users to check out individual app usage statistics. Apple users can double-tap the Home button to access recently used apps, some of which run in the background.
Phone calls only: Playing games, watching video, scrolling through pictures, and cruising the Internet will all ** up your power. If you only have a sliver of battery life left then save it for phone calls. Avoid Facetime and other forms of video chatting while you’re at it.
Don’t search for a signal: Your phone will continually search for a signal in areas with poor reception. Either turn the phone off, switch it to airplane mode or think about purchasing a signal amplifier for better reception in dead zones.
Don’t let it die: Avoid placing unwanted strain on your battery by charging it before it fully discharges of its power.
Keep it out of the heat: Don’t leave your phone in a hot car or anywhere with hot temperatures if it can be avoided. There is an optimum temperature range cell phones function at.
Turn off GPS Tracking: Triangulating your position via radio waves and satellites will eat away at your battery like no other. Try to use it only when navigation and location services are key.
Limit the screen timeout: Most cell phone screens will stay lit for a specified period of time after receiving input such as a swipe or tap. Set the timeout to the shortest available in your settings so the display will essentially go into a sleep mode when not in use.
Turn off notifications and syncing: Notifications and background syncing aren’t crucial to use your phone, but the constant updating and displaying of messages consumes a good deal of energy. Limit your notifications to what’s actually important and keep automatic syncing to a minimum.
Avoid wireless charging : Wireless charging can be incredibly convenient if your phone can do it, but it's not without its disadvantages. The inductive, wireless chargers out there today have this nasty habit of generating a fair bit of waste heat that heat will can toast your battery in the process. Remember standard plug-in charging is going to keep your battery in better shape, especially if you're some place warm to begin with.
Last but not the least Update apps regularly: While not always the case, many apps are often updated to increase their battery efficiency and utilize less power. Switch on automatic updates or download them manually if you want greater control over the updating process.
Typically, a lithium-ion battery lasts for three to five years, and chances are you're going to want to swap out your gadgets sometime in that window anyway. The slight damage of a technically bad idea like leaving your phone plugged in all night every night, or using fast charging when you need it is worth the convenience.
Still, it's easy to keep your battery reasonably healthy just by avoiding particularly egregious torture like letting your phone discharge from full to zero every single day, or leaving it in a hot car all the time. And the next time you make it back home with power to spare, you'll thank yourself for it.
To get the most out of a lithium-ion battery, you should try to keep it upto 50 percent as much as possible. For the most part, going from all the way full to all the way empty won't help; in fact, it'll do a little damage if you do it too often. That said, it's smart to do one full discharge about once a month for "calibration," but don't do it all the time. Running the whole process on a regular basis won't make your battery explode or anything, but it will shorten its lifespan on along run.
You don't want to have battery charging constantly either; lithium-ion batteries can get overheated. Though, your charger is smart enough to help with this, and will cut your phone off for a spell once it's full. And to complicate matters a even further, your battery doesn't particularly like being all the way full either. In fact, your battery will behave the best if you take it off the charge before it hits 100 percent, and leaving it plugged when it's already full is going to cause a little degradation.
So if you're really particular about optimizing your smart phones battery's life, you should try to go from around 40 percent to around 80 percent in one go, and then back down whenever possible. A bunch of tiny charges throughout the day is your second best bet, and going from zero to 100 and then 100 to zero on a regular basis will put the most strain on your lithium-ion battery.
Rest assured you are good for going with a daylong battery juice available on your smart phone !
Never go to zero : If you're going to be shelving any lithium-ion battery for a long time, try to leave it with at least 40 percent battery power to tide it over. Lithium-ion batteries don't eat power when their not in use, but they'll lose maybe five to ten percent of their charge each month.
And when lithium-ion batteries get too low like, literally zero percent they get seriously unstable, and dangerous to charge.
To prevent explosion-type disasters when you go to charge one that's been sitting around for a month or two, lithium-ion batteries have built-in self-destruct circuits that will disable the battery for good, if it reaches rock bottom. And sure, that'll save you from a face full of battery-acid, but it'll also leave you short one battery.
Only charge fast when you need to : A lot of newer phones support some sort of "fast charging" feature. These suckers will let you juice your phone up from zero to around half-full in just about a half hour. It's a life-saver for when you've only got a few minutes to spare, but it's also not great for you battery. Surprise!
Lithium-ion batteries live their longest lives when charged and discharged at low, consistent speeds. Fast charging is not that. But since fast charging is only for the beginning of a charge cycle—and phones and their chargers are smart enough to only apply the extra voltage when it's useful—the damage isn't too bad. Still, if you're not in a hurry, it's probably better for your battery to apply a slow and steady charge through a low-voltage charger.
Power Down: Obviously this isn’t always an option, but if you don’t have reception, are going to sleep, or it’s after business hours then turning your phone off is the easiest way to save battery life.
Turn off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi: Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are power-hungry features so disable them when they’re not in use.
Turn off vibrate and keytones: Swinging a little weight is a lot of work and a premiere power drainer. Switch off your cell phone’s vibrate function and consider switching off your keytones if you can live without them. You can also set your ringtones to a low volume to save extra juice.
No flash photography: Avoid using the flash on camera phones. The little flashes are powerful and therefore use lots of energy, especially if you take multiple shots in a row. In fact, same goes for the camera as well.
Lower screen brightness: Cell phones can save power this way just like laptops. You probably won’t be able to decrease it by more than 50%, but your eyes will adjust to a moderate decrease. Also consider setting the display brightness to adjust automatically.
Close applications: Apps consume battery power as long as there open. Shut apps down if they’re not in use, including nonessential apps running in the background. We recommend Wakelock Detector as a great way for Android users to check out individual app usage statistics. Apple users can double-tap the Home button to access recently used apps, some of which run in the background.
Phone calls only: Playing games, watching video, scrolling through pictures, and cruising the Internet will all ** up your power. If you only have a sliver of battery life left then save it for phone calls. Avoid Facetime and other forms of video chatting while you’re at it.
Don’t search for a signal: Your phone will continually search for a signal in areas with poor reception. Either turn the phone off, switch it to airplane mode or think about purchasing a signal amplifier for better reception in dead zones.
Don’t let it die: Avoid placing unwanted strain on your battery by charging it before it fully discharges of its power.
Keep it out of the heat: Don’t leave your phone in a hot car or anywhere with hot temperatures if it can be avoided. There is an optimum temperature range cell phones function at.
Turn off GPS Tracking: Triangulating your position via radio waves and satellites will eat away at your battery like no other. Try to use it only when navigation and location services are key.
Limit the screen timeout: Most cell phone screens will stay lit for a specified period of time after receiving input such as a swipe or tap. Set the timeout to the shortest available in your settings so the display will essentially go into a sleep mode when not in use.
Turn off notifications and syncing: Notifications and background syncing aren’t crucial to use your phone, but the constant updating and displaying of messages consumes a good deal of energy. Limit your notifications to what’s actually important and keep automatic syncing to a minimum.
Avoid wireless charging : Wireless charging can be incredibly convenient if your phone can do it, but it's not without its disadvantages. The inductive, wireless chargers out there today have this nasty habit of generating a fair bit of waste heat that heat will can toast your battery in the process. Remember standard plug-in charging is going to keep your battery in better shape, especially if you're some place warm to begin with.
Last but not the least Update apps regularly: While not always the case, many apps are often updated to increase their battery efficiency and utilize less power. Switch on automatic updates or download them manually if you want greater control over the updating process.
Typically, a lithium-ion battery lasts for three to five years, and chances are you're going to want to swap out your gadgets sometime in that window anyway. The slight damage of a technically bad idea like leaving your phone plugged in all night every night, or using fast charging when you need it is worth the convenience.
Still, it's easy to keep your battery reasonably healthy just by avoiding particularly egregious torture like letting your phone discharge from full to zero every single day, or leaving it in a hot car all the time. And the next time you make it back home with power to spare, you'll thank yourself for it.
To get the most out of a lithium-ion battery, you should try to keep it upto 50 percent as much as possible. For the most part, going from all the way full to all the way empty won't help; in fact, it'll do a little damage if you do it too often. That said, it's smart to do one full discharge about once a month for "calibration," but don't do it all the time. Running the whole process on a regular basis won't make your battery explode or anything, but it will shorten its lifespan on along run.
You don't want to have battery charging constantly either; lithium-ion batteries can get overheated. Though, your charger is smart enough to help with this, and will cut your phone off for a spell once it's full. And to complicate matters a even further, your battery doesn't particularly like being all the way full either. In fact, your battery will behave the best if you take it off the charge before it hits 100 percent, and leaving it plugged when it's already full is going to cause a little degradation.
So if you're really particular about optimizing your smart phones battery's life, you should try to go from around 40 percent to around 80 percent in one go, and then back down whenever possible. A bunch of tiny charges throughout the day is your second best bet, and going from zero to 100 and then 100 to zero on a regular basis will put the most strain on your lithium-ion battery.
Rest assured you are good for going with a daylong battery juice available on your smart phone !
