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.
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 devices released nowadays 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 demanding new games. Take advantage of some of the tips below and really get the most out of your smartphone.
1. 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 blacker pixels you have, or the 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.
2. Doze Mode
Doze mode has been around since Android Marshmallow, but has been improved with newer Android versions. Before, Doze would only work when the smartphone has been stationary for a while. But now, it can also work when it’s being moved around (in your bag or pocket while you’re on the go, for example). The screen just needs to be off to work.
Doze mode essentially just shuts down things you’re not using depending on how long it has been since you’ve touched your phone. Network connection is severed and syncing only happens during specific intervals. When you’re away from your phone even longer, more things are stopped, like GPS, Wi-Fi scanning and all syncing.
3. Turn off Google Assistant
Stop your phone from always listening. Google Assistant 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>Search from your Settings menu and tap Google Assistant>Settings heading. On the next page, select your device and toggle off Google Assistant for longer battery life.
4. 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.
5. 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.
References:
https://www.androidpit.com/how-to-save-battery-life
