That smartphones have increasingly powerful processors and screens with large diagonals and high resolutions involves a sacrifice in autonomyThe problem of mobile phone battery life seems to have been slightly alleviated in recent years with the inclusion of larger batteries and more efficient operating systems, but it is not uncommon for our mobile battery to last a short time.
There are applications to save battery, and if our smartphone does not suffer from hardware problems, there is the possibility of improving its autonomy. The simplest is to use the energy saving mode, even its most extreme version. This means giving up maximum performance and even smart functions, losses that you will not have if you apply these tips which you will see below.
Pause (or uninstall) apps you’re not using
First of all, it is important to understand that an installed application that is not used usually also involves battery consumption. Most of the applications that we install for testing generate processes in background which activate the processor of our mobile phone. Therefore, the battery will suffer from this demand for energy and will run out more quickly.
The solution? We recommend that you uninstall all the applications that you are no longer going to use, and for those that you use sporadically, you can limit their consumption from the “Battery” section. We indicate the steps to do it:
- Go to the “Settings” section of the phone.
- Then click on “Battery”.
- Then tap “Battery Usage”.
- On the next screen, you will see the battery consumption that each installed app has generated. You will be able to check background activity as well as total usage.
- Tap the app you want to restrict and in the Battery Usage tab you can select the restriction typeThe most aggressive and therefore the most battery-efficient is the “Restricted” mode.
This means sacrificing the fact that the app notifies you at that moment, but that won’t matter if the app in question isn’t used daily.
Disable these battery-draining options
Android hides some settings in some sections that we usually lose sight of. Having gained many functions during its development, some of them are eclipsed and this affects energy consumption. In this sense, there are some options wireless connections of our mobile phone that help to extend its autonomy.
By default, Google OS searches for a way to connect to the network: it tries to scan for known WiFi networks while scanning for public networks. Both actions are performed constantly, generating unintentional battery consumption. Here’s how to disable these functions:
- Enable development possibilities: Go to your Android mobile settings, tap on “Phone information” and click on “Build number” several times until you see a message confirming that we have enabled developer options.
- These will appear in “System” > “Developer Options”. Once inside, look for the “Limit search to WiFi networks“. turn it on
- Now go down to “always-on mobile data» and disable this option.
Do you have a mobile phone with an AMOLED screen? Prioritize dark mode and wallpapers
Having a mobile phone with an OLED or AMOLED panel is a treasure: these screens stop battery consumption by turning off their pixels to represent the color black. It therefore seems ideal to use wallpapers that are as dark as possible, to reduce screen power consumption.
In addition, with the trend of dark mode, Android and most applications have this option to change the colors of the interface. Even if we save battery with a wallpaper of a few colors, we can increase it even more. As a general rule, all customization layers include it today, and it is located in “Settings” > “Display”.
Similarly, there is another screen setting that consumes a lot, a lot of battery. We are referring to the way “Always exposed”or “Always on display”. This allows us to see the clock and notifications at all times, even with the phone locked, and while this can be very useful, it also takes a lot of time.
Also, automatically varying the screen brightness level can generate unnecessary consumption: we classify this setting in the quartet of death for your mobile battery. A poorly calibrated brightness sensor or a software problem You can make mistakes when leveling the brightness of the panel. Because of this, we can waste energy unnecessarily, monitor it closely.
We don’t always need the highest fluidity: reducing hertz is always an option
We continue with the screens: the high refresh rates They are now the norm. They bring greater fluidity to the interface and its animations, which is very appreciated. They also harm the autonomy of the terminal, it is not in vain, they demand more from both the screen and the processor, which will have to cope with greater energy consumption.
This is most obvious on high refresh rate displays that don’t carry the LTPO acronym: by not dynamically refreshing, the system will always try to run at the highest rate. It doesn’t hurt to fall back to the norms 60 hercules which until recently were the most common. To do this, go to the screen settings on Android, where it usually appears as “Screen refresh rate”.
Disable sync
What is synchronization? An almost indispensable element of our Android phones: it allows our phone to stay up to date on different tasks such as updating email, the list of saved contacts and much more. Although very useful, the fact that the system constantly synchronizes our data can be counterproductive for the autonomy of the terminal.
We have already talked about how to customize it, in summary: Prioritize only syncing items that are crucial to you. Don’t need new email notifications? Stop Gmail syncing to your account.
This Google Maps Feature Drains Your Battery
Do you use Google navigation service? Google Maps is a wonder on our Android smartphone, it has all kinds of functions, some of which consume battery. We refer to the known “Location History”an option that allows Google to record our steps with the mobile GPS.
This is useful for us, the users, because in the end we have a very detailed Google Maps timeline. However, the fact that the GPS works more or less constantly also causes a remediable battery consumption: Enter the “Your Timeline” section to deactivate it.
These small changes will allow you to significantly extend the autonomy of your Android mobile. It all adds up, after all, we have a pocket computer full of features, and not all of them are so useful that they are wasted. a few more hours of use before going through the outlet.
In Xataka Android | Google’s eight tips to improve battery life on Android and why they really work
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