Bad Battery Life on your device? Here are a few things to check.

Smartphones are the new way of life in today’s day-to-day life. We can do anything we need to do on a computer from a handheld device. But, what happens if your device’s battery life doesn’t last? In this post, we’ll discuss a few things that you can look at to extend the battery life of your device.

Charging Cycles

With the older lithium batteries, everyone knew that to let it fully charge to 100% and drain it to 0% before letting it recharge, but with the new batteries that smartphones use, it is better to charge your phone around 20% and to stop charging around 90%. Letting your phone discharge to 0 and charging from that point will put a lot of strain on the battery and degrade its overall life.

Most phones come with a fast charger, but that’s not good for the phone’s battery. Most of us use it as a convenient way to charge our battery as fast as we can but it is not great for the battery’s longevity. Battery manufactures say that approximately 400 cycles will degrade batteries to about 20% of their battery life. So at that point, the battery will only hold approximately 80% of its original charge.  A charge cycle is when the battery is charged from 0% to 100%. But, if you charge your device from 50% to 100%, that would only be half a charge cycle.

Screen Brightness

Among other things that should be looked into is your screen brightness. The brighter the pixels are on your device, the more battery is required to use them. Auto-brightness on your device will help to a degree but that also uses a photosensor (therefore battery) to constantly check for the ambient light around you to adjust the brightness. The best practice is to be vigilant and change your brightness yourself to the lowest setting as needed.

Using a Dark Theme

Along with screen brightness, devices now are coming with a “dark theme”. Dark themes will lower the battery consumption rate because it doesn’t use as many pixels as opposed to other lighter themes. When the part of your phone is showing black that specific pixel is off. The more pixels that are off, the less power is used by the screen. So in summary, the darker the theme, the less battery will be used as opposed to white.

Another good way to conserve battery is auto-off timer. For Androids, this is called sleep and for iPhone, it is called auto-lock. The shorter the time period set to lock your phone the less power needed for the screen.  If you don’t look at the device very much, then it is good to have a short timer. But if you are reading the news or a book through your device, you may want a longer timer. The best practice is to lock your device when not in use.

Of course there are many different ways to extend your battery life. If you need help or have any questions concerning your phone feel free to give SandStorm IT a call at (901) 475-0275. We will be glad to assist you with any of your device needs.