Battery Drain Culprits
We all love our smart phones. In fact, we’re loving them to death!
"It dies all the time," cell phone user Natalie Debien said, while browsing on her smartphone at a tea shop in Tampa.
Cell phone user Toni Hatton agreed, adding, "It usually dies when I need it most."
Generally, a quickly draining battery isn’t the battery’s fault. It’s usually the user’s fault, because of how you use your phone.
Debien admitted she can’t help herself.
“Being a millennial, I’m constantly going on my phone all the time, and, I’m like, I know I shouldn’t, but I really want to,” she said laughing.
Figuring out Your Battery Zappers
The first step to getting more life out of your battery is figuring out what apps and functions you use that drain the most power.
Go into settings. Select the battery option. Then, scroll down to see which apps are your biggest culprits. It lists which apps you’ve been using and for how long and shows you what percentage of your battery was used up. It even shows how much battery is being used by background tasks for that app.
A check of my own cell phone showed 29 minutes of on screen use looking at pictures, which used 20% of my battery, and three minutes of background use, which continued to drain my battery, because I didn’t close out of the app when I was done.
Once you know what your biggest culprits are, you can adjust your habits accordingly—either deleting an app, using it less, or disabling a function until you need it.
As for those background tasks, be sure to close apps when you're not using them, or they lurk in the background sapping power.
Wi-Fi Zapping Power
One of the biggest ways to save power is to turn off notifications for social media apps like Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter.
“The apps are running in the background. They just constantly send data back and forth with updates about every little thing your friends did and when they ‘liked’ your picture.” Sam Marcos, Owner of The Cell Specialists said. “That’s gonna be where most of your battery is gonna go,”
Other big battery savers include turning off Wi-Fi when you don't need it.
"That's a drain," Marcos explained. "It's constantly looking and searching for networks and connecting even if you're not using it."
Other tricks to help make your battery last longer:
· Lower the brightness of your screen
· Keep your screen time-out short - Set the screen to sleep after 30 seconds of inactivity, instead of one minute or longer
· Reduce the frequency of updates, if possible, like email fetching, social-network feeds, and other apps to once every hour or so
· Turn off vibrate – the tiny motor actually uses a lot more power than just the speaker with a ringtone
· Turn off Bluetooth, when not using it
· Turn off Location Services, when not using it for directions or to find a location.
Another factor that can have a huge impact on your battery life is long exposure to heat, like leaving it in your car in the hot Florida sun. So be careful about that.
The Way you Charge Matters
Another tip: avoid quick-charging your phone. You may have discovered that if you use a stronger charger, two amps (like the one you get with an iPad) instead of one amp (like the one you get with your phone), your phone will charge faster. That may seem convenient, but you can actually damage the long-term life of your battery when you do that.
One exception: newer Samsung Galaxy models are designed for rapid charge.
"In terms of battery technology, Samsung has superior battery technology than the iPhone," Marcos explained.
Also, avoid the urge to over-charge.
"Some people have this habit of as soon as it's at 70 percent or 60 percent they start to panic, and they have to plug it back in and top it off their battery. You don't want to top off your battery," Marcos said. “You want to unplug it at 100%. Use it all the way until the battery tells you it’s low and plug it back in.”
Also, try not to let the battery die, because that can damage the battery’s cells, impacting its ability to hold a charge.
Lifespan of a Battery
The lifespan of an average battery is between 300-500 charging cycles, which is about one to two years. You know it’s time to replace the battery when it starts acting quirky and loses a charge even when you’re not using it.
“You’ll be at 100 percent and then all of a sudden it’s 50 percent, or sometimes we’ve seen where it’ll say you have 30% and all of a sudden you come to use it and the phone just turns off,” Marcos explained. "Then, as soon as you plug it into a charger, the phone comes back on and tells you, you still have 30 percent."
Natalie Debien says she’s been there, too many times.
“Super frustrating,” Debien sighed, “Cause you’re like I just charged it last night and now it’s dead already.”
Follow some of these tips to help avoid the frustration of your phone dying, especially when you need it most.
“I’m definitely gonna try some of those,” Toni Hatton said.