Smartphones are devices that let you make telephone calls, but also adds in features that, in the past, you would have found only on a personal digital assistant or a computer, such as the ability to send and receive e-mail and edit Office documents. Smart phones have come to make things easy or easier they have added value to the dumb phone as we knew it; primarily to make calls and send text messages It may also allow you to download apps, such as personal and business finance managers, handy personal assistants, or, well, almost anything. Or it may allow you to edit photos, get driving directions via GPS, and create a playlist of digital tunes. Now even Smart phones have been touted to control cars, offices, locks and many others, a move which has been loosely termed “The Internet of Things”.
We must understand that while the smart phone is using its “brain” to work out all these functions and read through these piles of algorithms written by programmers and software developers it will use a lot more energy as compared to the dumb phone which could last days when charged for a maximum 5 hours.
Smartphones are based on an operating system that allows it to run applications. Apple’s iPhone runs the iOS, and BlackBerry smartphones run the BlackBerry OS. Other devices run Google’s Android OS, HP’s webOS, and Microsoft’s Windows Phone, these operating systems have been credited with multitasking, multi level activity capability and many of these “drink” a lot of battery power. In this article I will focus more on Android as it is the most widely used smart phone operating system in Africa, (my target audience).
Typically an android smartphone user will not have less than 30 different apps on his or her phone and at least about 5 of these apps will be running concurrently, talk less of the background processes that would also be keeping the phone on like the clock, network, etc. You may decide that as you go out to purchase your new smartphone you would only be looking out for phones with batteries that can last longer than a day, trust me there is nothing like that as long as you install a lot of apps that will run on the “smart” phone.
There are many different ways to reduce the amount of battery life your phone consumes and these are just a few of these ways.
Investigate the culprits.
Android has a way for you to check whats consuming what amount of battery life and how its doing that, you can also check hidden processes that may be drinking off your battery. once in a while you should go into your settings and check these (to do this go to Settings>Apps>then slide to the “Running” tab), If you see an application you barely use or a feature you never use or installed for a period that has passed, you’ll want to uninstall the app or turn off the feature. Also Whenever you install a new application on your phone study its activity check how differently your phone has responded to the new app, compare the rate at which the battery life reduces.
Be in the habit of killing tasks
Many people are not in the habit of killing tasks some due to ignorance and some due to sheer laziness, well if you are keen on saving battery life this should be second nature. When you do not kill tasks, what you are doing technically is heaping apps upon each other which might even cause the phone to crash. when you open an app say Facebook, and you are done utilizing it and want to move to Twitter to check your tweets you should kill the former and that would even concentrate the processor on one app the latter and enable it to run faster and be more efficient. On my HTC One killing an app is as simple as double tapping the home button, this may differ from phone to phone, you should read your phone’s user manual to find out how this is done.
Turn unnecessary hardware radios off (Go Manual)
it is no surprise that bluetooth, infrared, hotspot activities drain a lot of battery power, sometimes we tend to keep all of these hardware connection on (no fault of yours because you may want to connect to your bluetooth headset and connect to your wireless network at the same time) there are ways to choose one option from similar choices that may provide the same service. For instance keeping your wifi and mobile data on is not a necessary evil, most people tend to do that just so they can automatically connect to an available network, If you ask me you might want to go manual on some of these options. When both wireless options are on, your battery power will run almost twice as fast because these radios need a lot of power to connect. What happens is while your phone is on standby it will be using power to snoop the environment, looking for the next available network to connect to. You are better off just turning it on at a new location, scan manually and if there is some wifi connect to it and turn off your mobile data and vice versa.
On some devices you have the option to turn on wifi if the phone recognizes that you are in a new location but then again that would drain battery power because your GPS will need to be activated for that to be possible.
Use the Power Saving Mode if you have it.
Some latest phones on the market have power saver features where when battery gets into critical mode you can suggest your phone shuts down some apps like Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and others. This feature can be very helpful as it will save your “last power” for your important calls.
Dump unnecessary home screen widgets and live wallpaper
Many people like to use fanciful live wallpapers and screen savers, when you try to check the amount of memory these live wallpapers and screen savers consume using the the first point you will notice these apps are just a drain on battery power. as much as possible avoid using these wallpapers especially if you care about how long your smart phone will last in a day. Do not be deceived into thinking that if live wallpapers will further establish your phone as a smart one, a smart phone is better alive than dead so be advised stick to simplicity and keep the power in the engine not on the interface.
Turn down the brightness and turn off Automatic Brightness.
Your phones brightness is another battery glutton, simply put the brighter your phone brightness the more battery power it consumes.
Update your apps.
Be in the habit of updating your apps from the play store. As time goes on developers find out ways to reduce the amount of power their apps consume and they make these corrections to their apps, frequently updating your apps will secure you are utilizing the latest technology when it comes to anything regarding apps and your phone. Be cautioned not to put on automatic updates though as this may not only consume your battery life but also your mobile data, again manual is bliss.
If you have other ways in which you are able to save juice on your device feel free to share with me via social media. i hope your battery did not run out reading this wink wink.
