Quick Summary of Why Does My Phone Battery Die So Fast?
1. Get A Cell Signal Booster
2. Adjust the Brightness
3. Don’t Leave Your Apps Open
4. Update Your Phone
5. Don’t Leave Bluetooth and Wifi On Indefinitely
6. Turn Off Location Services
7. Alter Your Mail App Settings
8. Disable As Many Notifications As You Can
9. Avoid Extreme Temperatures
10. Explore Battery Information In Settings
11. Carry A Portable Charger With You
Few things are as frustrating as your phone dying. And it always seems to happen in the worst moments. Even though battery technology continues to move forward, the batteries inside our smartphones still seem to run out faster than we’d like them to. Many of us still find ourselves asking, "Why does my phone battery drain so fast?"
It’s true that battery life between smartphone models varies a lot. Some models hold longer charges than others. And as much as we hate it, we all know that some phone manufacturers purposefully design their products so that the battery reliability decreases over time. This forces us to purchase newer models. But these are only some of the reasons why our phone batteries sometimes die too quickly.
Fortunately, there are lots of tried-and-true tricks you can use to increase the battery life of your phone. We’re certain that some of the ideas we mention here will be new to you. If you’re having phone battery issues, we recommend trying all 11 suggestions, one by one. That way you’ll know you’ve covered all of your bases to fix the problem.
1. Get A Cell Signal Booster
If you’re in a place with poor cell signal, your phone is working twice as hard to compensate. And the opposite is also true. If you have full bars, your phone is using less battery power to function. These modern devices are designed to customize their functionality efforts according to signal quality.
The more consistently your phone is connected to an adequate signal, the longer the battery will last. When connected to a poor signal, your phone is expending constant energy trying to find a better one. And this extra effort is using a lot of battery power. More than it would take to download a movie or stream live video.
There’s a very simple way to fix this problem, and that’s with a cell phone signal booster from SureCall Canada. They’re easy to install in the home (or cottage, car, RV, etc.). A booster will give you faster data speeds and better reception. If you’re in Canada and are always wondering why your phone battery drains fast, this should be the first thing you try. Especially if you have signal issues where you live.
Click here to view the lineup of SureCall Canada signal boosters.
2. Adjust the Brightness
Never changing the brightness on your phone is one of the top battery drainers. A lot of us keep the brightness turned all the way up, all the time. Instead, go into your settings and set the default brightness to something lower than the maximum. And then set it to automatically lower the brightness during certain times of the day and night. Doing this will save so much battery power, perhaps more than any other feature adjustment your phone is capable of.
Another screen-related adjustment you can make that saves battery life involves the auto-lock feature. Around 2 minutes is the default setting for most smartphones. This means that when your phone is idle for 2 minutes, the screen automatically fades to black. Go into the settings and change this to somewhere between 30 seconds and 1.5 minutes and you’ll save a surprising amount of battery life over the course of a day.
And believe it or not, the color of your phone’s wallpaper also affects battery life. The brighter color it is, the more battery power your phone uses. A darker colored one will use less power.
3. Don’t Leave Your Apps Open
Leaving apps open depletes battery life perhaps more than anything else. If you’re always wondering why does my phone battery die so fast, asses what you've been doing in this regard. Do you close your apps after use? Or do you leave them open all day in the background? Kids are notorious for doing this. But you shouldn’t be.
Speaking of apps, there are some that you should avoid if you’re low on battery power and need it to last as long as possible. As you likely already know, video streaming apps use the most battery juice. Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc.
But there’s another app enemy that’s almost just as powerful. You know all those free versions of games you can download? The ones that are full of ads unless you upgrade to the paid version? These are surprising battery killers. If you spend lots of time on a game like this, we hate to say it but it’s probably worth it for you to buy the full version. Especially if you have consistent issues with battery life.
4. Update Your Phone
Your phone will notify you when there’s a software update available. If you care about optimal battery functionality, you need to prioritize these updates. You’ll notice that each update makes available an explanation of what the update includes. But the truth is that even if it isn’t specifically mentioned, almost every update includes some kind of battery improvement. If you’re one of those who prefer to ignore software upgrades for personal reasons, just know that your battery performance will almost certainly suffer as a result.
In some cases, people whose cell battery drains fast are pleased to discover that applying a long-overdue software update solved the problem completely.
5. Don’t Leave Bluetooth and Wifi On Indefinitely
Remember, in the first section we talked about how the worse your signal is, the more battery power your phone uses. The worst time for this is while driving, especially long distances. The best thing to do in these scenarios is to turn off WiFi on your smartphone. There’s no point in having it on. All it’s going to do is needlessly use up your battery. Get in the habit of turning your phone’s WiFi feature off when you’re in a circumstance where you know there is no internet to connect to.
This also applies to Bluetooth. Turn it off when you’re not using it. When you leave it on all the time, it’s constantly searching for a Bluetooth device to connect to. Just like the WiFi feature. Leaving all of these things on is just wasting your battery power.
Let’s talk about airplane mode. This is a fantastic feature that most people don’t use often enough. When you turn on airplane mode, everything that your phone does “in the background” is turned off. No texts, calls, apps refreshing, Bluetooth, WiFi. All of that is turned off. Airplane mode does wonders for your battery. Turn it on whenever it’s prudent.
6. Turn Off Location Services
Your smartphone likely defaults to keeping location services on all the time. That could be part of the reason the battery is draining on your phone. Get deliberate about the location services settings and make some changes in there. Make sure all the apps that use location services are set to “Allow only when app is in use.” Even your GPS and maps. Your battery will thank you.
7. Alter Your Mail App Settings
A lot of people don’t know about this trick. Here’s the thing: Mail, Outlook, Gmail, and pretty much every email retrieval app is automatically set to refresh every minute. This makes it so you receive your emails pretty much the moment they are sent. In app language, this is called a push method. Immediate push notifications like this require constant refreshing in the background. And that uses a lot of battery power. You can change these email apps to check for new messages from every 15 minutes to only a few times in a 24 hour period.
When you view your email app settings, you might notice that it’s set to push. Change it from push to fetch. This is where you can change how often the app checks for new messages. Or you can set it so it only refreshes when you open the app. Your battery will like this.
8. Disable As Many Notifications As You Can
The dreaded smartphone notifications. We love them and we hate them. They instantaneously provide us with all the information we think we need, but there’s a price. And that price is distraction. Also, it makes your phone battery drain fast.
If you want your battery to last longer, turn off as many app notifications as you can. Your focus will be sharper, as well.
9. Avoid Extreme Temperatures
Have you ever left your phone in the sun to the point where it gives you a message saying, “Device needs time to cool down” or something similar? All electronic devices, including smartphones, are sensitive to extreme temperatures. Cooling sensors inside your phone activate when the device gets too hot which uses additional power. If you live in a warm climate or go to the beach/pool often, be aware of how exposed your phone is to the sun.
10. Explore Battery Information In Settings
Almost all smartphones have a neat feature in Settings that tells you everything you need to know about your device’s battery usage. It will show you which apps you use the most and which ones are using the most battery power. If you’ve never looked at this breakdown, you may be surprised at what you learn. Knowing these details about your battery will help you know what steps you can take to save power.
11. Carry A Portable Charger With You
The last resort. If after trying all of our recommendations your battery still struggles, it’s probably best to just bite the bullet and buy a portable charger that you can carry around with you. It’s more cumbersome than carrying around only your phone but if that’s what you have to do, you’ll get used to it. There are many different brands and sizes out there. Find one that fits your budget and your needs.
Why Does My Battery Drain So Fast?
One last thing. You may have heard that leaving your phone plugged in all night is bad, that it has some kind of negative effect on your device. This was true in some rare instances in the past, but there really isn’t any reliable data that supports the claim that this is a dangerous practice. Most new smartphones even have a built-in feature that cuts the charge once it reaches 100% despite still being plugged in.
Do you know other ways of saving battery life? Let us know in the comments.