How to save battery power in a smartphone: myths and truth

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

There is no need to "swing" the battery for a long time, but adjusting the brightness of the screen will not hurt.

Myths

You only need to use a proprietary cable and charger

In fact, you can use the products of another manufacturer, the main thing is that it is of good quality. It's okay if your smartphone is Xiaomi, and you took the charging from Honor.

It's a different matter if you ordered a cheap accessory from AliExpress: a power cable can be found for a dollar or less. It can be of poor quality and cause problems. For example, if the power supply produces less voltage, you will have to keep the phone near the outlet for much longer. The voltage may be higher than the recommended voltage, which will lead to heating of the battery and a decrease in its service life. In addition, cheap cables often do not support high-speed charging protocols.

A poor-quality power supply can also cause a fire or even shock you through your smartphone. Therefore, before buying, read reviews, choose a seller and a brand with a good reputation. Better to pay more, but get a secure and reliable device.

The battery must be "rocked"

There is a myth that the battery of a new phone needs to be discharged to zero several times and fully charged. Ostensibly in order for the charge controller to remember how much the battery has.

This advice really helped when in the early 2000s, phones used nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH) and nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) memory batteries. These batteries needed to be fully charged in order for them to remember their size.

Modern smartphones use lithium-ion (Li-ion) and lithium-polymer (Li-Pol) batteries, which do not need "swinging". They also have memory, but this does not affect their work. The capacity of such batteries will decrease due to natural wear and tear: they usually degrade after 3-5 years.

It is not recommended to completely discharge the phone, as this will lead to a loss of capacity due to the occurring chemical reactions. The same will happen if you leave the device with zero energy reserve for a long time.

Fast charging kills the battery

With this technology, the battery restores half its life in just half an hour. This is possible due to the increase in voltage and current. Usually these indicators are 5 V and 1 A, and during fast charging, the voltage rises to 20 V, and the current strength to 4.6 A.

You might think that such an active mode is harmful to the phone, as it “recharges” during this time. However, this is not quite true. Voltage and current flow are monitored, so the battery will not draw more power than needed. When 50% of the charge is reached, the voltage and current are reduced to the usual parameters and the phone recharges slowly again.

What can really damage a battery is heat: high temperatures reduce the capacity of the battery. However, the charge controller monitors this parameter and reduces the voltage in case of overheating. Some smartphones may even disable some functions, such as data transfer, while charging. But the phone should still be kept in the shade and not run heavy games that heat up the processor.

Background applications need to be unloaded from memory

Not really. The app appears to freeze in the background so that the phone can quickly open it upon restart. If the application is “killed”, for example by a task-killer, the phone will spend more time and energy on launching the program. This is true for both Android and iOS.

It is better to check the statistics of charge consumption in the settings, if there are suspicions of a "leak", and disable or uninstall the gluttonous program.

Truth

Dark theme saves battery power, but only if it has an OLED screen

For owners of phones with LCD-display, this mode will not help. This is due to the design of the screens. Liquid crystal displays (the same LCD) use a backlight that glows no matter what color the LCD pixel is. Therefore, the charge consumption is the same with any image.

In OLED displays, there is no backlight as the pixels themselves glow. Such screens have higher contrast and consume less power. To display in black, the OLED pixel is disabled and the LCD continues to run at full capacity.

To conserve battery power, the owner of an LCD phone should dim the display.

GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi drain battery

Wireless modules are consuming battery power. For example, a GSM module that is always active. Moreover, the worse the reception, the higher the energy consumption. This is due to the fact that the phone spends more resources to get a good signal. If there are two towers nearby, the consumption will also increase, since additional energy is spent on switching.

It is better to adhere to the principle "do not use - turn off". If you don't need a navigator, turn off GPS. This module will actively search for satellites in case of a bad connection.

When Wi-Fi is turned on, it will also search for a network, so it is better to turn it off when away from the router. But if the source of the signal is nearby, then it is wiser to use Wi-Fi than the mobile Internet: the latter consumes more energy.

Turn off Bluetooth too if no smart watch or headphones are connected to the phone. If you use wireless devices, don't worry about the battery. Modern phones support Bluetooth 5.0, which is more energy efficient than the previous version 4.2.

It is better to turn off vibration

The vibration motor uses a lot of power, so it is worth turning it off. This also applies to vibration during calls and notifications, and vibration feedback when typing.

Extreme temperatures are harmful to the battery

In winter, the phone can go down quickly. But not only frost is harmful, heat should also be avoided. For example, iPhones are recommended for use in temperatures between 16 ° C and 22 ° C.

In the cold, the chemical reaction in the battery slows down and the frozen part stops working. To get your phone back on line, you need to heat it up.

The operation of a gadget in frost depends on the material from which it is made: aluminum, glass or plastic. Aluminum dissipates heat well - the battery and processor cool down faster. On the other hand, the case freezes faster and the phone can turn off. Smartphones made of plastic live best in the cold, as they let heat pass worse.

To prevent the battery from draining quickly in winter, keep the gadget in your inner pocket and do not take it out for a long time. You can also insulate the device by wearing a thick cover.

Heating degrades the battery even more, so it is better not to keep the phone in the sun in summer and not to play resource-intensive games while charging. It is better to remove the cover, otherwise the gadget will cool worse.

Auto sync wastes power

Email client, syncing contacts and photos consume battery life. If you do not wait for a letter every five minutes, or prefer to sort images before uploading them to the cloud, turn off the auto-sync of these services.

This also includes other applications. For example, a forgotten chat client or an online game that you abandoned a few weeks ago. These programs take up space on your phone and sync data regularly. If you don't need them, just delete them.

Screen settings affect battery health

Decrease display brightness, or better yet, disable adaptive brightness. In this mode, a special sensor constantly analyzes the light level, which affects the battery charge.

If you have a phone with an OLED screen, turn on the dark theme. For LCD-displays, as we have already written, this method will not work.

Reduce the time the screen goes into sleep mode.

Unnecessary notifications should be turned off

Many apps, especially games, like to send useless alerts. Each animates the screen, emits a sound and activates the vibration motor - all of this puts the battery down. Turn off such notifications in the application settings (the only option for iOS) or prevent them from being shown through the phone's application manager.

Battery health matters

Battery capacity decreases during normal wear and tear, and battery life depends on the number of charge cycles. A cycle is understood as a full recharge of the phone from 0 to 100%. If the gadget is discharged to 30%, then the renewal of energy up to 100% will be 0.7 cycles. Usually, wear begins after a year, but in general the battery will last 2-3 years.

To prolong battery life, avoid extreme temperatures and do not drain your smartphone to zero. Special applications will help you check the battery status:

When the battery is completely worn out, you can replace it in a specialized service. If you want to do it yourself, buy components from a trusted seller and read reviews.