5 tips to make your smartphone battery last longer

Smartphones have become an essential part of our lives for quite a while now. But a smartphone is useful as long as its battery remains healthy and running. While many of us protect our phones with heavy cases, we seem to ignore putting any effort into protecting the battery lifespan of our smartphones.

While most smartphone batteries lose their effectiveness over time, there are certain things you can do to make sure that your phone battery stays in top condition. Here are 5 tips to make your smartphone battery last longer: 

Reduce brightness

Reducing the brightness of your smartphone display goes a long way in making your battery last longer. While the latest smartphones come with state-of-the-art displays and ensure significant brightness, they tend to put a lot of pressure on the battery. Unless you use your smartphone in outdoor settings, you can reduce the brightness without putting a dent in the performance of your device.

Moreover, switching to Dark Mode, i.e. changing the background of your phone screen from white to black, can save more battery life. Using the Dark Mode is more effective in low light, as it puts less pressure on your eyes. Hence, adjusting the brightness levels on your smartphone can help you save a good amount of battery life in the long run.

Turn vibration notifications off

The vibration feature on your smartphone is beneficial in many situations. It can be a handy tool in public settings where you need to remain discreet. While we understand the need to keep your phones on silent mode, it is advisable to keep the vibration notification switched off unless necessary to avoid harming your battery life. Your smartphone loses its effectiveness the more you use it, and vibrating notifications contribute to that process. Thus, keeping your vibration notifications switched off when possible is the best way to extend the longevity of your smartphone's battery. 

Avoid charging overnight or till 100%

It is often a common practice to leave your smartphone charging overnight, especially if it gets drained after an entire day's use. While waking up to a completely charged smartphone may seem like a great thing to start your day with, this habit could potentially shorten your battery lifespan. This is because once your phone is 100% charged, it will continue to charge the phone to keep its battery at 100%. The extra charging keeps the battery continuously and decays the Lithium-ion batteries, causing them to wear out over time. Moreover, completely charging your smartphone causes heat to build up over time, which causes more harm than good.

Make use of power/battery saver mode

Most modern smartphones come equipped with built-in battery saver modes. These can be manually activated when the device is low on power, but it is usually a smarter idea to have them automatically activated when the battery level is below 20%. These battery saver modes help reduce power consumption by closing power-hungry apps as well as background apps that may be draining battery life. In most phones, battery saver modes turn off certain notifications and reduce the screen brightness to limit power consumption further. 

If you feel your phone loses power too fast, consider turning off background apps when they are not in use, or simply use the battery saver mode. While you can still use your phone perfectly fine, the lower power consumption will mean the device will perform at a slightly lower level. These modes also reduce stress on the phone battery's overall lifespan.

Avoid excessive temperatures

Controlling the phone's temperature goes a long way in extending a phone's longevity. Not only do higher temperatures put more stress on the battery, but there is also the risk of irreplaceable internal damage. 

A good way of controlling excessive temperatures in smartphones is to not leave them charged for a long time, especially when the device is fully charged. This means you shouldn't leave your phone charging under the pillow at night or plugged into a dashboard on a hot day. 

As mentioned earlier, charging your phone overnight or up to the maximum limit of 100% is bad for its health, but doing so also leads to rising temperatures that may be difficult to control. Fast charging your phone for a long time can cause similar problems, as high amounts of voltages run the risk of increasing the temperature of the phone and potentially damaging it.