Whether you use a iOS or Android smartphone, the way you manage your Battery goes a longer in determining its durability.
If you’re a user that depends on your smartphone throughout your day, getting through a full day on a single charge can be a struggle. While there are battery packs and USB batteries that you can pick up, this may not be enough.
Here are five things that are killing your smartphone’s battery life that you may not have known about:
Audio streaming
If you’re someone who streams music or podcasts all day at work via services like Apple Music or Spotify, you may notice that your battery life isn’t lasting as long as it did with your collection of locally-stored music. There’s not much you can do about this (other than just plug in your phone), but you can certainly try to download songs to your phone using Offline Mode on Spotify (and download podcasts ahead of time), which will sidestep having to stream all of this audio.
Screen brightness
Many smartphones now have displays that are bigger, brighter and more resolution, the effect it has on battery life can be intense. While you can’t really do much with your phone without using your display, there are a number of things you can do to reduce the damage it’s having on your battery life. On Android devices, the first thing you should do is turn on Adaptive Brightness so that your smartphone automatically adapts to the lowest amount of brightness that you really need. iOS has an Auto Brightness setting as well that you’ll want to toggle on.
Apps with background activity
While you’re checking your settings, take a look at what apps are eating up the most of your phone’s battery. If some of the highest-draining apps are listing “background activity,” you can turn off background app refresh, and only allow the apps to refresh when you’re using them, which will spare you some energy. On Android, you’ll find the option to restrict data usage on specific apps in Settings > Data usage > Data usage control. From there, you can choose which apps are allowed to use WiFi or Data or none at all. You also may want to disable auto-updating of apps, which happens in the background if it is toggled on.
GPS Services
Allowing your phone to constantly track your location can also drain your battery, since it’s constantly having to update and connect with the GPS. Turning off location services, or switching your app settings so that they only check your location while you’re using the app can keep your phone from draining as quickly.
Not switching off Bluetooth
A surefire way to of killing your smartphone battery is by leaving your battery on always. So, switch Bluetooth off whenever you can to save battery. Using Wifi instead of cellular data also saves battery, so connect to wifi wherever you can. Additionally, if you’re in an area with weak or no signal, switch your phone to airplane mode, as having your phone constantly straining to try and find a signal can deplete your battery.
