Need a Battery Charge? Disabling Background Data on Android Phone May Help
There are a few smartphone tricks as useful as those that extend your device’s battery life, and through this Reddit post from u / neq you can dramatically increase your Android phone’s battery life by disabling a relatively unknown feature.
The post claims that by turning off persistent mobile data, you can double your device’s screen by time (SoT) , which is a measure of the average time your screen is on over a single battery cycle. This differs from battery life as it is purely a measurement of when your screen is being used on purpose, not the length of your phone when it is simply turned on. Doubling the SoT will indicate a dramatic change in battery life, but saving extra power is beneficial.
Turn off always-on mobile data
- Put your phone in developer mode by going to Settings> System> About Phone , then scroll down to Build Number. Press it several times until you see a notification that your phone is in development mode.
- Go back to Settings> System , scroll down and tap the new Developer Options tab.
- Scroll down to the Network category and find the Mobile data is always active option . Tap the slider next to this option to turn it off (grayed out).
- The setting is now disabled. If you want to turn off developer mode, just tap the slider on the big blue “On” banner in developer options and it will turn off. Remember that you will need to turn on developer mode again if you want to change the Always On Mobile Data setting again in the future.
Does it really work?
We tried to use this trick to see if it made any difference, but the always-on mobile data setting was already turned off when we searched for it on our Pixel XL.
We can’t say with certainty if this is the default setting on the Pixel XL or if it’s just a result of previous tweaking of the phone’s settings, however a Neq Reddit post and other comments in it claim that the Pixel 2 and Nexus 6.1 enabled it by default, while while some Nexus 8, Note 9 and Galaxy S9 + users have disabled it. In any case, it’s worth checking if persistent mobile data is turned on and turning it off if there is. Energy that would normally be channeled into keeping your phone connected to the mobile network will instead be freed up for use by other apps or features.
It should be noted that disabling constant mobile data is only recommended if you spend a lot of time connecting to reliable Wi-Fi sources, otherwise the quality of your connection may suffer. The bottom line is that your phone can use mobile data again when your Wi-Fi signal is weak.
More battery saving tips for Android
If you came to this post hoping to increase the battery life of your Android phone but find that this setting is already disabled, here are some other quick ways to extend the battery life of your Android phone:
- Decrease brightness. You can change the brightness at any time in quick settings under the notifications tab.
- Reduce or mute ringtones and media playback. Use the volume buttons on your phone to decrease the volume, although you can make more detailed changes in the settings menu by going to Settings> Sound .
- Turn on the Adaptive Battery feature. It’s under Settings> Battery and automatically limits battery usage to certain apps when not in use. You will also find other important information about the battery in this menu.
- If possible, use wired headphones instead of Bluetooth . Not only does Bluetooth consume battery power, but analog audio connections sound better as well.
- Use battery saving mode . This can be turned on manually in the quick settings menu, however if you go to Settings> Battery you can set it to turn on automatically at certain battery levels.
- Using airplane mode when you don’t need to connect to Wi-Fi, mobile network, or Bluetooth, but still want to use certain offline features or files, can also be a good way to extend battery life. This can also be turned on from the quick settings tab.