Best Ways to Save Phone Battery on Power Outage
An inconvenient side effect of a power outage, especially one lasting several days, is the inability to charge your devices, especially those that can work without Wi-Fi and connect you to the rest of the world. If your smartphone battery is running low and you find that you are out of power, you will want to do whatever it takes to preserve what you have left.
It’s always a good idea to keep your external power supply charged and ready to go in case you run out of electricity – look for a battery that can charge your smartphone at least a few times, especially if other people in your house have devices they’d like to the power remained on. However, when you get stuck, these are some of the settings you can tweak to get the most out of your battery life on a single charge.
Turn on power saving or power saving mode on your phone.
Low power settings are a global opportunity to minimize the drain on your phone’s battery. If you’re an iPhone user, your device has a low power mode that reduces battery-draining features like background app updates, email retrieval, and automatic downloads. This setting only turns off after you’ve charged your device to at least 80% (or when you’ve manually turned it off). To enable Low Power Mode, go to Settings> Battery and turn it on.
Some Android phones also have power saving settings that can extend battery life. On the Google Pixel, Batter Saver restricts apps, location services, notifications, and Google Assistant, among other things. For Pixel 3 and later, Extreme Battery Saver will pause apps and slow down processing. Find options under Settings> Battery> Battery Saver , where you can set a schedule, or swipe down from the top of the screen and tap the Battery Saver icon to turn it on or off.
Samsung Galaxy users can adjust power modes in Settings> Battery & device care> Battery> Power saving mode . In addition to minimizing energy wasting activities globally, you can also enable other settings to reduce screen brightness, limit processing speed, and more.
Decrease screen brightness
If your screen is at full brightness, it draws a lot of battery power, so turn it off unless you really need it.
On your iPhone, you can quickly find this by swiping down from the top right corner and adjusting the brightness bar. You can also turn on automatic brightness in Settings> Accessibility> Text display and size . This will adjust the brightness based on the ambient light so that your phone doesn’t stay at full brightness in a dark room.
On a Pixel or Galaxy, this setting is called Adaptive Brightness under Settings> Display . You can also set screen brightness here using the slider or in quick settings by swiping down from the top of the screen.
Finally, enabling your phone’s global dark theme in display settings can also save battery life, especially if your smartphone has an OLED display.
Disable background app refresh and push notifications
If your apps get data when you’re not actively using them, they just waste your battery. Change this setting on your iPhone (globally or per app) under Settings> General> Background App Refresh . You can restrict app activity on Android in Settings> Battery> Advanced battery settings> Optimize battery usage .
You can also turn off push notifications under Settings> Apps & Notifications> Android Notifications and Settings> iPhone Notifications .
Disable or minimize location services
Keeping track of your location can drain your battery, so turn off what you absolutely don’t need, especially if your apps are using your location in the background.
On your iPhone, go to Settings> Privacy> Location Services . You can turn off location detection entirely, or change your location settings for each individual app by toggling between Never, Ask next time, When using an app, and Always.
On Android, you can turn location services on or off in Settings> Location .
Turn off Hey Siri and Hey Google.
I almost never ask Siri for anything, so it doesn’t drain my battery that much, but if you use your smart assistant a lot, you can turn this setting off so your phone won’t listen constantly and might not activate by mistake. Go to Settings> Siri & Search on your iPhone and turn off Listen to Hey Siri. On your Android device, say “Ok Google, open the Assistant settings” to control the features (and then don’t talk to Google anymore).
And of course less
Simply using your phone as little as possible will extend the battery life. Close apps that are draining your battery (you can see what is draining your energy in Settings> Battery on your iPhone or Settings> Battery> More> Battery Usage on your Android device ), avoid streaming video, turn on airplane mode when you are not using networks, and put your phone down unless absolutely necessary.