Short battery life

Smartphones have many features including WiFi, Bluetooth, mobile internet, and synchronisation with email, Facebook, and Twitter. Manufacturers want their smartphones to be thinner, more powerful, and bigger. The screen resolution is also increasing every year. All these factors affect the battery life of your phone and result in you needing to charge your smartphone more often. Batteries are getting better and better, but smartphones are also demanding more and more power.

On this page, Gomibo gives you some handy tips, so your phone's battery can last longer.

Tips for extending your phone's battery life:

1. Screen brightness

If you look at your phone a lot during the day, it is a good idea to lower your brightness as low as possible. Many phones also have the ability to adjust the brightness automatically, depending on the light conditions. Turning on the automatic mode will make the screen bright when the environment is light and dark when it gets darker. The darker the screen, the longer your battery life.

2. Check your GPS

It takes extra battery capacity to have your GPS on constantly. Check if any apps that use GPS unnecessarily are active. On iOS, a little arrow appears in the top right corner and on Android, a bullet in the navigation bar, when your phone is using GPS.

3. Deactivate scanning for WiFi and Bluetooth signals when you don't need it.

When these features are active, your phone is constantly looking for other signals to connect to. This, of course, consumes a lot of energy. So, switch off features like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when you are not using them.

In aeroplane mode, all mobile connections are turned off. So, if you are not using your phone for a while, it is easy to save energy by putting your device in aeroplane mode.

4. Turn off apps and irrelevant notifications

Close apps when you no longer use them, especially if they consume a lot of battery. The more apps are active and running in the background, the shorter the battery life. The same goes for irrelevant notifications. For example, do you get a lot of irrelevant notifications from Facebook? If so, turn them off via the settings menu.

5. Avoid background synchronisation

Background synchronisation involves refreshing an app's data after a certain amount of time. Consider your email app, for example, which checks every so often to see if you have received any new emails. This sometimes happens several times an hour, which negatively affects battery life. Check the app's settings to see how to disable or reduce this.

6. Start fresh each week

Restart your device weekly. This rules out unnecessary applications and small memory glitches affecting battery life.

7. Keep your smartphone cool

The warmer the device is, the faster the battery drains. Putting your phone in the scorching sun, for example, makes the battery heat up very quickly. This is not good for the battery. The battery thrives best between 15 and 30 degrees.

8. Keep your home screen clear

An overload of apps on the home screen takes up a lot of battery. This is because the apps on your home screen always remain somewhat active and keep refreshing. The more apps are here, the more battery is consumed.

9. Update your phone

Newer operating systems are often more energy efficient than older versions. As such, make sure your phone is always up-to-date. An additional advantage is that an updated phone is also more secure.