Extending smartphone battery life—tips and myths

Tips:

Block ads. Website ads drain power. Install an ad blocker.
Use ‘Auto-Brightness.’ This dims and brightens power-sucking screens.
Disable push notifications. Nix these power draining tweets, news and email alerts. Get emails when you go to the app or have it check every hour.
Turn off weak coverage. Poor signals waste power. Turn off weak Wi-Fi or poor cellular service using ‘Airplane Mode,’ in ‘Settings.’
Play downloaded music. Streaming services (Pandora, etc.) guzzle power. Cut that in half by playing downloads.
Disable unneeded ‘Location Tracking.’ Enable only for navigation and distance measuring apps. GPS drains batteries.
Check app usage. ‘Battery’ in ‘Settings’ shows apps using the most power. Disable their background activities.

Myths:

Don’t “calibrate your new battery.” You once had to “calibrate” by fully charging, then running new batteries to empty. Now you don’t, but capacity drops over time—so calibrate every few months for better battery meter accuracy.
Don’t “choose cellular over Wi-Fi.” Wi-Fi actually uses less power—except with weak signals. (See above.) Wi-Fi also saves power-sucking GPS activities.
Don’t “disable voice commands.” ‘Siri’ and ‘OK Google’ use power, but not much. If battery’s low, voice fewer commands.
Don’t “close apps you’re not using.” It takes more power to reopen apps than to run them in the background.
Don’t “avoid all third party chargers.” You can charge your phone with any good charger. Just avoid cheap ones—they could damage your phone and expose you to dangerous currents.

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