Do you have a smartphone, tablet, or laptop? Many of you may actually have all three. Regardless of what device type you have, they all have the same issue: battery life. Even the best battery will die eventually, and normally it’s at the most inconvenient time possible. To help fight a midday death of your favorite device, try some of these tips to preserve your battery.
Dim your screen. A tried and true winner, this tip comes straight from the pros. Dimming your screen will extend your battery life. Most smartphones will also offer an auto-brightness feature where it detects which brightness setting your phone needs in its current setting.
Cut down on programs running in the background. A common issue on every device: having several internet windows, your email and your music open at the same time. What you may not realize is that just closing a window isn’t enough; without quitting a program, it’s still running in the background, and using your battery to do so.
Clean your battery contacts. Some devices don’t allow you battery access (like the iPhone) but for the ones that do, remember to clean your battery contacts every few months. This ensures that everything is connecting properly and that your battery is offering as much power as possible.
Keep the device temperature down. This means everything from not overusing your device to literally keeping the temperature down by ensuring that your device isn’t sitting in direct sunlight. The temperature being higher means that the battery will have to work harder to cool down the device.
Avoid multitasking. Sure, it’s great to be getting more done, but unfortunately it also means that your battery is working harder to keep up with all of your actions. To help preserve your battery, focus on doing one task at a time.
Limit alerts and push notifications. Even laptops these days offer push notifications for some of the more popular applications. These push notifications actually take up a significant portion of your battery life. To keep push notifications but cut down on battery life, try adjusting your settings to only push notifications every 30 minutes instead of every 5 or 10.
These are the tips we use to preserve our own batteries, but what’s missing? Leave us a comment below and let us know what you do to extend the battery life on your devices.