Something Amazing

I get a lot of queries from people about how they can extend or otherwise save battery life on their Android handset. I just thought I’d do a quick write up ways to converse, or otherwise be smart about battery life.

The first thing that people need to get through their head is that this is a smartphone - a multifunctional device that maintains a near-constant connection to the internet. This isn’t your old Nokia 3310 - the days of charging your phone once every 3 days are long gone. It doesn’t matter if you’re using an Android handset, an iPhone or a Windows 7 phone - you simply aren’t going to get the same amount of battery life as a non-smartphone. Now with that out of the way..

There is one widget that all Android phones have access to, that is indispensable for extending battery life. It’s called the Power Control widget. To add this, you need to be on the home screen of your phone. The press the Menu key on your phone, click “Add”, click “Widgets” and then scroll down to Power Control and click on it. It’ll look something like this:

The Icons (from left to right) are as follows: Wireless Network Scan, Bluetooth, GPS, Sync Adapters, Brightness. In a situation where you want to converse as much battery as possible, you’ll want to switch all of these off (and brightness down to low). I’ll just give a little explanation on each of them:

Wireless: This icon is actually for the scanning of wireless networks - your phone will periodically scan the surrounding area to see if there’s any wireless networks around and report it to you. It’s best to turn this off unless you going to connect to a wireless network, or are actively trying to find one to connect to (e.g. strolling through the city). 

Bluetooth: Pretty self explanatory, this activates the Bluetooth radio on your phone and scans periodically for other Bluetooth users. This won’t make your phone “discoverable” (this can be done from wireless settings, and is quite an intensive process), but will still consume a small amount of battery. Again, turn it off if you aren’t using bluetooth.

GPS: Having GPS active will give any applications that use your network location access to the GPS. This means you can turn it on but not actually be constantly connected to GPS. Despite this, your phone will likely still check GPS location periodically (especially if you use something like Latitude), so it’s also a good idea to turn this off unless you actually intend on using GPS.

Sync Adapters: This is a big one. It’s also the hardest to explain. When sync adapters are enabled, your phone’s “push” notification will be active. This means your phone will maintain a weak, but constant connection to various servers. Examples of this are your Gmail, Calendar, Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, etc (although the last 3 can be disabled easily from inside the application). By disabling sync adapters, you will save a lot of battery life. I’ve estimated in the past nearly double, but it’s probably slightly less than this. Just be aware that you won’t be notified of any new emails, posts, etc. I usually leave this off unless I’m anticipating receiving important email(s) (or just bored and with access to a charger).

Brightness: This one is also pretty substantial. What you set this to really depends on the environment you are using your phone in (e.g. in sunlight vs. indoors, daytime vs. night time), and also how desperate you are to save battery. I know first-hand that having brightness on low makes it nearly impossible to see the screen in some conditions, whereas in other situations it’s completely fine - for example I usually turn it to low at the movies so I can check my phone and not piss people off too much. Some phones will also have an “automatic” brightness setting, that users the phone’s light sensor to detect what level the brightness should be at. It looks like this:

This is a pretty useful setting, so set it to automatic (with the “a”) if you aren’t sure what to set the brightness to.

Background data

This is the hugest one of them all. This will turn your smartphone into a dumbphone, but you should definitely get around twice your normal use with this disabled. Background data deals with your phone’s actual connection to Google’s servers - this includes things like use of Google Talk (chat), access to Android Market. This is essentially an extension of the Sync Adapters talked about above, and disabling background data will also disable sync adapters. I turned this off last night and was surprised to find the battery-near full this morning (after some twitter/facebook/foursquare usage). To disable this, go into Settings > Accounts & sync > and untick “Background data” (pictured below).

Applications that use Background data will generally prompt you to turn it on if you try to use them, so it’s safe to untick this.

(Note: Some of the following may not be an option, or not apply to your phone. It depends on the manufacturer and Android version. The wording may also not be exactly right from manufacturer to manufacturer - use your common sense!).

Live Wallpapers

This one’s a given; if you are using live wallpapers (any sort of interactive, flashy wallpaper on your home screen); it’s going to be using more battery. Switch to a normal wallpaper.

Use only 2G networks

This one can be reached from Settings > Wireless & Network Settings > Mobile Networks > Untick “Use only 2G networks”. This will mean your phone only connects to the slower 2G networks (which usually appear as a “G” icon in your status bar). Again, this depends on how desperate you are.

Data enabled

This is accessible from the same menu as use only 2G networks. This disables all mobile network data. I’ve never actually used this to converse battery, so I can’t comment on how much it saves, but it would be a lot. This is the ultimate way to “dumb” down your smartphone; turning this off will disable anything that uses the internet. A handy use for this is if you are travelling overseas - you better untick the box, or you’ll get hefty roaming charges from your phone using your connection. 

And so that’s it. Disable anything you read about in the article that you don’t use, and it should help your battery life substantially. Personally I charge my phone every night and only disable the aforementioned if I know the phone isn’t going to last and I need to use it later, or in more dire situations where i’ll need to use it at the end of the day (e.g. at concerts). It’s really about adapting to your needs at the given time and thinking ahead a little.