Phone apps to save power in a crunch?

Liz Klein - May 14, 2020

Advice

I have a newish Samsung and was wondering if anyone knows of a good app to increase the battery life? In an emergency situation where I would need to use it for longer, I would love to be able to squeeze more out of the battery. I’ve looked up a few and I think there are built in settings but does anyone know of a good one that I should try?

9  

@Liz

Sorry, but this is long, but here are a few thoughts to help you with your issue. Please note that some of the terms or locations of settings may be different, depending on your device:

WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW

• go to settings > battery > adaptive battery. This setting limits the battery use of apps you don’t use frequently. It’s governed by the operating system.
• go to settings > battery > battery optimization. Make sure that apps you do not need to have constantly running are flagged as “Optimize”. Think in terms of games, social networking, and other non-system apps. If available for change, leave any system apps alone unless you know exactly what they do. For example, you’ll want to optimize your music app, games, etc.
• go to settings > battery > battery saver. This setting lets you define when the operating system’s battery saver kicks-in. Mine, for example, is set for 40%. That is, when my battery gets down to 40%, the battery saver kicks-in and does whatever it can to save energy without cutting off my connection to service.
• disable bluetooth, if- and whenever possible. If your devices has an old-school audio port, use wired headphones. Some peripheral devices (eg., smart watches) require BT, but only use BLE (low energy, proximity) for connectivity.
• disable NFC unless you’re actively using it for mobile pay (or whatever)
• disable wifi if you’re away from wifi. When enabled, your wifi antenna is constantly trying to make a connection. When not near a known wifi point (ie., your home, office, etc), it’s doing the equivalent of shouting, “Hello! It’s me! Is anyone there? Can I connect to you?”
• if you have VoWiFi (Voice Over WiFi), disable cell data and use wifi when at home. You’ll have to register your emergency address with your carrier, but once done, you’ll have call service available when using only wifi.
• disable GPS/Location data when not actively in use (eg, using maps). Some apps require gps to be on in order to function (for example, some smart watches like FitBit) -for whatever stupid, surveillance-y reasons- but if you can spoof your geolocation with an app, you won’t need your GPS enabled for these apps to run.
• periodically go through your apps and FORCE QUIT apps you aren’t using (or haven’t used in a while). Leave any system apps alone unless you know what you’re doing.

OTHER THINGS

Warning: Here there be dragons!

What I’m about to describe isn’t for the faint of heart (or for everyone, for that matter). It is wholly and entirely dependent on your use- and threat models.

Have a look around the xdadevelopers forums (https://forum.xda-developers.com/) for your particular model smartphone. There you can find awesome tips and tricks; and (here’s the dragons part!) guides for rooting your device -which gives you amazing fine-grain control of your device.

 

i’ve tried a few but they always just tell me which apps i’m using a lot or you can set up reminders to dim your brightness or use energy saver. and really if you’re running an extra app to tell you about your battery life it’s also contributing to battery drain so it’s adding to the problem

 

Accubattery is pretty good. Not a lot of frills but it surfaces solid info. The built in modes have gotten a lot better so you are probably going to be okay with stock. The biggest thing is avoiding apps that hog battery. Facebook, for example, can be a big drain.

 

The built in settings will take you pretty far.  The obvious items are…

Turn off unnecessary radios.  NFC, Bluetooth, wifi, or cell.  That will shut down parts of the phone that use material amounts of power.  Shutting network points down should quiet some of the background processes that drains power on the phone.

There are also built in functions to limit what apps can run in the background.  Kill all your background processes you don’t absolutely want.

Turn your screen all the way down.

Have backup battery power available, it’s cheap and plentiful.  No reason not have a 12v usb power supply in your car and a backup USB battery at home.  A car battery can keep a phone running for weeks to months, with a gas tank to draw on you could probably run your phone for a year (if you did nothing else with your car).  If you have the funds, a “solar generator” style power supply+battery will also keep it running for weeks to months with a minimum of fuss.

 

I think, you can use high memory in Phone.

 

I used Kapersky on my Samsung because I recognized the name. It’s fine. I think a lot of what it shows you can be found via the phone itself but at least it puts everything in one place. And it’s free.

 

FYI on Kaspersky having ties to the Kremlin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspersky_bans_and_allegations_of_Russian_government_ties

 

Yeah, hard agree with @John. You really don’t want Kaspersky anywhere near any of your devices. Look into AVG or MalwareBytes.

 

Genuinely had no idea. Thanks for the tip! I definitely recognize the AVG name.

 

@Liz

Sorry, but this is long, but here are a few thoughts to help you with your issue. Please note that some of the terms or locations of settings may be different, depending on your device:

WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW

• go to settings > battery > adaptive battery. This setting limits the battery use of apps you don’t use frequently. It’s governed by the operating system.
• go to settings > battery > battery optimization. Make sure that apps you do not need to have constantly running are flagged as “Optimize”. Think in terms of games, social networking, and other non-system apps. If available for change, leave any system apps alone unless you know exactly what they do. For example, you’ll want to optimize your music app, games, etc.
• go to settings > battery > battery saver. This setting lets you define when the operating system’s battery saver kicks-in. Mine, for example, is set for 40%. That is, when my battery gets down to 40%, the battery saver kicks-in and does whatever it can to save energy without cutting off my connection to service.
• disable bluetooth, if- and whenever possible. If your devices has an old-school audio port, use wired headphones. Some peripheral devices (eg., smart watches) require BT, but only use BLE (low energy, proximity) for connectivity.
• disable NFC unless you’re actively using it for mobile pay (or whatever)
• disable wifi if you’re away from wifi. When enabled, your wifi antenna is constantly trying to make a connection. When not near a known wifi point (ie., your home, office, etc), it’s doing the equivalent of shouting, “Hello! It’s me! Is anyone there? Can I connect to you?”
• if you have VoWiFi (Voice Over WiFi), disable cell data and use wifi when at home. You’ll have to register your emergency address with your carrier, but once done, you’ll have call service available when using only wifi.
• disable GPS/Location data when not actively in use (eg, using maps). Some apps require gps to be on in order to function (for example, some smart watches like FitBit) -for whatever stupid, surveillance-y reasons- but if you can spoof your geolocation with an app, you won’t need your GPS enabled for these apps to run.
• periodically go through your apps and FORCE QUIT apps you aren’t using (or haven’t used in a while). Leave any system apps alone unless you know what you’re doing.

OTHER THINGS

Warning: Here there be dragons!

What I’m about to describe isn’t for the faint of heart (or for everyone, for that matter). It is wholly and entirely dependent on your use- and threat models.

Have a look around the xdadevelopers forums (https://forum.xda-developers.com/) for your particular model smartphone. There you can find awesome tips and tricks; and (here’s the dragons part!) guides for rooting your device -which gives you amazing fine-grain control of your device.