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Monday, May 24, 2010

4 Ways to increase battery backup in Android devices


In this post I will discuss some of the ways in which you can increase your battery backup in the devices running Android v1.5. However most of the features are applicable across different higher versions. All these tips are from the software point of view i.e the OS. However there is more to prolong your battery backup. Do check the post on Battery Conditioning to know more.

Warning: I don’t take any responsibility if you brick your phone while doing this.

1)Screen brightness, sounds / vibrations :

As can be seen from the Touch Screen phones post, the display is the one, which utilizes your battery the most. So it is highly essential that we supervise its usage. The screen brightness can be reduced when indoor, which can be very effective. Other than that we can also set a timeout for the screen so that whenever the screen is idle, the screen automatically gets locked.



To achieve this maneuver to Settings->Sound & Display->Brightness. From there reduce the screen brightness. You can also set the screen timeout at the same place (sound & Display) as well as some additional options such as Phone vibration, Audible touch-tones and Audible Selections, which can be unchecked to disable.

2)Task Killer:

Android as you know is multi tasking which means many activities can be run simultaneously. You can always view the recently run program by long pressing the home button. But whenever you navigate away from a task it is not closed and it still remains in memory. Take for example you open a browser, and then navigate away by the cancel or the back button, the browser still runs in the memory and is not closed. To ensure that unnecessary applications are closed a Task Killer is mandatory. This will ensure that all the unwanted process running in the background which u never knew was running and those sucking your battery gets killed. To know more on Task killer check this post Essential android applications.

3)Disable Internet connectivity.


The important pillar of android is that it lets you customize your device with thousands of applications from the Android market. But most of the applications connect to internet for remote processing or at-least for ads which u never want it to. There are many applications such as juice defender which allows you to turn off your internet when not in use. But you can also manually do it by changing the APN name from your settings.



To achieve this maneuver to Settings->Wireless Controls->Mobile Networks->Access Point Names. From there select your service and change the APN name. And whenever you wish to use the internet you may replace back with the original APN name.

4) Aero Plane Mode:


Network services are the programs that run constantly and probe for the availability of signal in your area there by sucking your battery considerably. Most of the people leave the phone switched on or at least in silent mode during night. And all those hours these services probe for signal strength and utilize the battery. By switching to the Aero Plane mode all these services are put to sleep. Of coarse you don’t want to do this on day time especially when you are waiting the call from the special one. This method is useful for those who don’t want to lift calls in the night but yet would like to use the phone as an alarm.



This is achieved by long pressing the end call/power button and from there select the Aero Plane mode.Always turn off Bluetooth, wifi or any other services when not in use. These are monstrous services which suck your battery.

As said all these options are done from the software part. you can do a lot more by properly maintaining your battery by conditioning it. Check the post Conditioning Battery for more.

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