Battery Longevity: How to Preserve the Battery Life of Older Phones

The lifespan of your phone could be getting shorter as your phone gets older. Here are ways you can extend and preserve any life the battery currently has.

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Do you find that the battery lifespan of your phone tends to get shorter and shorter as your phone gets older? It can be frustrating, especially, since it means you need to recharge your phone more frequently. I mean, what's the point of having a mobile phone, if you're tethered by its charging cable, right?

Luckily, there are ways you can extend and preserve your phone's battery life.

Modern phones and tablets use lithium-ion batteries, an upgrade from older models, giving us the light and sleek phones we use today. These lithium-ion batteries, however, still degrade over time.

Every time a lithium-ion battery charges and discharges energy, it loses a bit of its total capacity to hold charge. This is why your battery life starts to drop the longer you've owned the phone.

Don't worry, just as you would use a sturdy phone case to protect the body of your phone, here are some tips on how you can maintain your phone's battery lifespan.

In fact, discharging your battery fully at 100% can shorten its lifespan, compared to discharging at 60%. The most ideal situation would be to charge your phone up to 80%, while at the same time, avoiding letting it drop below 30%.

Avoid letting your phone battery drop to 0% or hit 100%
You may have heard that you should "drain" your phone battery completely before "filling it up" all the way to 100%.
This is true only for much older phone models, which do not use lithium-ion batteries. Using this method on current phone models with lithium-ion batteries actually stresses it more, and reduces its lifespan.

In fact, discharging your battery fully at 100% can shorten its lifespan, compared to discharging at 60%. The most ideal situation would be to charge your phone up to 80%, while at the same time, avoiding letting it drop below 30%.

Do not overcharge your phone
Many of us are guilty of leaving our phones to charge overnight. You might stop doing so after today: keeping the battery at 100% charge puts higher stress on it due to the higher voltage. It also allows heat to build up, increasing the likelihood of overheating, which shortens the battery longevity of your phone.

If you have no choice but to charge your phone overnight, leave the phone charging in a cool, well-ventilated area - this will allow heat to dissipate easily.

Go for slow charging
In a world where efficiency and speed are valued, this tip may sound counter-intuitive. However, if you're determined to maximize your phone's battery lifespan, you should cut back on fast charging cables and only use them for emergencies.

That's because fast charging can actually stress and damage the phone battery, especially for older phones.

Pro tip: Charging your phone through your laptop or computer may be beneficial since it slows down the charging process.

Turn off WiFi and Bluetooth when not in use
The fewer charge cycles your phone battery goes through, the more slowly it degrades and the longer it will last on a single charge.

A common source of drain on your phone battery is leaving your device's WiFi and Bluetooth switched on, even when you're not connected to a network. Your phone's WiFi and Bluetooth functions will continue scanning for networks automatically, draining your battery life.

Of course, if you're just moving from one spot with WiFi to another, such as from home to office, then whether you disable the WiFi or not wouldn't make a huge difference. But if you're spending the whole day out, then turning off the WiFi and Bluetooth will save your battery life.
Besides, it's best practice to turn off your WiFi and Bluetooth for security reasons.

For Android smartphone users, remember to turn off automatic WiFi too - this feature keeps your phone scanning for WiFi even if you've already switched it off.

Manage location services
Many modern apps request permission to track your location, to enhance their services. This essentially means that the apps will keep scanning, with a combination of GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, and cell tower locations for maximum accuracy.

Avoid wasting battery life by choosing to let the apps access your location only when you're using the apps.

Stop using your virtual assistant
Yes - stop bothering Siri. Features like Google Assistant and Siri are a huge help, but they compound the issue of battery life drain, especially if they're constantly listening out for your voice commands.

For those who don't use these features so much, it's more prudent to disable them instead of letting them drain your battery.

Manage apps instead of force-closing them
It might seem that the logical thing to do is to close all of your phone apps whenever you're not using them, to save battery life.

However, force-quitting all your background apps can worsen your phone battery life. That's because iOS and Android systems run on algorithms that automatically manage how much power or memory these background apps are using. Force-quitting these background apps will confuse the smart system.

In addition, opening an app that's closed actually uses up more power than simply returning to an app that was running in the background.
Instead of closing all your apps all the time, look at how much refreshing each app is doing in the background. Check the settings to make sure that your apps aren't automatically refreshing too frequently.

Those on Android systems can limit how much battery power each app uses in the background - a much better alternative to shutting them down.

Opening an app that's closed actually uses up more power than simply returning to an app that was running in the background.

Reduce screen brightness
Keeping your phone's brightness up also drains your phone battery. Conserve battery power by turning down your phone screen brightness to the lowest setting that serves you. Just make sure that you can still view what's on the screen.

Use smart battery modes
Most devices (Android and iOS) come with a smart battery saver or low-power modes. These modes automatically reduce functions that drain battery life, such as notifications and screen brightness.

Try dark mode
For more recent phone models, switching to dark mode can help to cut down on battery usage. In fact, iPhone users can extend their phone battery life by 39% to 47% by using dark mode.

However, this only helps to save battery life for newer phones with OLED screens, since black pixels on OLED screens don't use any power at all. In other words, this tip doesn't apply to smartphones with LED or LCD screens.

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Story credit: Eze Wholesale

Nice tips, quite informative. Quick question though, how do you deal with phones like the phantom x that come with fast charge technology installed in it with a 33w fast charger?

Avoid letting your phone battery drop to 0% or hit 100%


Guilty of that...

Iwait till it is almost dead like quarter to death

Since light ain't an issue plug in back...

could be laziness too

Candidlady:
Avoid letting your phone battery drop to 0% or hit 100%


Guilty of that...

Iwait till it is almost dead like quarter to death

Since light ain't an issue plug in back...

could be laziness too

We're glad you found value here, @Candidlady. Thanks for reading! Stay on the lookout for more.

chickenfoot:
Nice tips, quite informative. Quick question though, how do you deal with phones like the phantom x that come with fast charge technology installed in it with a 33w fast charger?

Thanks for stopping by, @chickenfoot. To your question, our story pertains more to "older phones" than to more modern ones with fast-charging tech. We're pleased you found it informative, nonetheless. Look out for more from us!

I dey use Pova and I can't relate because e no dey drain

Wows, are you sure u use it sat often

Mohbola:
I dey use Pova and I can't relate because e no dey drain

yes I do

saratackit:
Wows, are you sure u use it sat often

Candidlady:
Avoid letting your phone battery drop to 0% or hit 100%


Guilty of that...

Iwait till it is almost dead like quarter to death

Since light ain't an issue plug in back...

could be laziness too

hit 100%? Why?

Ezewholesalee:
Battery Longevity: How to Preserve the Battery Life of Older Phones

---

Do you find that the battery lifespan of your phone tends to get shorter and shorter as your phone gets older? It can be frustrating, especially, since it means you need to recharge your phone more frequently. I mean, what's the point of having a mobile phone, if you're tethered by its charging cable, right?

Luckily, there are ways you can extend and preserve your phone's battery life.

Modern phones and tablets use lithium-ion batteries, an upgrade from older models, giving us the light and sleek phones we use today. These lithium-ion batteries, however, still degrade over time.

Every time a lithium-ion battery charges and discharges energy, it loses a bit of its total capacity to hold charge. This is why your battery life starts to drop the longer you've owned the phone.

Don't worry, just as you would use a sturdy phone case to protect the body of your phone, here are some tips on how you can maintain your phone's battery lifespan.



Avoid letting your phone battery drop to 0% or hit 100%
You may have heard that you should "drain" your phone battery completely before "filling it up" all the way to 100%.
This is true only for much older phone models, which do not use lithium-ion batteries. Using this method on current phone models with lithium-ion batteries actually stresses it more, and reduces its lifespan.

In fact, discharging your battery fully at 100% can shorten its lifespan, compared to discharging at 60%. The most ideal situation would be to charge your phone up to 80%, while at the same time, avoiding letting it drop below 30%.

Do not overcharge your phone
Many of us are guilty of leaving our phones to charge overnight. You might stop doing so after today: keeping the battery at 100% charge puts higher stress on it due to the higher voltage. It also allows heat to build up, increasing the likelihood of overheating, which shortens the battery longevity of your phone.

If you have no choice but to charge your phone overnight, leave the phone charging in a cool, well-ventilated area - this will allow heat to dissipate easily.

Go for slow charging
In a world where efficiency and speed are valued, this tip may sound counter-intuitive. However, if you're determined to maximize your phone's battery lifespan, you should cut back on fast charging cables and only use them for emergencies.

That's because fast charging can actually stress and damage the phone battery, especially for older phones.



Turn off WiFi and Bluetooth when not in use
The fewer charge cycles your phone battery goes through, the more slowly it degrades and the longer it will last on a single charge.

A common source of drain on your phone battery is leaving your device's WiFi and Bluetooth switched on, even when you're not connected to a network. Your phone's WiFi and Bluetooth functions will continue scanning for networks automatically, draining your battery life.

Of course, if you're just moving from one spot with WiFi to another, such as from home to office, then whether you disable the WiFi or not wouldn't make a huge difference. But if you're spending the whole day out, then turning off the WiFi and Bluetooth will save your battery life.
Besides, it's best practice to turn off your WiFi and Bluetooth for security reasons.

For Android smartphone users, remember to turn off automatic WiFi too - this feature keeps your phone scanning for WiFi even if you've already switched it off.

Manage location services
Many modern apps request permission to track your location, to enhance their services. This essentially means that the apps will keep scanning, with a combination of GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, and cell tower locations for maximum accuracy.

Avoid wasting battery life by choosing to let the apps access your location only when you're using the apps.

Stop using your virtual assistant
Yes - stop bothering Siri. Features like Google Assistant and Siri are a huge help, but they compound the issue of battery life drain, especially if they're constantly listening out for your voice commands.

For those who don't use these features so much, it's more prudent to disable them instead of letting them drain your battery.

Manage apps instead of force-closing them
It might seem that the logical thing to do is to close all of your phone apps whenever you're not using them, to save battery life.

However, force-quitting all your background apps can worsen your phone battery life. That's because iOS and Android systems run on algorithms that automatically manage how much power or memory these background apps are using. Force-quitting these background apps will confuse the smart system.

In addition, opening an app that's closed actually uses up more power than simply returning to an app that was running in the background.
Instead of closing all your apps all the time, look at how much refreshing each app is doing in the background. Check the settings to make sure that your apps aren't automatically refreshing too frequently.

Those on Android systems can limit how much battery power each app uses in the background - a much better alternative to shutting them down.



Reduce screen brightness
Keeping your phone's brightness up also drains your phone battery. Conserve battery power by turning down your phone screen brightness to the lowest setting that serves you. Just make sure that you can still view what's on the screen.

Use smart battery modes
Most devices (Android and iOS) come with a smart battery saver or low-power modes. These modes automatically reduce functions that drain battery life, such as notifications and screen brightness.

Try dark mode
For more recent phone models, switching to dark mode can help to cut down on battery usage. In fact, iPhone users can extend their phone battery life by 39% to 47% by using dark mode.

However, this only helps to save battery life for newer phones with OLED screens, since black pixels on OLED screens don't use any power at all. In other words, this tip doesn't apply to smartphones with LED or LCD screens.

---

Story credit: Eze Wholesale

thanks for this. I realized that while my phone charges up quickly, it also drains quickly

Great info

Having a POVA with you, no need to worry about all this

Ezewholesalee:


Thanks for stopping by, @chickenfoot. To your question, our story pertains more to "older phones" than to more modern ones with fast-charging tech. We're pleased you found it informative, nonetheless. Look out for more from us!

okay, now I get

Wahalaguy1:
Having a POVA with you, no need to worry about all this

actually, the Pova battery dey last die.