How to Extend Battery Health & When to Replace

phone mobile connect to battery power bank

If you’re wondering how to extend battery life, the key is to make sure you’re taking proper care of your battery and minimizing the use of apps and features that tend to drain it. Some suggestions include:

• Use wifi to download data; it uses less power than a cellular network.
• Turn off your wifi when you’re not using it. Searching for wifi connections tends to eat battery.
• Keep your brightness level down by turning on auto-brightness. Go to Settings, then General, then Accessibility, then Display Accommodations and turn auto-brightness on.
• Turn on low power mode. When your phone gets down to 20%, it’ll tell you and give you the option to turn on low power mode. In low power mode certain functions (like Mail) won’t automatically download content, but you can still use your phone for texting, phone calls, etc. Once you charge your phone low power mode will turn off automatically.
• Keep an eye on your battery functionality under Settings, then Battery. It’ll show you battery level, activity, and battery level by app so you can see what’s draining your juice.
• Leave apps open when you’re not using them. Close them out when you’re finished to save battery life.
• Leave your phone in the hot sun or other areas that have high temps.
• Overuse certain apps and features that tend to drain the battery including flashlight mode. Check which apps are using the most battery and minimize their use time.
• Use the dynamic backgrounds feature, which shows moving backgrounds on your phone home screen. While it looks great, it tends to drain the battery.
• If You want some more tips, we have a dedicated article on how to extend your battery life.

As far as when to replace your battery, look for signs like having to recharge your battery more frequently, your phone dying when the battery is still at 10% or more, your phone only working when it’s plugged in, or your Battery Health settings indicating a problem.