Most Android users do care about their device’s battery usage. These devices usually consume more battery than other phones, due to its specific reasons. But what are the ways to decrease the battery consumption to its minimum? The answer is given in the following:

1: Via the Device Settings Itself

The simplest way to manage the battery consumption is via the Android’s Settings. These options are available:

  • Display: The most battery consuming part is the display! The rate of battery usage of the displays may vary due to the following factors: display type, screen resolution and screen brightness. Among them the user is only allowed to adjust the last one in order to manage the display’s battery usage. Experts say a brightness of 50% is excellent as it may harm your eyes if you select a lower rate. The device can automatically adjust this option using its proximity sensor. Enabling this feature is recommended as it dramatically decreases the battery usage. You can also reduce the screen timeout, to avoid extra battery usage. On some Android device, you can check how much battery each app is consuming. (See: How to Monitor Battery Usage on Android)

 

  • Communication Tools: The next most consuming pieces are the wireless communication tools such as: WIFI, Bluetooth, Infrared, NFC and above them all GPS. If any of them is enabled and unused, turn it off now. Another communication port is the mobile networks. If you do not receive the operator signals or if the signals are weak, change your position to receive a better signal or completely disrupt your connection to the operator’s network by enabling Flight Mode. You can have quick access to toggle these features on or off by getting some Power Control widgets. (See: Best Android Power Control Widget)

 

  • Power Saving Mode: In some Android versions, there is a feature called Power Saving. This feature helps decreasing the battery usage dramatically. It is activated only when a specific amount of charge is left, i.e. 30%. After activation, it might disable or enable some of the device’s functions in order to decrease battery usage. These functions are the followings: GPS, WIFI, Bluetooth, Sync, Brightness and Screen timeout. (See: Activating Power Saving Mode in Android)

 

  • Sound & Vibration: Although these two options do not consume a lot of power, it might be a good idea to disable the vibration and decrease the volume in times you have not enough battery charge and there is no power source to recharge. You can also disable Haptic feedback on your device. (See: How to disable Haptic Feedback on Galaxy S4)

  • Firmware Update: Upgrading the firmware will decrease the battery usage. The reason for this is that the upgrade optimizes the system source codes and therefore decrease s hardware’s power consuming. (See: How to update Android firmware OTA)

  • Clearing Memory: Android is thirsty of RAM and the reason for that is the Sync feature which occupies a lot of RAM space. Remember the more RAM space is occupied, the more power will be consumed. Using task killers or the RAM Manager available in the Settings, you can kill the running tasks. (See: Best Android Widgets for  Memory Status Check)

  • Widgets & Live Wallpapers: On each article about the benefits of Android over iOS you see the widget and live wallpapers. But these great looking features do consume a lot of power and you can disable and delete some of the unnecessary ones when the battery power is low

 

2: Using the Battery Management Applications

There are applications designed specifically to moderate, control and manage the battery usage. Most of these applications will apply the same adjustments which is available in the Settings. Some of manufacturers like Sony and Samsung make their own features for moderating the battery usage in the Settings. But in general, these applications do the same things as mentioned above, automatically. There are often three options available in such applications: Normal Usage Mode, Optimized Mode, and Low Battery Mode. Some of these applications are: Easy Battery Saver, Battery Doctor, Battery Saver and Battery Life Saver.

3: By Modifying System Codes:

Besides everything mentioned above, there are also some advanced methods of managing battery usage by accessing hardware sources via the system source codes and code modifications. These methods which require ROOT access are the followings:

  • CPU Management: In this method the processor frequency will be decreased which might also negatively affect the general performance. Set CPU is an application that helps doing so. In Power Safe mode the frequency will be set to a very low value. But in Performance mode the frequency will be set according to the maximum frequency and the usage.

  • Modifying OS Core: This method modifies OS’s main kernel to decrease hardware voltage which of course decreases the system general speed too. Flash Image GUI is the application used for this method.

  • Modifying Build.prop: This file which is located in the system directory, contains different codes that some of them can decrease the battery consuming. For example it is possible to change WiFi scan time interval and therefore decrease the battery usage.

 

Remember: Altering and modifying system codes can be dangerous and lead to break your device!