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Battery problems are amongst the most common problems encountered by almost every smartphone user. Battery performance is the one thing that matters the most and it says a lot about the user using that smartphone too. Battery backup management has become the talk of the town and not everyone is a quick study on how to manage it but here today, we can look at aspects not everyone, atleast not the casual user would look at. 

1. How do I know if my battery is the problem?

First of all, you need to identify why your battery performance has decreased: is it the Android system’s calibration or the battery itself? We’ll move onto calibration in the sections below, but you should check if your battery itself is damaged first. 

If your phone has a removable battery cover, turn off your phone, remove the cover and inspect the battery. Look for bulges or leaks. If your phone doesn’t sit flat on the table anymore, that could also be a sign of a swollen battery.

How to fix a phone that won’t charge properly

If your battery isn’t charging properly, don’t immediately assume your phone charger or your battery is broken. Based on personal experience, the problem – and solution – may be much simpler than you think. If your phone or tablet isn’t charging properly or at all, take a look at these ways to fix a phone that won’t charge.

1. Do-It-Yourself USB port fix

The quickest, easiest, and often most successful solution, is to do a little DIY repair on your actual hardware. The problem is often that the metallic surfaces inside the USB port and the micro USB charger are not making good contact, either through a manufacturing defect or because of the continual plugging and unplugging of the charging cable. 

All you need to do is shut down your device, remove the battery if possible and use something small, such as a toothpick, to ‘lever up’ the little tab inside the USB port on your smartphone or tablet. Do so very carefully and gently, then reinsert your battery and plug it in again. Nine times out of ten this is all that is required.

2.  Remove lint, candy and dust

Do you keep your phone in the pocket of your jeans? If so, lint could be the culprit: we’ve lost track of the number of times the reason for unreliable USB charging turned out to be lint from the pocket of our Levis.

We’ve seen phones with charging ports choked with chocolate after they were chucked in a handbag alongside a packet of sweets. A can of compressed air can blow out the offending irritants and get your USB connection back to normal.

3. Switch cables

The flimsiest part of a charger is the cable, not the adapter that plugs into the wall socket. Apple users are particularly vulnerable here because Apple’s proprietary (and expensive) Lightning cables appear to have a life expectancy of around 15 minutes. But all cables have a tough life, and endless flexing and curling can take its toll. Substituting a random USB cable for the one that came with your phone is another shortcut to an unenjoyable charging experience.

The easiest way to diagnose a faulty cable is to try a different one and see if that works properly with your device. If it does, you know the original cable was at fault. If it doesn’t, that’s another potential villain we’ve ruled out.

 

4. Diagnose a dodgy adapter

If the cable doesn’t seem to be the problem, check the wall plug adapter – especially if it’s one where the charging cable can be removed. We’ve encountered issues in multiple chargers where the USB port becomes a little loose after endlessly plugging in and unplugging the cable.

Also check whether the same charger/cable combination works on a different device because this will help you eliminate the possibility that it is your device at fault, rather than the cable or charger. You should also make sure there isn’t a problem with your wall socket.

5. Remember – safety first

Don’t charge your phone near water or in excessively hot or humid conditions. Also, if you’re replacing a charger or cable, be wary: the internet is stuffed with reports of cheap third-party chargers that went bang in the middle of the night or turned smartphones into toast. As with any electrical equipment, make sure that anything you buy complies with all the relevant safety standards.

It has always been a debatable subject how long should one charge their battery, however, charging the battery beyond its capacity, ie, 100% causes major breakdowns and even permanently damage your phone. However, modern smartphones do have measures in place that prevents a smartphone from damage due to overcharging, ie, when your device charges even though the battery is fully charged at 100%.

That said, charging a battery does generate heat and, if a smartphone is in a tight space – like under a pillow or inside a case – there is a chance it could become too hot. Essentially, if you’re going to charge your phone overnight, just make sure it’s out in a safe place.

6. Replace the battery

Batteries don’t last forever, and after a couple of years, they start to struggle to hold a charge. The more often you discharge and recharge them, the sooner they’ll need replacing. If your battery’s busted after just six months, it’s probably faulty and you should make a warranty claim for a free replacement, but if the battery’s older than two years, it’s probably approaching the end of its lifespan.

Some defective batteries are easy to spot because they start to bulge or leak fluid. If nothing like that is obvious from the outside, remove your device’s cover and inspect the battery (if you can; some devices have sealed battery compartments).

If the cover doesn’t come off, you could try laying the device on its back and spinning it. A bulging battery will deform the case – you might not be able to see this bulge, but it might be enough to allow your phone to spin. If you suspect your battery might be swollen or leaking, get your phone to a repair shop and buy a reputable replacement.

7. Charge from the right source

Charging from a wall socket will always be faster than charging via PC or laptop, because computers’ USB ports don’t deliver much power.

A wall socket can deliver twice as much power as a USB port, and fast chargers it can deliver as much as five times the power – which means much, much faster charging. So if your phone is charging slowly and you’re connected to a laptop: there’s your problem.

If your wall charger doesn’t appear to be delivering the goods, check that it’s appropriate for your device. A charger from another phone might not deliver the right amount of juice — for example, a charger for a Bluetooth headset won’t put out as much power as one designed specifically for smartphones.

In the case of recent high-end phones, you might have a phone that supports fast charging but a charger that doesn’t deliver it. Read the fine print.

8. Update or roll back

Software updates and new Android versions can wreak havoc with your battery life, especially when upgrading an old device to current software. Newer devices are often optimized to take advantage of the latest software, whereas a two-year-old device can struggle when it gets updated.

If this happens to you and you can’t troubleshoot the problem, consider rolling the device back to an earlier Android version, though be warned that this carries security risks. The latest software versions are always recommended to keep your device protected, and while the risk of keeping your smartphone on an older version is often negligible, it’s worth noting.

Similarly, sometimes device battery life can be significantly improved by an update, so if you think you might be way behind on your Android software version, head to Settings > About phone to check for an update.

9. Switch it off

Using battery-intensive apps/features while you are charging your device will affect how quickly it gains battery life. If you are charging while Skyping somebody at 100 percent brightness, the device will naturally take longer to charge than it would with its screen, Wi-Fi and 4G turned off.

Switch the device to airplane mode, or off completely, when you are charging if you want to see the fastest energy injection. Think of it making your device take a power nap.

10. Calibrate your battery

Sometimes the battery level your device ‘thinks’ it’s at is wrong. The effect of this is that your phone may function differently, including limiting performance before it needs to or taking an hour to chew through the last two percent of battery.

I shall not emphasis on this more as we have a more detailed section on the same below. 

11. Check your battery pack’s voltage and amperage

Download the free Amperage app from the play store and open it. Now, connect your charger and the interface should go green and the text at the top should say “measuring”. If you don’t see this, or nothing happens, it means there is no current going to your device.

If it identifies a current, the app will now show the charging statistics for that charger, including the minimum and maximum load levels (in milliamps), voltage and maximum current. This is also a great way to find out which of your chargers is performing best.

Try connecting the different charge packs you own, including portable battery packs, to see which has the highest maximum charge value, or the highest average (the app makes it fairly easy to get an idea of this). It’s not an exact measurement but it’s an indication if nothing else and the app is completely free.

Have you suffered from a smartphone that won’t charge properly? Let us know if you’ve found a fix that we haven’t mentioned here in the comments.

2. Should I Calibrate The Battery?

If you’re satisfied that the battery itself is not the problem, you can move on to the steps below. If you think your battery might be the problem (even after trying to recalibrate it), we’d advise you to take it to a repair shop for an expert’s opinion. If it turns out you need to replace the battery, go with an original or a reliable third-party battery. Buying a cheap knock-off battery only leads to more headaches in the long run.

1. What is calibrating a battery?

The Android operating system has a feature called Battery Stats, which keeps track of battery capacity, when it is full or empty. The problem is that it sometimes becomes corrupted and starts displaying data that isn’t real, which, for example, causes the phone to turn off before it reaches 0 percent. Calibrating your Android battery simply means getting the Android OS to correct this information so it is reflective of your actual battery levels once again.

It’s important to understand that you can’t actually calibrate the battery itself: it is, after all, just a cell that stores power and discharges. However, lithium-ion batteries do include a printed circuit board (PCB), which serves as a protection switch to stop them exploding or deep discharging.

2. Battery Myths

Lithium-ion batteries don’t have a memory so there’s not much you need to do to keep them running as they should. The problem lies with how the Android system reads and displays the current capacity of the battery, not the battery itself. 

The same goes for the myth that deleting the batterystats.bin file will magically recalibrate your battery. That file (on most devices anyway) simply stores data about what is using the battery when it is not being charged. It is also reset every time a battery is charged to over 80 percent and then disconnected from the charger.

The batterystats.bin file contains the info you see made prettier in the Battery section of your phone: it’s the Android system keeping track of your battery’s usage, per charge cycle. When we talk about battery calibration, it’s the percentage meter that gets out of whack, and that is what we need to fix.

3. How To Calibrate An Android Device Battery Without Root Access

The old ‘fully charge and discharge’ approach stands as one of the simplest ways to ‘recalibrate’ your Android battery. We’ve warned you in the past about low voltage problems in lithium batteries and the negative impacts of fully draining a battery on its lifespan and the same holds true here. But, if your phone battery is causing you real problems, it’s worth taking the risk.

Method 1

    Discharge your phone fully until it turns itself off.

    Turn it on again and let it turn itself off.

    Plug your phone into a charger and, without turning it on, let it charge until the on-screen or LED indicator says 100 percent.

    Unplug your charger.

    Turn your phone on. It’s likely that the battery indicator won’t say 100 percent, so plug the charger back in (leave your phone on) and continue charging until it says 100 percent on-screen as well.

    Unplug your phone and restart it. If it doesn’t say 100 percent, plug the charger back in until it says 100 percent on screen.

    Repeat this cycle until it says 100 percent (or as close as you think it’s going to get) when you start it up without it being plugged in.

    Now, let your battery discharge all the way down to 0 percent and let your phone turn off again.

    Fully charge the battery one more time without interruption and you should have reset the Android system’s battery percentage.

Remember that it is not recommended to perform this process regularly. Even when your battery is so dead your phone won’t even turn on, your battery still has enough reserve charge to avoid system damage. But you don’t want to poke the tiger with a stick. Perform this process once every three months at the most. If it is required more often than that, you have bigger problems at hand.

4. How to Calibrate An Android Device Battery With Root Access

Even though I’m not convinced that clearing the batterystats.bin file has any meaningful effect on how the Android system reports remaining battery charge, there are those who swear by this method.

So in the interest of fairness, we’ve included the process for you here (it is true that different manufacturers use the batterystats.bin file for different things).

Method 2

    Discharge your phone fully until it turns itself off.

    Turn it on and let it turn off again.

    Plug your phone into a charger and, without turning it on, let it charge until the on-screen or LED indicator says 100 percent.

    Unplug your charger.

    Turn your phone on. It’s likely that the battery indicator won’t say 100 percent, so plug the charger back in (leave your phone on) and continue charging until it says 100 percent on the screen as well.

    Unplug your phone and restart it. If it doesn’t say 100 percent, plug the charger back in until it says 100 percent on screen.

    You want to repeat this cycle until it says 100 percent (or as close as you think it’s going to get) when you start it up without it being plugged in.

    Now, install the Battery Calibration app, and before you launch it, make sure your battery is at 100 percent again, then restart. The app can be found in your play store. 

    Immediately launch the app and recalibrate your battery.

    Once you’ve calibrated your battery, discharge it all the way down to 0 percent and let your phone turn off again.

    Fully charge the battery one more time without interruption while it’s switched off, and the Android system’s battery percentage will be reset.

That’s it. Have you tried any of these methods? Do you know an alternate way to fix battery problems? Let us know in the comments.

3. How To Make Your Android Smartphone’s Battery Last Longer

Smartphone batteries don’t last forever, and some devices have an almost-embarrassing screen-on time. Those big, luscious AMOLED and LCD screens and taxing apps are an obvious drain on your battery, but there are lots of things you can do behind-the-scenes to make your Android last longer. Let’s explore how to increase battery on your smartphone.

First, some background: most smartphones have either a lithium-ion battery or a lithium-polymer battery. Both are actually lithium-ion though, and as such, do not have a ‘memory’, which means you can charge them from any level – you don’t have to fully discharge them before charging them up – and you don’t have to charge them all the way to 100 percent.

In fact, these types of batteries suffer from low voltage problems, so it’s actually better to partially charge them (say, from 20 percent to 90 percent) than to fully charge and fully drain them. Battery care is always open for debate though, so for every accepted tip there will be someone that says it makes no difference. Just find the ones that work for you and you can increase battery on your Android device.

To our surprise , most devices released nowadays don’t have removable batteries. This looks like it won’t change anytime soon. And despite most of them being close to 3,000 mAh they still need to be optimized, especially for demanding new games. Take advantage of some of the tips below and really get the most out of your smartphone.

1. Black wallpaper can increase battery

If your phone has an AMOLED screen (like most Samsung devices), use a dark-colored background. Black wallpaper can increase battery life because AMOLED screens only illuminate the colored pixels. Black pixels are unlit, so the more black pixels you have, or the more darker pixels, the less power is needed to light them up.

 Download a completely black wallpaper

    Now, save the picture and go into your Settings.

    From there tap Wallpaper hit Choose wallpaper and scroll down to Gallery.

    You should be able to find the black wallpaper you just saved.

    Hit set to wallpaper and lock screen.

2. Doze Mode

Doze mode has been around since Android Marshmallow, but has been improved with newer Android versions. Before, Doze would only work when the smartphone has been stationary for a while. But now, it can also work when it’s being moved around (in your bag or pocket while you’re on the go, for example). The screen just needs to be off to work.

Doze mode essentially just shuts down things you’re not using depending on how long it has been since you’ve touched your phone. Network connection is severed and syncing only happens during specific intervals. When you’re away from your phone even longer, more things are stopped, like GPS, Wi-Fi scanning and all syncing.

3. Turn off Google Assistant

Stop your phone from always listening. Google Assistant is a fantastic and often very functional feature. The problem is that it can wreak havoc with your battery. Especially if you don’t actually use it or only use it occasionally.

Go into Google>Search from your Settings menu and tap Google Assistant>Settings heading. On the next page, select your device and toggle off Google Assistant for longer battery life.

4. Your Apps Can Say As Much 

Keep your apps updated. There’s a reason developers constantly update apps, and most of the time it’s for memory or battery optimization. Keeping your apps updated also means you have the best optimizations available. Likewise, delete old apps you no longer use, because these may be running background processes that chew up RAM and battery life.

Once you’ve ensured your apps are up-to-date you can go through them individually and check if they’re optimized for battery life. This can be done quite quickly. Just go into your Settings and tap Battery. From there hit the menu button (three dots at the top right of your screen) and go to Battery optimization. From there you can see which apps are optimized and change them. You can only change the non-essential system apps.

5. Use the ‘Lite’ or ‘Go’ versions of apps

To save battery life, not to mention mobile data, you can take advantage of ‘Lite’ versions of popular apps, or even Google’s new suite of ‘Go’ lightweight apps. These are stripped down to their essential features and designed to be simpler and more economical than their full counterparts. Facebook and Messenger both have Lite apps available in the Play Store.

Skype also has a Lite app in the Play Store, but it may be unstable as it is technically unreleased. Social networks such as Twitter and Instagram, also have Lite versions available to download.

6. Use Greenify

Unlike many Android apps that claim to optimize performance and increase battery life, Greenify actually works. Greenify allows you to put other apps into hibernation when they aren’t in use, preventing them from operating in the background.

This frees up system resources and boosts battery performance, but requires a bit of thought. For Greenify to be effective you can’t just hibernate every installed app. But since there are a lot of Android apps that perform actions you don’t know about, or necessarily want, this is a useful tool.

This can be helpful in many situations. For example, you might use the Amazon app to browse for things to buy, but don’t want it to operate in the background or send notifications. There might be other apps on your Android device operating in the background without a good reason. Greenify stops this by sending those apps into hibernation, which reduces their impact on the system, saving battery life while improving performance.

7. Don’t use adaptive/auto brightness

Don’t use display auto-brightness. It may sound useful, but auto-brightness is usually way brighter than you really need. It’s better to manually set the brightness to a level that is low but comfortable, and bump it up when necessary. This is one of the best ways to improve your battery life, because the screen is one of the biggest battery suckers.

To ensure your adaptive/auto brightness is off go into the Settings>Display in many devices and toggle the adaptive brightness

8. Turn off vibrate and haptic feedback to save battery

Switch off vibrate. Unless you really need that added awareness, turn off vibration alerts for incoming calls. It actually takes more power to vibrate your phone than it does to ring it. Turn off haptic feedback too (that buzz you get from typing on the keyboard). Sure it feels cool, but it doesn’t really add anything to your experience, and it’s another battery drainer.

9. Set your ‘Do Not Disturb’ or ‘sleep’ schedule 

Set sleep times or blocking mode to switch off Wi-Fi and mobile data when you don’t need them. If your phone is basically off limits at work, set your device to not ring, vibrate or connect to the internet while you’re at work. Many phones have a Do Not Disturb setting for just this purpose.

Likewise, you can set your phone to airplane mode when you’re asleep or use sleep or blocking modes to set up limits for what your phone does during certain times of the day, whether that’s while you’re asleep, at work or in a meeting. Cool apps such as IFTTT let you create rules that can help you save battery life too.

10. Don’t get bogged down by widgets

Ditch widgets you don’t need, especially those connected to the internet, such as weather widgets. If you have multiple widgets across several home screens, which are constantly syncing and updating (Twitter, reddit, weather, Gmail and the like), you’re not doing your battery any favors. Just hit the apps when you need them.

If you already have a bunch of useless widgets on your device then you just need to do a couple of things and they’ll be gone. Long press on a blank space on your home screen. Now drag the widget you don’t need into the trash bin at the top or bottom of your screen (it depends on the brand).

11. Explore the battery saving features on your phone

All ROMs, whether stock Android, OEM UIs such as TouchWiz, or custom ROMs like Lineage OS, have various settings in the menu to help conserve or optimize battery consumption. Most, manufacturers, including Samsung and Huawei, feature a Power Saver mode you can just toggle on. Find these various options for your device and ROM and make them work for you.

Even if your phone doesn’t have layers of battery saving features like some (or you simply don’t want disable so many features), at least make use of the basic battery saver mode.

12. Auto Sync A Battery Killer

Turn off auto-syncing for Google accounts. If you don’t need every single Google account updated every 15 minutes, just go into Settings and Accounts (or Cloud and Accounts, User and Accounts, etc. depending on your brand) and turn off auto-sync for those apps you don’t need constantly updated.

Some apps – like email – let you manually refresh when you launch them, rather than running multiple auto-refreshes throughout the day when you may not need them to. The same goes for Twitter, Reddit and co. Unless you need constant updates or push notifications (like for Facebook or your calendar) just sync when you actually use the app.

Did we miss anything? What are your best battery saving tips? Tell us about them in the comments.

4. How To Charge Your Android Phone Battery Faster

Battery life is a combination of many different factors, so there’s no single solution to rule them all, but if you use your smartphone intelligently and have the right equipment, all these good practices can add up to save you a ton of frustration with your battery. Check out all our top tips below.

1. Get the right plug and charger

While Android chargers have a universal fitting, that doesn’t mean they’re all the same. Connecting your charging cable to a laptop is a bad idea if you want to charge your phone quickly: a USB 2.0 port chucks out just 2.5 watts of power, while USB 3 delivers 4.5 watts. Your wall charger will deliver much more, so this is the best bet if you want the speediest charging. Many modern Android phones support fast charging, which delivers a whopping 15-18 watts and can, therefore, charge your phone much more quickly.

Be aware that just because a phone supports fast charging, it doesn’t mean the charger that came with it is a fast charger, or the most effective charger possible for that phone. You may have to buy your own. For example, the LG G6 came with a stock charger that used Quick Charge 2.0, just like the G5, even though both phones support Quick Charge 3.0.

2. Put it into airplane mode

The less your phone is trying to do while it’s charging, the more quickly it will recharge. Airplane mode blocks any wireless radios on your device, reducing your phone’s capabilities and therefore stopping it from doing so much.

It won’t receive calls or messages while it’s in airplane mode, but it’s worth it to have a device that will stay on for the next few hours.

3. Turn it off

Turning your phone off completely will allow it to recharge even faster than putting it in airplane mode. Again, you might miss out on a few notifications while it is off, but you’ll have to live with that if you want your phone to last until you come home again.

4. Use a battery-saving mode

Ever since Lollipop, Android devices have a battery saving mode of some description (usually Settings>Battery>Battery Saver), whether it’s the stock option or a manufacturer-specific feature such as Motorola’s Doze. Switch this on to conserve power while your phone recharges.

5. Switch off unnecessary features

Check to see if you have any unnecessary features on, such as Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi or NFC, which could be using up battery power. Close all your apps and stop your phone from doing automatic backups or updating apps from the Google Play Store.

6. Don’t touch it

If you need your phone on and out of airplane mode while it’s charging, because you are expecting an important call, try not to keep using your phone every 30 seconds. Why? Because the screen is the biggest battery drainer of them all.

The more you wake your phone, the faster its battery will drain. So try to avoid the urge to check every notification that comes through, leave it to charge, and it will reach the desired level much faster.

7. Keep it cool

Temperature matters when it comes to technology, and it’s never good to let a battery get too hot. Now, this doesn’t mean you should stick your phone in the freezer while it charges, it’s better to avoid heat than inflict extreme cold.

Always charge your phone in a cool or room temperature spot. Don’t leave it to charge in direct sunlight or in a hot car. If you’re using a portable battery charger, don’t charge your phone in your pocket.

If you can avoid getting your battery too warm, it’ll reward you with a slightly faster charge.

Did you try any of these suggestions? What do you do to make your phone charge faster? Let us know in the comments.

Today, we discussed how to appropriately manage the most important part of your device, battery, the one you can’t do much without. I hope I have shed enough light on the various aspects of the life of a battery and the ways in which one can fix and understand the stages of battery decay. I would be glad to answer any questions if you have, coz after today, I doubt if anyone will have any doubts regarding the battery of their device. 

Please do leave your comments below to help us understand how much you enjoyed reading or if you would like to drop in a suggestion please feel free to do so.