Poor Battery Life: One of the Major Issues with Gadget

Nowadays people are very dependent on electronic gadgets in every activity involved in their daily life. At the end of the day, mobile phones, tablets, laptops, watches, etc. are all machines that work on battery and electricity. And every machine has a limited life and capacity which differs from model to model.

The battery can be referred to as the heart of all electronic gadgets without which one cannot use it. So it is very important to take good care of batteries and make them last longer. Though batteries are removable internal parts of a device, there are well-recommended directions for use of the same. Decreasing mobile battery life is a very common complaint from most users of mobile phones. Unnecessary grinding and rough use of batteries depreciate them earlier than usual.

Here are a few very common human practices that decrease mobile battery life:

A. On the basis of Usage:

1. Use till minimum battery percentage

It is the golden rule to keep your battery topped up somewhere between 30% and 90% most of the time. Connect the charger once it gets below 50% but unplugs it below 100%. People are often seen using their phone to the minimum percentage e.g. 5% to 1% which weakens the battery and ultimately leads to poor mobile battery life.

2. Unused for a long time

Not using a mobile phone for a long time leads to self-discharge. This is again a problematic situation for the batteries. When the battery percentage is getting low without use, it basically means that the battery is getting down due to the application load in the mobile. This is not good for the longer term.

3. Use while Charging

It is very often seen that people use mobile phones when they are connected to the charger. When we use phones for large-scale videos and games, phones get heated up and charging slows down. If you are using your phone while charging, there will be a lot of ongoing operations on your phone, it will directly draw power from the charger, and the current supplied to the battery will be reduced, causing the mobile battery life to degrade.

4. Continuous Use

Eventually, the more frequently you charge your mobile phone the more battery life drains. Similarly, the more you use the mobile phone, the more it needs to be charged. Overuse of mobile phones not only affects the life of the battery but also is harmful to our eyes. Overuse of mobile phones is very harmful to kids on a serious note. To avoid a shorter mobile battery life, one needs to limit the usage of mobile phones.

B. On the basis of Charging Pattern:

1. Charging Overnight

As per research on social media, people are most active on their mobile phones at night. After using the whole of the battery they decide to put their phones on charging so that it’s fully charged and they can use it for the next day without interruption. A normal battery takes a maximum of three hours to get fully charged. When the phone is kept on charge the whole night, because of excess power the phone gets heated up and affects the battery life.

2. Duplicate chargers

You may think that charging your phone consists of finding a cable with a plug that fits. Not so. Not all chargers are created equal to the power supply. There are many cheap duplicate chargers available in the market which shortens the lifespan of the battery. The adapters we use to charge seem like a simple wire connecting the plug with the phone but it’s not so straightforward. There are various parts inside that bulbous plug. The use of fake chargers lessens mobile battery life.

C. On the basis of Mobile Setting:

1. High display brightness

To increase the time you spend on your mobile phone, one should definitely turn down the mobile display brightness. Phone screen brightness leads to heavy battery drainage, which ultimately leads to poor mobile battery life.

2. Location Tracking Applications

According to the research, GPS signal strength can play a major role in depleting battery life as well. Location tracker application is very battery consuming. Under good signal strength, GPS apps will shorten the battery's lifeless - by 13%. If your remote workers are in an area with weak signal strength, the battery can deplete up to 38%, which is a very good amount of power.

D. Other extreme conditions:

1. Exhausted battery

In some brands, battery exhaustion could be that the door cap of your battery is damaged and the size of the battery increases. This is the riskiest situation of all mobile phone issues. This decreases the life of mobile very quickly. In that case, you can take it to the authorized repair center and replace it. Using a blown battery is very harmful to the eardrums too when we talk over calls with such phones since there is a risk of battery blast. Many such real-time cases have been highlighted over the internet.

2. Overheating

There are several possibilities why a battery can feel hot or heat up. When a battery is stored in a locked area together with metal equipment, it can happen that the metal parts make a bridge between the plus and the minus pole of the battery. If this happens, the battery gets an external short circuit and will generate a lot of heat. This is very harmful to the mobile battery life for a longer term.

Additional Tips & Tricks

Here are a few suggestions for the readers to deal with their day to day battery problems:-

• Charge your phone when the battery is in between 30%- 50%. Don’t wait for it to go to 5%. You may also use Power saving mode to save your battery.
• Lock your phone when not in use and dim the brightness while using.
• Don’t keep your mobile phone in extreme hot or cold temperatures, try to maintain room temperature.
• Go to your settings, and decrease the Screen timeout to turn off the screen light when not in use.
• Carry a power bank along to keep your phone charged up during travels and office timings.

Conclusion

Mobile Battery life is the most crucial part of a mobile phone without which one cannot operate the mobile phone. The simplest way to approximate battery life is to divide the battery's actual capacity by the total capacity used by the device and drained due to self-discharge. As your battery health degrades, so can its ability to deliver peak performance.