19 Insightful Tips On How To Prolong Your Smartphone Battery Life While Travelling

The ways in which smartphones have facilitated travel and made it a less daunting endeavour than ever before, are almost endless.


For the traveller a smartphone is an indispensable multi-purpose tool for accomplishing all manner of important travel-related tasks including:


  • checking if a flight is delayed or on time
  • scanning an e-boarding pass
  • booking a room
  • communicating with a Couchsurfing host
  • summoning an Uber cab
  • navigating around a destination
  • deciding where to eat
  • figuring out what to see and do
  • locating free Wi-Fi hotspots
  • translating signs and menus in a foreign language
  • taking selfies and snaps of the local sights
  • finding locals or other travellers to grab a beer with
  • checking the latest rates for currencies
  • tons of other things

Smartphones are so damn useful in fact, that many travellers have become rather dependent on them.


But the major weakness of smartphones is that they’re as good as useless when their battery dies, which of course tends to happen all too often with the latest high-powered, slim models, which might not even make it through a single day off a full charge.


A short-lived battery can be especially problematic when you’re travelling, since you may not have access to charging points for 48 hours or more during long flights or overnight bus/train journeys, or when venturing into remote or offbeat areas where you can’t count on there being electricity.


And while a flat smartphone battery will rarely spell the end of the world in normal, everyday life, it could precipitate a crisis for a person travelling, especially considering how dependent many travellers have become on their smartphone for solving virtually every travel-related problem.


From experience I know that my smartphone always seems to die at the most inopportune times when I’m travelling.


Like when I land in a new country after a long, tiring flight and I need to hail an Uber taxi from the airport but my phone suddenly dies at that very moment and there are no charging points in the airport lobby.


Or maybe I’ve just entered a new country at a land border crossing point and I need to buy some local currency from a money changer near the border checkpoint.


When I go to check my trusted currency converter app to make sure that I’m not being scammed by the money changer my phone decides to check out.


To avoid situations like these it’s crucially important that our smartphones always have enough juice to get us through any travel situation.

The obvious solution would be to just buy a smartphone with an especially high-capacity battery, but not everybody wants to invest in a new phone right now and in any case, everyone needs to learn how to maximize the life that they get out of their existing phone.

That’s why in this article we’re going to give you 19 different battery-saving tips that you can implement to save the juice in your phone’s battery, so that you hopefully don’t wind up in a bad travel predicament because your battery gave up on you at the worst possible time.

#1 - Toggle Battery Saver Mode


Android phones have a battery saver mode that you can toggle on or off by going to Settings -> Battery -> Battery Saver.


When you enable this mode, your phone’s performance will be somewhat reduced but your battery life will be extended.


Battery saver mode helps conserve your battery by dimming the screen slightly, disabling location services, reducing vibrations and by restricting most background data usage (so apps that receive emails and messages might not update until you open them).

 

It’s also a good idea to set battery saver mode to toggle itself on automatically when your battery life reaches 15%, so that you can still save at least some battery life if you forget to enable battery saver mode.

 

The equivalent of battery saver mode on the iPhone is low power mode and it works in a similar way. You should find it under settings -> battery and you'll know it's activated when the battery indicator in the status bar turns yellow. 

 

You will be prompted to activate low power mode when your phone’s battery level reaches 20% although you can also toggle it manually before that point if you wish.

#2 - Toggle airplane mode

It has become a well-ingrained habit for me to put my phone into airplane mode whenever I’m not using it.

 

As well as being handy when you’re on board an aircraft, airplane mode is also a godsend when you’re trying to prolong your smartphone’s battery life while travelling.

 

When you toggle airplane mode it will disable Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular connectivity (although it is possible on many devices to re-enable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity while airplane mode is on), which will reduce the amount of power that your phone is consuming in the background.

Even when you’re actively using your phone for certain purposes, it’s a good idea to keep it in airplane mode to prolong the battery life.


For example, in airplane mode you can still use many apps that don’t require an Internet connection, and you can still access content (e-books, music, videos, podcasts etc.) that you’ve already downloaded to your phone.


On many phones GPS will still work when the phone is in Airplane Mode, so you’ll still be able to use your favourite navigation app to find your way around, as long as you remembered to download the relevant maps to your phone beforehand.

#3 - Turn off GPS or location services

Depending on the device that you have, toggling airplane mode may or may not disable GPS, yet location services can be a significant drain on your battery if you are using apps that ask to know your location, such as navigation apps, ridesharing apps and so on.

 

GPS can actually drain your battery even faster than Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or cellular signal when trying to pinpoint your location, especially when you go underground, enter a building or go to some other place where the satellite signal is blocked or becomes weaker.

 

This is because when you lose signal the GPS chip begins to drain the battery rapidly by “searching” for a signal.

 

So if you don’t strictly need to see that little blue dot indicating your location on the map when you’re navigating, always remember to turn off GPS to help conserve your battery.

 

On android you can find the switch to toggle GPS on/off in settings -> location. 


If disabling GPS outright is too extreme, you can also switch to battery saving location mode under settings -> location -> mode. When this mode is active Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular networks will be used to find your location instead of GPS.

#4 - Reduce your display's brightness manually

Your smartphone’s display is your single biggest enemy when you’re trying to prolong your battery life.

 

Having your display’s brightness dialed up to the maximum level will deplete your battery at an alarming rate so you want to avoid doing this at all costs when trying to save your battery.

 

Auto-brightness or adaptive brightness (where your display automatically optimizes its brightness level for the ambient light) can help save battery life, but the best strategy of all is to manually adjust your display brightness level to the lowest setting that you can tolerate.

 

You’ll find that the lowest brightness setting is just fine at night or in dimly lit situations, but if you’re out on a bright sunny day you might have to dial up the display brightness a bit in order to view the screen properly. Remember that you won’t have to dial it up as much if you can find a shaded area first. 

#5 - Shorten your display's timeout interval

On most phones you can decide the length of idle time you want to elapse before your smartphone’s display automatically enters sleep mode.

 

On Android phones this interval can be adjusted under settings -> display -> sleep. On the iPhone it’s known as auto-lock.


When trying to save battery it’s best to choose a shorter timeout interval like 30 seconds so that your display won’t be left on for minutes or even hours draining your battery if you forget to lock your screen after using your phone.

You may however need to re-adjust the timeout interval depending on what exactly you’re doing, so really the aim is to find a balance between battery savings and convenience.


For example, if you’re reading e-books and recipes, or using certain apps where the phone is likely to be idle for long periods of time, you might want to bump the setting up to a minute or longer.


You can also use an automation app like Tasker to change the screen timeout setting depending on what app you’re using. 

#6 - Use Wi-Fi (when available) instead of cellular data

When your phone is connected to a Wi-Fi network it consumes battery power more efficiently than when using cellular data, so when you need to access the Internet you should always try to connect to a Wi-Fi network if available.


Cellular data drains your battery even faster when the signal is weak, because your battery uses extra energy trying to detect and collect the weak signal.


You’ll also chew up your battery faster when using cellular data in a moving vehicle (train, bus etc.) because your phone has to keep connecting to a new cell tower as it falls out of range of the previous tower.


And if you’re moving through an area with a mixture of 3G and 4G networks, the constant switching between 4G and 3G towers can kill your battery especially quickly.


In practice, using 4G usually consumes your battery faster than using slower protocols like 3G because it allows you to download and consume a lot more content in a shorter period of time.

 

I'd also like to add that any time you don’t have access to a Wi-Fi network make sure that your Wi-Fi is turned off, as otherwise your phone may waste a lot of battery power searching for networks to join.

#7 - Buy ad-free versions of apps

If you’re using a lot of apps that are overrun with ads, you could be wasting more battery life than you realize.


The ads in some apps can account for 75% or more of the app’s total power consumption.

 

The solution is to simply pay the few bucks for the ad-free version of the app. 


Not only will you be spared from spammy ads, but you also might just eke a few extra minutes out of your phone’s battery.

#8 - Use a dark theme or night mode

It might surprise you to learn that phones with AMOLED (active-matrix organic light emitting diode) or OLED displays using a dark theme or night mode can reduce their battery consumption drastically, perhaps by up to 63%.


This is because white pixels are the most power-hungry colour, so the more dark pixels on your display the lower the power consumption. It’s also worth noting that blue pixels consume about 25% more power than red or green pixels.

 

Unfortunately however, if your phone has an LCD display (the majority of phones do) you’re out of luck, because these displays don’t experience any reduction in power consumption when they’re put into night mode.

 

OLED displays have gained traction in recent years however and are becoming increasingly common, especially in flagship smartphones. OLED displays are now found in about a third of all smartphones.

 

Some Android phones have a dark mode or dark theme built right into them. If yours has the setting, you should be able to find it under settings -> display -> device theme.

 

If your phone doesn’t have it, you can still always download a dark-themed wallpaper from Google Play Store. There’s a nice little app called Pitch Black that sets your phone’s wallpaper to pure black.

 

Another popular app called Darkify lets you choose from a range of dark-themed wallpapers (some are very cool), but this app does hog a lot more space on your device.

 

You can also download Night Mode, an app that allows you to set your screen brightness even lower than the minimum setting that your phone normally allows.

 

This app will reduce your battery consumption if you have an AMOLED display and will also help save your eyes in low light situations where the phone display still seems too bright even at the lowest brightness level.

 

Many commonly used apps also have a night mode or dark mode too. You can enable dark mode or night mode in Youtube, Google News, Google Clock, Google Contacts, Google Messages, Google Phone, Google Maps (navigation mode only), Snapseed and in a few other Google apps. Here is a more complete list.

 

Many popular messaging apps like Telegram, Viber, Signal and Pulse also have a dark mode option and Whatsapp should be rolling out its own dark mode very soon.

 

You can also activate dark mode natively in certain web browser apps, including Opera and Puffin. Firefox has an add-on called Dark Night Mode, which darkens all the websites that you visit.

#9 - Download lite versions of apps

Many popular smartphone apps have a “lite” version. These sacrifice some of the functionality of the regular app but the payoff is that they’re faster, take up less space on your device, consume less of your precious cellular data and just generally require less device resources to run, which means potential battery savings.

 

If you’re serious about saving your battery, consider replacing your fully-featured apps with their lite versions.

 

Facebook Lite, Twitter Lite, Line Lite, Facebook Messenger Lite, Maps Go (light version of Google Maps), Youtube Go, Google Go (light version of Chrome browser), Opera Mini, Firefox Lite, UC Browser Mini, Spotify Lite, Gmail Go, LinkedIn Lite, Amazon Kindle Lite, Shazam Lite and many other lighter versions of apps are available to download from the Google Play Store.

 

As regards travel apps, there are lite versions of a few of those too, such as Uber Lite, Ola Lite, Booking Lite (booking.com) and more.

 

Some of these lite versions of apps were developed for specific markets (often in emerging markets like India where Internet speeds are slower and people own less capable smartphones), so if you can’t find the app in the Google Play Store it’s probably because it isn’t available in your country. 

#10 - Block push notifications, turn off vibrations and increase fetching intervals

All those push notifications you receive from the apps on your phone can have a negative impact on your battery life, not the mention the adverse effects they can have on your sanity. 

 

By blocking all but the most essential app notifications you can extend your battery life without suffering any negative consequences.

 

To turn off app notifications you’ll have to go to settings -> notifications and then go into each app individually that you want to block notifications for.

 

If blocking push notifications outright seems too drastic, you can also toggle “show silently” for each app. This eliminates sounds, vibrations or pop-ups on the screen whenever you have a push notification, helping to conserve battery life.

 

With your e-mail apps such as Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, Blue Mail and so on, in the notification settings you may have a choice between “push”, “fetch” or “manual”.

 

With “push”, the email server tells your device when a new e-mail is available to be downloaded so that your device doesn’t have to do any of the hard work checking for new emails, thus saving battery life.

 

With “fetch” your device connects to the Internet and checks the e-mail server for new e-mails at regular intervals (every 15 minutes, every 30 minutes etc.).

 

When set to “manual” your phone will only check for new emails when you open the email app.

 

To maximize battery savings, generally the best option is to either check for new emails manually or to use fetch with a longer fetch interval (like 12 hours).  

 

As far as I know, the Gmail app uses “fetch” by default but you can change it to manual by going to Settings -> Accounts -> Google and then turning off Gmail sync for the email account in question.

#11 - Disable background data usage

The apps on your phone use data in two ways; foreground data usage and background data usage. 


Foreground data usage is the usage that occurs when you’re actively using an app while background data usage occurs when the app is running in the background but you’re not actively using it.

 

Background data usage is generally an undesirable side effect of having apps on your phone, as it gobbles up both cellular data and battery life without you even consenting.

 

We mentioned that battery saver mode an Android will limit background data usage for most apps, but it’s no harm to also manually disable it for all your apps.

 

To disable background data usage on Android you’ll need to go to

Settings -> Data usage -> Cellular data usage.

 

Here you’ll find a list of all your apps and you can tap into each one and turn off background data usage.

 

You might also be surprised to see here how much data some of your apps are gobbling up in the background.

#12 - Always double check that the flashlight isn't turned on before putting your device away

Sometimes you can accidentally turn on the built-in flashlight while using your phone, and then put the device back in your pocket without realizing that you’ve left the light on.

 

Some time later when you retrieve the phone from your pocket you notice to your dismay that the battery level is now at 2% when it was at 100% when you first put it into your pocket.

 

Baffled momentarily, you then realize that the flashlight was turned on the whole time the phone was in your pocket. It happens sometimes, even to the best of us so always double check.

#13 - Check your battery analytics for insights 

Your smartphone battery analytics can give you some invaluable insights into what is depleting your battery the most.


In android phones if you go into settings -> battery, under “use since last full charge” you can view a breakdown of what apps and functions are consuming your battery and what percentage of the total each has consumed.


For more detailed analytics on what apps and processes are consuming your battery you can download an app called AccuBattery.


This app also estimates your battery temperature, voltage, capacity, time left, discharge rate, battery wear etc. and gives you tips for improving the health and lifespan of your battery (like charging it only to 80% instead of 100%).

#14 - Optimize apps for improved battery life

On Android phones under settings -> battery  if you tap the three dots in the top right hand corner and go into “battery optimization” you may find that a few of your apps are not optimized.


By tapping on an app that’s not optimized you will have the option to optimize it, which should slow the rate at which it drains your battery. 

#15 - Keep your device cool

Heat is the bane of the life of any battery. There’s not much you can do if you’re travelling in a hot country, but you can always ensure that you don’t leave your phone in direct sunlight, or in particularly hot places like a car dashboard.

 

It might also be a good idea to take your phone out of your pocket and stow it away in the dark shady recesses of your backpack instead.

#16 - Turn off Google Assistant

While Google Assistant is a useful tool to have, it’s probably gobbling up more of your battery than you realize. 


Disabling it is also not the most straightforward thing in the world either.

 

To disable Google Assistant you have to open up the Google app and then go to more -> settings -> Google Assistant. 


Now go to the “Assistant” tab and then scroll right down to the bottom and then select your phone under “Assistant devices”. 


From here you can turn off Google Assistant.

While Google Assistant is a useful tool to have, it’s probably gobbling up more of your battery than you realize. Disabling it is also not the most straightforward thing in the world either.

 

To disable Google Assistant you have to open up the Google app and then go to more -> settings -> Google Assistant. 


Now go to the “Assistant” tab and then scroll right down to the bottom and then select your phone under “Assistant devices”. From here you can turn off Google Assistant.

#17 - Carry a power bank

Okay, so a power bank or portable battery pack might not actually help you to prolong your phone’s battery life, but it will replenish a spent smartphone battery back to a full charge when you’re on the move.

 

Power banks have become absolutely essential for travellers needing their phones to emerge still alive at the end of a long journey.

 

If you haven’t already bought a travel-friendly power bank, check out our article on the best power banks for travel.

#18 - Turn your phone off

Although it won’t always be an option, powering your phone off until you really need to use it is probably the best way of all to conserve your battery life.

 

This method can be considered as a last resort if you are in a critical situation like hiking a dangerous mountain and you need to save every bit of battery life you can for when you really need to use the phone (like if you get lost, or need to call emergency services).

#19 - Download everything you need before your trip commences

If you have an upcoming journey where you’ll be without access to power outlets for an extended period it’s important to be prepared beforehand.

 

You don’t want to be depleting your phone’s battery life by using the Internet to download maps, articles, travel guides and other information you need to have for the journey midway through it.

 

If you need maps for the journey make sure to download them all to your phone in advance so that you can navigate while in airplane mode, thus reducing battery consumption from using mobile data or Wi-Fi. 

 

If you’re relying on your smartphone for entertainment during the long journey ahead, download plenty of interesting e-books onto your phone beforehand.

 

You can also save articles from the web to the Pocket app for offline reading at a later stage.

 

Reading e-books or saved articles on a dim screen will consume much less battery life than watching videos on your phone.

 

You can also use an RSS feed app like Feedly to sync articles from all of your favourite websites and make them available for offline reading.

 

For reading e-books you can an e-reader app on your phone and set it to night mode or use a dark theme if possible. My favourite e-reader app for Android is eReader Prestigio.

 

If you really love books you might consider investing in a dedicated e-reader device, which will guarantee you 4-6 weeks of reading time off a single charge and will be easier on your eyes than the backlit displays of smartphones.

 

You can peruse our top travel-friendly e-reader picks for 2019 here


Listening to music, podcasts or audiobooks on your phone with the screen turned off will also consume much less battery than video, and may even consume less battery than reading e-books on a dim screen.


Make sure again that you have all the audio files already downloaded onto your device before the trip begins to save your battery.

Conclusion

There are so many little things that all add up to take a serious toll on your phone’s battery life.

 

By implementing even just a few of the tips we’ve outlined in this article you should be able to eke out a few more minutes, and possibly even a few extra hours out of your phone’s battery.

 

Much of the time during your travels you probably won’t even need to implement these battery-saving measures.

 

But there will be occasions when you’ll be without access to power outlets for extended periods, and you’ll need to know how to be very sparing with your juice then.

 

We hope that these tips will come in handy for you some time.


If you liked this article please share it with other travellers. Do you have any of your own battery-saving tips that you’d like to share with us? Have you ever faced a crisis situation because of a dead smartphone battery during a trip? We’d love you to leave us a comment below.

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Our names are Eoghan and Jili and we hail from Ireland and India respectively.

We are two ardent shoestring budget adventure travellers and have been travelling throughout Asia continuously for the past few years. 


Having accrued such a wealth of stories and knowledge from our extraordinary and transformative journey, our mission is now to share everything we've experienced and all of the lessons we've learned with our readers. 


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