Always running out of power? Engineer reveals the four simple tricks that could extend your phone's battery life
If you've ever traveled out of the country, you've probably had to turn every feature off your phone except for calling and texting,' Paul Shearing, a chemical engineer at the University College London told DailyMail.com
'Turning off the extra features ensures your battery will last lnger, because there are a lot of hungry apps that are draining your battery without your realizing it.'
Shearing explained that a smartphone uses a lot of power just to keep apps up-to-date.
Turning off the 'background refresh' setting on these apps can save that power for keeping your phone alive, and the same goes for notifications.
If you don't need to know who like your status this second, you can also disable notifications for this app and any others that you don't need.
4 TIPS FOR ADDING BATTERY LIFE
1 - Shut down location services
2 - Turn off push notifications
3 - Close any apps you have open and swipe the button in settings to stop them from running in the background
4 - Make sure your phone doesn't get too hot
'People think they figured out tricks for keeping their phone charged, but it really isn't a huge mystery,' said Shearing.
'There are a lot of hungry apps on your phone, and by simply shutting them down you will save your battery life.'
Shearing explains that he plugs his phone in the charger before he goes to bed and lets it go for the entire night.
We all wish our phone battery would last longer. So much so, that some people will resort to using bulky cases - such as the one launched by Apple last week (pictured) - to boost their battery life
'It usually take just two to three hours for a phone to completely charge, but each phone has a management system that controls the battery voltage,' he said.
'The software takes care of how much power and voltage is being pushed through the battery, so it doesn't matter if you leave the phone charge for three hours or eight hours.'
Another trick to improving your battery life is to make sure your phone never gets too hot.
A smartphone is a mini-computer and has the same parts except for a cooling fan.
When your phone is overheating the CPU chip is also operating full force, which uses a lot of your battery life.
A CPU chip is a very powerful components in both a computer and smartphone, and it's similar to a car engine.
Just like a car engine, it doesn't need that much power to coast, but if you want to really go in your car you have to use more gas.
'iPhone has a feature that will shut the phone down when it gets too hot,' said Shearing.
Lloyd Gordon, chief electrical safety officer at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, told Live Science that most of the advice you find online about keeping your phone fully charge is 'bogus'.
'For example, charging your phone in short bursts isn't going to help your batter keep a charge longer, although many site swear by this,' said Gordon.
How to switch off these features can vary dramatically on different phone models.
This past October, Glasgow-based experts created an interactive guide that reveals how to save battery life using tips specific to individual phones, such as Apple's iPhones, HTC and Samsung's range of devices, and Sony's handsets.
Choose your phone below: If the guide is slow to load, get tips from liGo's original version
Glasgow-based experts at retailer liGo have now created an interactive guide (pictured) that reveals how to save battery life using tips specific to individual phones, such as Apple's iPhones, HTC and Samsung's range of devices, and Sony's handsets. Tips scroll across the screen
It also includes older models, and handsets from Motorola, LG, BlackBerry, Amazon, Huawei and Nokia – now known as Lumia.
The tips, compiled by electronics retailer liGO, begins by asking the user to select their make and model.
An image of the handset appears below, surrounded by tips that conserve battery life on that particular model.
Clicking on a tip reveals the steps needed to disable, or enable, the selected features, alongside information about why it drains battery, where appropriate.
On the module above, these tips scroll across the screen.
The guide does assume that smartphone owners are running the most up-to-date version of operating system available.
Apple iPhone 5S users, for example, can save battery life by managing which apps update in the background - known as Background App Refresh
Running older systems can cause battery problems themselves.
According to the guide, Apple iPhone 5S users, for example, can save battery life by managing which apps update in the background - known as Background App Refresh.
This feature is accessed via Settings, General, and by switching off the apps that are automatically updated.
Another tip, for Samsung Galaxy S5 owners, is to turn off Air Wake Up.
Smart stay features detect when people are looking at their screen, and means the display remains on, effectively disabling auto-locking.
This feature uses the forward-facing camera, so disabling it via Settings reduces power usage.
And for Windows Phone users, seen on the Lumia range of devices and HTC One (M8) for Windows, limiting what tiles are pinned to the start will reduce power usage.
These tiles automatically refresh to show up-to-date Facebook posts, tweets, emails or weather details, for example, and this uses battery.
