Tricks on saving battery power

The biggest clog on the technology highway is a single roadblock, batteries. With all of the remarkable advances in the last 50 years, battery technology has remained primarily unchanged. With better batteries, you would not just be able to make it through the day with your huge touchscreen phone on a single charge, but laptops and phones would run faster and electric cars would rule the highways; it would be like a brand new world.

Obviously, the primary advantage of most gadgets that use batteries including MP3 players, laptops and phones is mobility. Naturally however, they all need power to run on. Even though power outlets are plentiful and can be found nearly everywhere, there are times when we have to resort to using the gadget’s battery, say, in meetings; or you live in one of those areas that Umeme feels make sense to load shed. I have also seen sudden power failures when I could have lost all my work had the laptop not had a charged battery.

Well, in most portable electronic devices, especially given environmental concerns, batteries must not only store energy in a compact form, they must be rechargeable and most are Lithium-Ion. Which presents the question, what should someone do to make their battery last longer?

Well, turn the gadget off. This is probably the most effective and simple way of conserving your battery’s power. If you do not plan on using it while you are sleeping or after business hours, just turn it off.

Reduce the brightness of your screen. Chances are high that your MP3 player, laptop or phone has a function for controlling the brightness of your screen. The brighter your screen is, the more power it is consuming, the reverse being true.

Clearly, you do not need to dim it to the extent that you just are straining your eyes to see the screen, but you can dim it a bit to get some extra battery life. Newer phones and laptops are incorporating light sensors to let the device automatically regulate the brightness of the screen depending on the ambient light, a neat feature I must say. Tones and vibration, when desperate for battery, should be turned off in the hope that you shall notice the phone lighting up when you receive a message or phone call.

Cut back background processes. Virtually all computers and the new smart phones have programmes constantly running in the background. Things like Skype, chat programmes, background music and more can suck up the battery.

It is always better to shut off any background programmes you are not using. Avoid operating pointless hardware. You need to think about disabling unused USB ports, Ethernet and even WiFi in the event you are not using them. Bluetooth and WiFi are always culprits for both phones and laptops.

Keep away from using CDs and DVDs, for example playing a DVD movie off your laptop drive on battery. Every time possible, you should run applications out of your laborious hard drive.
Finally change your power settings.

If you click on the battery icon in your taskbar, you should see “power options.” You may tinker with settings for the laptop to run extra effectively, permitting you to maximise the lifetime of your battery. Phones nowadays are smarter; when the battery is low, it automatically disallows running of certain applications such as camera etc.

Ultimately, all you have to do is know the features that you have control over but do not need and use them less or turn them off and yes, plan and get into the habit of charging gadgets to full battery power when it is down.

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