Android Magazine UK - Issue No. 49

Usage graph

Lollipop tracks your battery life hour by hour so

youcanworkoutwhenyou’vebeenusingthe

highestamountofbatterypower.Youcan

clearlyseehowlongit’sbeenonforandhow

much time you’ve got left

The thirstiest apps

Thescreenalsoliststheappsthathave

consumedthegreatestpercentageofyour

batterysinceitwaslastoncharge.Somethings,

such as the OS and screen, are unavoidable but

appscanusuallybeeasilyshutdown

Shutting down apps

Thenewsetupallowsyoutoclosedownapps

fromthisscreen.Simplytapontheappyou

wanttoshutdownandthenyoucanForceStop,

Uninstall or clear the cache, all of which will

reduce battery usage

Clickonthebatteryiconin

Quick Settings to view stats

on your battery usage

Feature
» Battery boosting tips and tricks

View battery

breakdown

in Lollipop

Drop your

screen timeout

Although it’s annoying for

your phone to fade out

when you’re in the middle of

a message or game,

reducing the timeout

screen during periods of

inactivity can save lots of

battery. Shaving just 30

seconds of screen time

every time you use your

phone will save you a

lot of power.

Stop location

tracking

If you have location tracking

enabled, then your phone is

constantly sending and

receiving signals from

satellites to pinpoint your

position. This is a real drain

on your battery as it keeps

your phone working and

awake constantly. Head

into your Security settings

and turn off location

tracking to stop this.

Remove

animations

Your animated homescreen

may be lovely to look at, but

sending all those pixels

fl oating across the screen

does take up a lot of energy.

Think of it as a very slow,

looping video and we all

know how much battery

that uses. Instead, choose

a plain homescreen to save

your battery life – you will

thank us later.

Weed out

widgets

If you’ve got any widgets on

your homescreen that you

don’t use that often, get rid

of them as soon as

possible. These widgets are

constantly running, so even

if the app is closed they are

still using up your power

and battery. Only keep

regularly used ones on your

homescreen to preserve

your phone's energy.

Tu r n d ow n

your screen

The incredible clarity of your

screen takes a lot of effort

to maintain, especially if it is

a Super AMOLED one. Going

into your Display settings

and dropping the screen

brightness down to a

sensible level, is a sure fi re

way to reduce your battery

output while not impacting

on your phone's

performance in any way.

Monitor multiple

devices with

Potential Beta

If you're reading this magazine, chances are that

you own more than one Android smartphone or

tablet. Using Potential Beta, a free app available

on the Play Store, you can monitor the batteries

on all of your devices from a single screen, for

instance, you can view your smartphone's

battery from your tablet and visa versa. Set a

threshold for what you consider optimum power,

and Potential will alert you when any of your

devices dip below it. You can then remotely turn

off any of your device's Wi-Fi or Bluetooth from in

the app, conserving power. Potential is still in the

early stages, but plans to add support for

Android Wear in the future.