Droid Battery Life – Power Control Widget
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Droid battery life is a big deal with Google’s Android Platform cell phones. Primarily because we don’t want to have to charge our phones more than once a day.
Watch the Droid Battery Life Power Control Video.
In today’s tip, we’ll show you how to use the Power Control widget to increase your Droid battery life. If you use this widget wisely, you may be able to use your phone for multiple days without charging–it all depends on what you do with your phone.
Read on for more complete details.
Droid Battery Life – What does the Power Control Widget Do?
Power control widget is at the top of the screen highlighted with a red box.
For better Droid battery life, the first thing to master is the Power Control widget. There are five features to the widget. When they are all on, or active – your battery life will suffer. To the right we have a picture of the droid with the power control widget displayed on the top of the screen. We have highlighted it with a red box.
We’ll talk about each button on the power control widget one by one and talk about how they affect droid battery life – starting on the left. Simply press each button to turn them on or off.
WiFi
The first item on the left is WiFi. This has been the traditional method of connecting to the internet wirelessly. But with 3G, we can connect to the internet via cell towers. So, we can safely turn wifi off to increase droid battery life. However, if you are in a location without cell service or you have a “Hotspot” nearby & want a faster connection, simply turn wifi back on.
Bluetooth
The second item from the left is Bluetooth. A wireless bluetooth headset or ear piece allows you to talk on the phone without having to hold the phone to your ear. If you aren’t using a bluetooth device, you can turn this off and save a bit of battery life.
GPS
The middle item is GPS. This power hog allows the map and navigation system to provide accurate directions. Some apps are location sensitive, but they can usually find you based upon your proximity to cell phone towers. So, unless you need precise mapping, you can safely turn this feature off and save some battery life. Then, when you need driving directions, simply turn the GPS back on.
Special note for HTC Incredible users: Your symbols look slightly different than on the widget. In the status bar (top bar of your phone) you’ll see a Target icon. If that icon shows sound waves coming out of it, then your GPS is on and draining battery life, if the target is visible, but there are no sound waves, then the GPS function is not active and not draining your battery.
Sync
The fourth item from the left is the Sync button. Having your email, contacts, calendar and other features readily available on your phone is a real time saver. Sync is the feature that updates your phone. This won’t use much power unless you are getting lots of emails and updates. You may want to keep this on so you are always informed.
Display Brightness
The button all the way to the right is the display brightness feature. It has three settings; off, medium and bright. As you can probably guess, the bright setting will burn through your battery pretty fast. Press this button three times to see what your display will look like with each setting. You may be surprised to find out that with this set to off that you can still see your screen. This will extend your battery life.
To optimize droid battery life, turn off the power controls you aren’t using.
Watch the Droid Battery Life Power Control Video.
Use My Droid "Power Tip"
Use My Droid “Power Tip”
Your Droid battery life is also being drained by the apps you use on your phone. Games and other programs will run in the background so you can access them quickly, which is quite handy. But that also means they are using up battery life even if you aren’t using them. Apps do quit eventually, but you can force them to quit by using an App like “Advanced Task Killer”. You can get it on the Android Market for free.
Watch the Droid Battery Life Power Control Video.
Droid Battery Life – Feel Free To Comment
Has this Droid battery life tutorial been helpful? Let us know – leave a comment below.
Tags: app, Battery, battery life, droid phone, Widget
12 responses to Droid Battery Life Power Control
This app is GREAT!!!! What a time saver!!!!
This was extremely helpful. Thanks for the info.
I was searching for what these icons mean! Thanks for the article! It was SUPER helpful. =)
Regarding the wifi connection, I have read on a number of other sites that you should connect to wifi hotspots whenever you can because the 4G takes a heavier toll on your battery, not to mention cuts into your allotted data stream limit. Instead, wifi uses a less draining signal and doesn’t run you out of GB rations.
@Sushi True, if you have a 4G phone using fast WiFi (hotspots) is a good way to save battery life (don’t be surprised if the wifi is not as fast as your 4G connection though). Your point is mainly true when using the phone for data (online browsing, email, FB, G+, etc.) and not so much as a traditional phone (for talking). Most people have unlimited data plans when they have 4G, so data usage really should be more of a “thing of the past”, so using wifi is a way around limited data plans as well. BUT, the main point here is generally if you turn your WiFi Off on your phone, the battery will last longer if you are using the phone for things other than Data. Also, forcing your 4G capable phone into 3G mode when not using data will save a boatload of battery life.
I have one more icon on mine, i think it the sd card or something not sure.
@Aron, what does the additional Icon look like?
How do I get rid of power widget
@Lereisha, I thought I could give you an answer in getting rid of the Power Control Widget but when I checked on my phone I could not… sorry ;-(
I found this little tutorial very informative.
Very helpful thanks. There are many more mysterious widgets available – is there a guide to what they might be? I added “timeout” but have no idea what it does.
Very useful information, many thanks
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