How to Extend Your Battery Life

Note: This blog post is a sponsored conversation written by Lynn Smythe, the Founder and Chief Blogger for The Creative Cottage lifestyle blog. The opinions, thoughts, ideas and text are all mine.

Do you ever feel like you’re whole life is on charge or you’re continually getting new batteries or changing batteries? With everything we use now which requires batteries, it’s no wonder, and the more we use everything, the more they use up the battery. So here are a few tips on how you can extend battery life of a few electronic devices in your life.

Smartphone Battery

There are loads of things you can do to help with the life of your phone’s battery so we’ll start with the obvious…go to your settings where you can see a breakdown of what apps are using your battery the most. Once you know whats’s draining your battery you’ll be more mindful of using it or making sure it’s not running in the background. You should also turn off your location service when you’re not using it.

Taking photos and videos all day will use up your battery very quickly and using the flash doesn’t do you any favors. Also, turn off any vibrations you have for notifications and use the low power mode where you can. There are also some battery-saving apps you can get like Battery Doctor, which help you to pinpoint apps that are draining your battery. From within the app, you can adjust settings like Location, Bluetooth, and screen brightness to conserve the battery in your cellphone.

Laptop Battery

Dim your screen as this is one of the most power-hungry parts of the laptop, and it takes serious amounts of battery power to keep your display looking clear and bright. You can also change the power settings, and when you’re not using it, turn off the Wi-Fi. Eject any disc drives and USB ports too, transfer what you need to over and then take them out. If you struggle with your battery life then investing in some hardware might be the best thing to do, get yourself an eight-cell battery or even 12-cell, which can double your power, or invest in a portable laptop battery charger.

Hearing Aid Battery

If you use hearing aids, the first thing that you can do is turn them off during the night or when you’re not using them. Also, make sure that you don’t leave them in the bathroom or anywhere that gets overly hot or damp as they can overheat, and the longevity can be affected. You can learn more about that here, but it is best to keep hearing aids at room temperature, and this also allows them to stay dry.

Camera Battery

If you have the option on your camera, then to save the battery life, make sure you turn off the wireless when you’re not using it. Some cameras now have an “Airplane Mode” which disables Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS. Turn off the LCD Image-review/ playback as LCDs take up a fair amount of power, and the longer they’re on, the more power they use, and if you are using it then turn the LCD brightness down too. Finally, an obvious one really, but make sure you turn off your camera when you’re not using it. 

Watch Battery

Extend the battery life of your watches is quite an easy and simple one to follow. When you’re not wearing or using your watch (so if you take it off at night when you’re in bed), pull out the stem as this will make the watch battery last a lot longer.