Your phone dies sooner in the summer. Really.

It isn’t your imagination, your smartphone battery doesn’t last as long in the summer and it’s because we’re spending more time outside, we’re using the phone and not a computer and it’s probably not staying plugged into a power source. It’s a frustrating problem, but here are a few simple things you can do to make your battery last longer.

First, find out what’s draining the battery. Go to settings, then “battery”. Woh! my wife uses Facebook, according to the stats, over 2 and a half hours a day and drains nearly half the battery. Even those rare minutes she’s not using it, the Facebook app is draining the battery in the background. You can turn off that setting, or create your own Facebook app by opening Facebook.com in the Safari browser. This only works on iPhones and Safari, at the bottom, tap the share button Tap it and scroll to the right, choose “add to Home screen”.  Now there’s a Facebook icon on the screen, just like an app. Tap it and Facebook opens in the browser.

It looks a little different, but in a good way. Your main page is less cluttered. It will load slower, and you won’t get notifications, but since it’s not always running, it’ll keep your battery alive longer.

Use this trick with your favorite websites

You can also use this trick with Instagram,  and create an app for any website you visit a lot. Just share, and add to the home screen.

  Using Facebook in a browser is a different experience and you may not like it at all. But if you spend a lot of time outdoors, it might be a worthwhile switch for summer because nothing is more frustrating than a dead phone battery.

Here are steps to make a smartphone battery last longer:

  • Use websites rather than apps
  • In Safari (iPhones) tap the ‘share’ button on a website, scroll to the right and choose “Add to Homescreen”, this adds an app-type icon on the homescreen.
  • Turn off notifications in apps you rarely use
  • Your smartphone will constantly search for wifi signals which will run down the battery. If you are nowhere near a wifi signal you could use, turn off wifi in settings
  • Delete any apps you never use, especially free games you may have downloaded. Many of these apps continually run in the background and connect to the internet
  • Review your notification settings. Many apps you do not use often will continually search for any updates.
  • In some circumstances, you can turn on Low Power Mode in settings. It will dim the screen, refrain from checking for updates and save battery usage.
  • In the settings for battery, review which apps use the most power. Some use power because you’re constantly using them, but others may be using the battery when their not in use.
  • This setting will also show you how each app is using battery power. If you subscribe to podcasts for example, you might notice the Podcast app uses a lot of power in background activity by searching for available downloads. Setting such as this can be adjusted or turned off in the app settings.
  • You may also want to try turning on “Low Power Mode” in settings or the control center to see how it affects your user experience.