Can Wifi Drain Your Battery?

Have you ever reached for your phone in the morning, expecting to see it fully charged and it’s only at 30%? You plan on charging your phone in the car, but that only gets you an additional ten percent. You’re still not even halfway charged. 

Is there a way that you can extend your phone’s battery life? Does connecting to wifi drain your battery or help it? Does constantly searching for wifi to connect to drain your phone’s battery too? 

Although wifi itself won’t necessarily drain your battery it can drain your battery if you are in a low coverage area. If the signal is strong, then using and connecting to wifi won’t drain your battery. 

When you are in a low-signal area (whether wifi or cell signal), your phone will boost the signal to try and constantly connect to wifi. Your phone is working harder to get a good signal which will, in turn, cause the battery to drain faster. 

To see the most popular battery banks to charge your phone when on the go just click here. 

How Can You Extend The Battery Life On Your Cell Phone? 

It doesn’t matter what brand of smartphone you own, everyone runs dangerously low on their battery at one point or another. It can be extremely frustrating to look down at your phone and see that you are down to 5% battery remaining. 

If you know that you are going to be out all day, either at the beach, out shopping, or just at work, you can follow these tips to help your battery last longer. 

• Lower the brightness on your screen: Your screen being on and bright is the primary culprit of draining your battery. The longer your screen is on, the faster your battery will drain. The battery will also drain faster if the brightness is turned up as well. To save your battery, turn the brightness down. Most smartphones have an option for auto-brightness. You can turn this option on to save your phone’s battery. 

• Turn off location services: Many apps on your phone are constantly searching for your location in the background. You can turn off some app’s location services to save your battery power. Many app’s location services only need to work while the app is in use. You can choose the option of, only use location while the app is open, to help save your battery.

• Stay up-to-date on updates: If you do not have automatic updates turned on, it may be draining your battery. Additionally, if you have automatic updates turned on but your phone battery is less than 50%, it won’t update automatically. Most software updates allow your phone to run optimally, including the battery power. 

• Turn off Bluetooth when not in use: When you are no longer using Bluetooth, you can disable it to extend your battery life by about an hour. If you leave the Bluetooth on, your phone will constantly be searching for a device to connect to. By turning off the Bluetooth option, you can extend your battery life. 

• Turn off Wifi when you don’t need it: If your phone is constantly searching for wifi, it will drain your battery. If you have unlimited data, then you can save your battery life by always leaving off your wifi. However, if you have limited data, you might want to leave the wifi option on and make sure that you have a charger with you. 

• Lower the screen timeout on your phone: The longer your screen is on, the faster your battery power will diminish. You can turn down the display time by choosing a shorter screen timeout option in the settings. 

• Be aware of the temperature: If you plan on spending your day outdoors, be sure to keep your phone out of direct sunlight. If your phone reaches high temperatures, your battery will drain quickly. Additionally, if you are on your phone and it doesn’t get a break, the temperature on your phone will rise and your battery power will decrease. 

• Turn on low power mode: Some smartphones allow you to turn on a low power mode that will help salvage your battery. Additionally, if you want to save some of your battery power and not be reached by others, you can turn on airplane mode as a low power mode option. 

Does Your Phone Battery Drain Faster In Places With Poor Wifi Signals? 

Have you ever been sitting somewhere, waiting for your phone to load? Maybe you were scrolling through Facebook and it just froze or you were using maps to search your next destination only to find it won’t load. 

Does this poor wifi coverage mean that your phone battery will deplete faster? 

Having poor cell reception or wifi coverage can drain your phone battery much faster than normal. When you are in an area where there is poor cell or wifi coverage, you can place your phone on airplane mode to save your battery. 

Since you know that most apps and data won’t work in the area anyway, you may as well save your battery and place your phone on airplane mode. 

Does Leaving Apps Open In The Background Drain Your Battery? 

Before you leave the house, you may already have quite a few different apps running in the background. You may have your clock running in the background from your alarm, the weather app from checking to see what to wear, your bank app to make sure nothing came out unexpectedly overnight, your favorite coffee shop app to see if you have any free rewards that you can use on your way to work, and the map app to see just how long it will take to get work. 

If you don’t fully close out of all these apps, will it drain your battery? Do you need to force close the apps to make sure your battery lasts longer? 

Typically, once you are no longer actively using an app, it won’t be running in the background so leaving them there won’t drain the battery. The only way the app would be running in the background is if you have location services or notifications turned on. 

Technically, when you close an app fully and reopen it, it will take your phone more energy to reopen that app. Every time you force quit an app, the next time you open that app the phone has to reload all the code that was just closed. 

Essentially, force closing apps could end up draining your battery faster if it is apps that you use all of the time. 

Final Thoughts

Using wifi itself won’t drain your battery, but having low wifi coverage where you are at will. Next time your battery power starts going down quickly, you can use one of these tips to slow it down.