Optimize Your iPhone Battery Life

If only the iPhone could run forever. Unfortunately, the iPhone is under the time constraint that comes with running on a battery. We at Fitdigits know that some workouts can last several hours, and your iPhone battery currently may not be able to support your long workouts.

You can pick and choose which of the following options you wish to perform, but the best way to optimize your battery for a long ride is to turn off Location Services and lower your screen brightness/lock your screen. If you are going for a very long ride, you should also put the phone in airplane mode for optimal battery power. Read on for more battery saving options:

1. Turn Off Location Services
Fitdigits uses location services to compute speed, distance, and to track your route when you do not have an compatible speed / cadence sensor or foot pod. If you are using a speed / cadence sensor or a foot pod, the only feature that Location Services provides is tracking your route. If you can do away with this novelty, you will be rewarded with a large bump in battery life. To disable location services, go to Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services, and switch to OFF. The use of Location Services is very large drain on your iPhone battery, especially if you are in an area with a poor GPS signal. If the GPS signal is weak, your phone will have to continually search for a signal, draining battery in the process.

2. Turn Off Push Notifications
A Push notification is a service to alert you of new data from a select number of apps. Some of the apps that use push notifications extensively (like instant messaging apps) take up a lot of battery life. To disable push notifications, go to Settings -> Notifications and switch to OFF

3. Fetch Data Less Frequently
Your mail and calendar applications are often set to “fetch” data (i.e. new emails) wirelessly at set intervals. Each time it fetches data, it uses battery life. To set your iPhone to fetch less frequently, go to Setting -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Fetch New Data.  Make sure your “Fetch New Data” is not sent to push.  For best results, have your iPhone fetch new data hourly

4. Auto-check Fewer Email Accounts
The more email accounts you have activated on your iPhone, the more battery life it drains. Before a workout, turn off some or all of your Email accounts. To do so, go to Setting -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars, tap on the email address you would like to temporarily disable, and turn it OFF

5. Turn off Wi-Fi
If you do not need to use Wi-Fi for any reason, you should turn it off as it is a drain on battery life to be constantly looking for a signal. To do so, go to Setting -> Wi-Fi and set Wi-Fi to OFF. This is especially important in an area with poor/no WiFi signal(s).

6. Turn off Bluetooth
If you are not using bluetooth for a wireless headset, turn it off as it uses a lot of battery. To do so, go to Setting -> General -> Bluetooth, and turn it to OFF

7. Lock Your Phone
Your screen brightness is one of the biggest drains of battery life. With that in mind, lock your Phone while working out. Fitdigits will continue to record data despite the screen being blank. To lock your phone, tap the sleep/wake button.

8. Adjust Screen Brightness
If you wish to keep the screen on so you can view your real time results, then lower your screen brightness. The higher the screen brightness, the more battery used. To lower screen brightness, go to Setting -> Brightness, and adjust brightness level accordingly.

9. Turn on Airplane Mode
Airplane mode will disable all phone, Internet and bluetooth services. Note that this will kill any sensors that need bluetooth on to communicate with your phone. However, this is great for extending battery life and will perform many of the steps listed above for you, although you will not be able to receive calls or texts. To put your phone in Airplane mode, go to Setting and turn Airplane mode ON.

10. Close Apps Running in the background
On an iOS device, when you tap the home button to leave an app, you do not “close” that app. In fact, all apps continue to run in the background, and certain apps (social media, apps with “push” notifications, streaming music apps) take up a good chunk of battery when they are running. It is a good idea before a long workout to close all workouts. To do so:

  • Tap your device home button (the only button on the front side of your device) to exit the app. You are now viewing your device home screen.
  • Double tap the home button to launch your Fast App Switcher Window (also called multitasking window) which appears on the bottom of your screen.
  • Tap and hold the first app icon in the Fast App Switcher window until the icons shake.
  • Tap the red minus sign (located in the upper left corner of the icon) of your app icon. Your app is now closed. Repeat this for all apps
  • Double tap the home button to exit the Fast App Switcher.
  • Launch your Fitdigits app again by tapping the Fitdigits icon from your home screen.

 

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