So, I have been using the younger Pixel sibling – the Pixel 3 for about a month. What I really like is the clean Android experience and what I really dislike is battery life. On a heavy-day of usage, I have to charge my phone twice a day to get through. So, I started finding ways on how to cut down on battery usage. And while I am on it, here is a compiled list of 8 ways to improve battery life on a Google Pixel Phone.
Fix Google Pixel Battery Life Issues
1. Turn off the always-on display
The Pixel has an AMOLED screen and by default, you have the always-on display turned on. It doesn’t consume a huge amount of battery but when you turn it off you can see a slight boost in battery life. The always-on display doesn’t wake up too many LEDs since it’ an AMOLED screen but it constantly wakes the device in case of notification and moreover, it’s distracting. It makes you want to look at your phone every single time.
2. Use Dark Mode
The Pixel series has an AMOLED display and it’s really effective to use dark mode. Dark mode not only provides lesser strain to the eyes in low light but also proves as a boon to battery life. In the case of AMOLED screens, when you use a dark screen, the LEDs on the black portion of the display are powered off. This takes the phone in a low-power mode where it needs less battery.
On Android 10, turning dark mode is quite easy. Just, head over to the Settings menu and under the Display section, turn on the Dark mode.
3. Turn off haptic feedback
As good as it feels, the haptic feedback takes a toll on battery life. Haptic feedback is the slight vibration feedback you get from your phone when you touch it. You get similar vibration feedback while you are typing on the keyboard. This haptic feedback requires the vibration motor to be running at various intensities which takes the juice out of your battery.
But, you can entirely disable haptic feedback through the Android settings menu. To do that, head over to the System Settings and tap on Sound. At the bottom of the sound menu, you will have “Touch Vibration”, turn the toggle off and it will disable haptic feedback throughout the device.
4. Turn off unnecessary app notifications
Post-Android 9.0, Google started stressing more on app notifications. Now, instead of a simple “Show Notifications” toggle, you have drilled down notification controls. For instance, I use the SMS Organizer app from Microsoft. Now, the app seldom sends me a deal and offers notifications or subtle reminders about using its native reminder functionality. But, apart from the SMS, OTPs, I don’t want these sets of notifications from the SMS app.
So, I can now disable specific types of notifications for the app. Just head over to the App Settings and click on Notifications. You would see different notification types wherein you can disable the ones you don’t want to receive from the app. Now, once you disable it, the app won’t wake your phone for these set of notifications which will have a subtle impact on battery life
5. Disable seldom used gestures
The Pixel devices ship with fancy gestures like pick up the phone to wake, flip to mute, etc. While these gestures come in handy, there are some which are seldom used like the Flip Camera, Active Edge, Prevent Ringing, etc. I rarely use these gestures and hence I have disabled them altogether. This restricts the phone from constantly monitoring for these gestures.
In case you don’t use any of the gestures, I would recommend disabling them altogether because gestures are a huge resource hogger. Your phone has to continuously keep pulling data from the sensors to detect motion and activity.
6. Change app permissions
With Android 10, we got a boon of permission “Allow only while using the app”. Basically, if you set this permission the app can only use GPS or turn it on when it is running in the foreground. This is not only great for privacy but also for battery life. Apps like Facebook, Messenger, Google Maps, Instagram constantly wake up the GPS to get your location even in the background. Turning on this permission will give your Pixel phone a subtle boost in battery life.
You can also boost the battery life by disabling background data of some apps which don’t require it. For example, I don’t want Facebook to use data in the background. To do that, head over to the Android System Settings and tap on “Network & Internet”. In the “Network & Internet” menu, tap on Data Saver and turn the toggle on.
By default, Data Server will disable background data for all the apps and manage accordingly. However, you can manually turn on the toggle for apps you are fine with using data in the background. In my case, I have kept the toggle off for Facebook. So, now Facebook will have no data usage in the background.
7. Disable Google Sync
If you still get feeble battery life, disabling Google account sync is a great option. But this really would be a compromise as you wouldn’t receive any emails and the background Google Photos sync will be disabled. Moreover, calendar, contacts, drive sync will also be disabled. You can manually sync the data when you open the app and refresh it. I would recommend doing this as a last measure because it heavily cuts down on Google app functionality.
8. Find battery-draining apps
Google introduced doze mode in Android 7.0 and it overall did boost battery life on all the devices. In case you didn’t know, Doze mode puts apps in a sleeping state when the screen is turned off. Android is quite capable of managing apps in the background. However, a poorly coded third-party app can stay awake and even keep the CPU wake thus causing a drain in battery life. We need to figure out the app and either uninstall it or change its permissions.
Head over to the System settings and tap on Battery. On the Battery menu, tap on the three dots at the top-right corner and next tap on “Battery Usage”. On the Battery usage page, you can see the top apps that consume battery life. If you find a suspicious app on this list, you can uninstall it.
Closing Words
This was the list of some tips on how you can better the battery life of your Pixel device. On a broader note, most of the battery drain in Android is caused due to the background activity of Android apps and even Google Apps. Android 10 has come a lot ahead in terms of managing battery, app permissions but a lot needs to be done to fill the void.
Having said that the Pixel devices do have extremely feeble battery life. For a long-term case fix, you can also look for a battery case for the Pixel. You can check out the NEWDERY Google Pixel 3 XL battery power case. For more issues or queries, let me know in the comments below.
Also Read: How to Enable Fingerprint Lock on WhatsApp for Android
