Pokémon Go has taken over the gaming world in no time and the activity on this game has been higher than even the very actively used social networks like Twitter. You’d probably agree with me if you are already playing the game and know how much fun it is to walk around and catch Pokémon.
When you think about conquering gyms, winning battles against the other Pokémon around, you would want to always stay online, walking, and finding more of them to make your presence stronger. But that comes at a cost – Data connectivity charges, and battery life. The battery life of the smartphones gets hit badly because you are keeping your phone’s screen active, keep the Data and GPS connected, and given how these all add up and the device also tries to deliver good graphics all the time, the chipset tends to heat up as well.
While you are on your Pokémon hunt and see your phone battery draining down in just a couple of hours or three, you would want to see some ways to make it better. Here are some of the ways you can try to save battery on your Android smartphone while not reducing your gameplay time.
Also: Read our Pokémon Go guide if you haven’t yet.
Enable Pokémon Go’s battery saver function
Pokémon Go comes with a setting internally, which works really great. Though the makers of the game haven’t mentioned how this setting works, it does actually help save battery while there is no significant change in the performance of the game.
Under the settings menu, you will see the “Battery saver” option that you have to select. That is it. If you have been playing the game since a few days, you will surely know if this option helped extend the battery life of the device.
Turn off app’s music, sound, and vibration
When you are on a Pokémon hunt, you should rather look at the best ways of finding them rather than always looking for a great experience with the vibration nudges, music, and the Pokémon sounds. Turning these things off will surely save some juice in the phone and you know, even a few minutes more are enough to catch one of the rare Pokémon you have been looking for.
To turn off these sounds and vibrations, go to Settings in the game and you will find the three options that you have to deselect – Music, Sound Effects, and Vibration.
Lower the brightness when you can
If you are a night player, you should, for sure, reduce the brightness of the device display and even at the other times, having a lower brightness eats lesser battery. To change the brightness, you’ll either find the setting on the quick settings section in the notification panel or by going to Settings > Display.
Turn off augmented reality (AR)
This is not a general setting to change, but it can be turned off whenever a Pokémon appears. The rear camera of the phone gets activated and brings you the real-life scene with the Pokémon in it whenever one appears in your vicinity. You can go to top right corner of the screen to turn the camera off and play with a plain background, which might not look the best but will save a lot of battery.
Use phone’s battery saver option
Using the phone’s inbuilt data saver option helps in keeping battery usage in check by keeping the background apps inactive and reduces the background functions which are not really necessary while you are playing the game. Depending on the phone that you are using, you will find the option for Battery saver by going to Settings > Battery > Battery Saver or one of the modes will be seen on the Quick settings under the notification panel.
Turn off Wi-Fi if using Data Network
These extra connectivity options don’t stay idle if you aren’t using them. For any Android smartphone, if you are using data network while on the move, the Wi-Fi function if turned ON, will keep checking for available networks around. Are you sure that you won’t be able to use those Wi-Fi networks as they don’t belong to you? Better turn it off and not give your smartphone that extra load.
So, along with all these, make sure you are carrying a power bank as well. It isn’t the same temperatures all around the world, and hotter areas would see your smartphone heating up quickly, which in turn would drain down the battery in a faster rate.
