How to improve your battery life on your Android device

Disable location reporting and history
GPS is the main source of draining battery, as it harnesses data from the phone’s GPS chip, cell phone towers, and Wi-Fi hotspots to find your location. Every time your phone sources your location using GPS, you lose more battery.

Location reporting and location history are two GPS-based services with somewhat unclear motives. According to a Google Help page, the services can be used in conjunction with any other Google Apps, and may be used to improve your experience.

You can disable location reporting and location history by going to Settings > Location > Google Location Reporting.

Disable Google Now cards
Now is Android’s personal assistant, but some of its services are major battery drains.

For example, a card titled “Nearby places” shows you nearby attractions when you travel to a place that Google recognises is out of your usual routine.

To disable cards, go to Google Now, then scroll down to the bottom and tap the magic wand. Here, you can select the cards you actually need and use regularly. As a general guide, the GPS-reliant cards will use the most battery, so disable cards like “Travel time” and “Nearby places” to see a battery boost.

Wi-Fi scanning
When Wi-Fi is enabled, more battery is used. However, on Android, even when Wi-Fi is disabled, a phone could still be searching for networks.

To ensure this doesn’t occur, go to Wi-Fi settings > Advanced. Here, uncheck the option for Wi-Fi scanning.

After this, you will have to manually connect to the Wi-Fi but you’ll get a longer battery life in return.

Use the battery tool
Find out how energy-demanding your apps are, using the Battery tool. The feature shows you which apps use the most battery, with the top two items almost always being Screen and Wi-Fi.