10 Ways to Make Your Cellphone Last
There’s only one thing worse than knowing the power in your home might go out soon and having no idea when it will come back on. And that’s realizing your cellphone is nearly dead and needs the power you may not have much longer.
You probably have flashlights sitting around that can help you navigate your way around the house in a blackout. If you’re hungry, the food and beverages in the refrigerator will stay fresh for a while. And you can probably live without watching TV one night.
But when your cellphone isn’t working, you can’t call or text, and you can’t access the Internet. That’s when it’s time to panic, right?
Well, thankfully there are ways to make what little juice your cellphone has last when your power is about to go out. Let’s take a look at 10 of them.
- If a thunderstorm is brewing, there’s a chance the power could go out at any time. So, keep your nearly dead cellphone plugged into a charger until the house goes dark. Charge your laptop as well (we’ll get to “why” in a moment).
- Restart your cellphone so that no battery-hogging apps are running in the background.
- Other battery-draining elements of your cellphone are displays. To minimize that problem, turn the brightness display down as low as possible.
- Assuming your laptop is charged, there’s power waiting for your cellphone. Turn on the laptop, closing out applications. Plug your cellphone charger into the laptop’s USB port and drain some power from the laptop’s larger battery.
- Another power source is your car’s battery. If you have a car cellphone charger, let your car run in the driveway while it powers your cellphone.
- Radios such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth drain a cellphone’s battery more than anything else, so turn them off. That way, at least you’ll be able to send and receive emergency calls and texts.
- Another battery-drainer on cellphones is a “push” notification that some cellphones receive from news services and apps. Turn off notifications.
- Text messages use up the smallest amounts of data, so send texts rather than making phone calls when the power is out.
- Limit your cellphone use. A no-brainer, right? But it’s easy to forget. The less you use it during a blackout, the more likely it will work in an emergency.
- I saved this one for last because not too many people have them. But it’s not too late to get one before your next power outage. They are now making solar-powered phone chargers for iPhones, Androids, etc.
Do you have any tips and tricks for making your cell phone battery last? I’d love to hear it in the comments below.
To your independence,
Frank Bates
P.S. And here’s a way you can jumpstart your car or motorhome without another car, using a tiny device that fits in your pocket. Click here to see it.
If you need a quick charge on your cell phone. Take a small piece of foil and wrap it around your cell phone. Then take a small gauge wire and wined it around the cell phone outside the foil. Leave a hole at bottom so you can plug in your charger (be careful not to expose the foil to the power connection). Wait a few minutes and see the results. Should charge in phone in a fraction of the time. Cheers!
Regarding point #1 – Leaving ANY electronics you care about plugged into the wall when there’s lightening around is most assuredly NOT a good idea. That is an EXCELLENT way of getting your stuff damaged through high voltage spikes in the power line due to lightening. MUCH safer is to use ISOLATED DC sources – which brings me to my next point:
You do NOT need to leave your car running, per point #5, while charging the phone – charging the phone consumes a TINY amount of power relatively to the ampere-hour capacity of a car battery. Even a modern 12 volt motorcycle battery, or a burglar alarm type 12 volt AGM battery, along with the appropriate 12 volt adapter, can provide power for a cell phone for a significant amount of time.
Pair that AGM battery or motorcycle battery with a 5 Watt solar panel and a charge controller and you have a miniature off-grid power source that can, with reasonable use, keep your phone, iPad or even a transistorized shortwave radio receiver running off-grid indefinitely.
You mentioned “the appropriate 12 volt adapter”. What is this, and where can it be found?
I don’t have an android or an i phone and I don’t want one also since I am cheap and not afraid to admit it if the power went off for good I surely will not miss them or the TV I will just have to find something else to do like fishing or hunting for game or making hunting bows or sling shots. By the way just last week I was at a triff store and picked up two new Daisy sling shots for ten dollars which I think was a bargain. Anyway if you run out of pellets just use small rocks they cost nothing and are plenty full and still get the job done.
What is funny, strange to think about really, if the power goes out for a certain amount of time your cell phones will lose power and die. You can try and recharge your cell phone and you might be successful for a time; but, what about the cell towers? Won’t they just sit there with no power to feed your signal through them?
You can look at a total power failure, a destructive natural disaster or a man made one; it doesn’t really matter because you will not be able to reach out and communicate with someone or anyone for that matter. If the power is out, then the power is out. Your only hope is to find a place that still has power.
You can use a solar power device to recharge your cell phone or use a power booster that immediately gives your cell phone the power it needs. For twenty bucks this device can recharge your cell phone three to four times before needing to recharge itself.
I say be prepared, get both and keep them both handy and in one location where they can be found.
CB radio still exists.
Wonder what will happen if someone with a cell phone battery very low and no power at home walks into a shop with wireless charging turn on in whole shop, if this person has a pace maker ?? Will pace maker stop ?? My wife has / had pace maker and she bought a cooking pot, when I read the use instructions I took it back to store because if she had cooked with it her pace maker would stop working ! ! !
geraldc