Menu Close
31 March 2020

Improve your iPhone’s battery? That’s how to get the most out of your battery!

Everyone knows it by now, that feeling when your battery is close to zero and you don’t have a charger with you. You may have heard about “battery calibration,” but how exactly does it work – and does it really help? And is there anything else I can do to improve my iPhone battery?

Improve iPhone or iPad battery by calibrating

Calibration is particularly useful when you think your battery percentage is not showing correctly. The calibration process allows your phone or tablet to better estimate what percentage your battery has left. There is no evidence that calibrating also makes the battery actually last longer. Calibrating your iPhone or iPad battery can easily be done yourself in 3 steps:

  1. Plug the iPhone or iPad into the wall outlet with the original usb charger (preferably do not use fake cables, see also at the bottom of the blog).
  2. Perform a hard reset. How to do this varies by model:iPhone 8/+, X, XS/Max, XR and 11/Pro/Pro Max
    1. Briefly press the volume up button.
    2. Briefly press the volume down button.
    3. Press and hold the side button.
    4. Release the button when the Apple logo appears.

    iPhone 7 /+
    1. Press and hold both the volume down button and the snooze button.
    2. Release both buttons when the Apple logo appears.

    iPhone 5/S/C, 6/+, 6s/+, SE
    1. Press and hold both the snooze button and the home button.
    2. Release both buttons when the Apple logo appears.

  3. Charge the battery to 100%. At the last percent, charging goes a long way
    slower.
  4. If the battery is at 100%, leave the iPhone or iPad at 60 to 90
    minutes on the charger.

The battery is now recalibrated. It’s that simple!

Improve iPhone battery by careful charging

Li-ion batteries (the kind found in your smartphone) can take quite a bit but with a few changes in how you use your charger, you can often greatly increase the overall life of your battery.

  1. Charge the phone as soon as you have 20% battery life left.
  2. Stop charging when your battery reaches 80%. Charging your phone to 100% is also possible, but make sure the phone is no longer in the charger when 100% is reached.
  3. Discharging below 20% is more harmful than charging above 80%

Important! Always use an original charger. Fake chargers cause permanent damage to your battery and phone.

Since the software update to iOS 13, Apple has incorporated a feature to reduce battery wear. This feature is called “optimized charging” and is enabled by default. The feature does the following: the iPhone learns what your daily charging routine is, so it only charges beyond 80% when you need your iPhone. This means that if you put your iPhone in the charger overnight, it will only continue charging from 80% just before you wake up. This way, you can confidently put your smartphone in the charger before going to sleep.

Review your settings: how can I save my battery as much as possible?

We see often enough that customers unknowingly have apps open in the background that consume huge amounts of battery.

  1. Go to
    Settings
     >
    Battery.
    Here you will see information about your battery usage.
  2. Within this menu, also click on
    Battery condition
    . Here you can see the maximum capacity. If the maximum capacity is below 80%, the battery is often already in need of replacement.Tip! Also check Settings > Screen Time to see if some apps use too much battery.

  1. If you have an iPhone X, XS/XS Max or 11 Pro/Pro Max, you can go to Settings > Display and Brightness, and choose “dark mode. This darkens many elements of your iPhone. With an OLED screen, those black parts of your screen are really off and that takes up less battery.
  2. Turn on power saving and/or dim the brightness of your screen.

With these steps, the phone doesn’t have to work as hard to display an image, so you save just a little more energy!

Replacing your iPhone battery may be the best option

Not all problems can be fixed with the above tips & tricks. Unfortunately, batteries that last for decades do not yet exist, and your phone does need a new battery after about 2 years. Many stores offer this service, but make sure you do so at a store that offers original parts. At ThePhoneLab, for example 😉

  • Click here to make an appointment with us. We’ll replace your battery in less than 30 minutes.
  • You can also call us at: 020 737 29 42
  • Or stop by. Even without an appointment, we can replace your battery (or make other repairs) in no time!