It is quite frustrating to find out that your smartphone is on low battery when you need it most. How to get a phone to charge faster is the title of this article so keep reading to learn on multiple ways to do it.
The only thought that runs across your mind is how you can get it charged up fast. There are different ways you can adopt to load a device within the shortest time possible.
This is especially true when you have to get out to some event and your battery is running low and you won’t be able to charge then.
If you want to know more about charging phones, tablets, and other USB devices, check out these articles:
How to charge your device faster
It’s a common doubt, how to make the phone charge faster.
The increase of battery your phone is getting each second is not constant. It depends on how much charge it’s receiving and how much it’s spending. If you’re playing games on your phone, your battery might not be actually charging. If your phone is receiving 1A and it’s using 1.1A at the same time, your battery level will be reducing. Yes, even if it’s charging.
As I’ll explain better below, a great tip to accelerate the process is to avoid using your phone, especially when it comes to apps that consume more power.
Ways to make your phone charge faster
There are many ways to make your phone charge faster. Even if you just use one or two, your device will fill faster.
Without further due, let’s take a look at our suggested tips:
Lock the phone and let it rest
One of the best ways to keep power consumption at a minimum is to just keep your phone unused.
If you’re using your phone, you’re spending battery; there’s no way around it.
Most of the things you can do with your phone will require screen usage and the screen is a very known source of energy consumption.
While talking on the phone while charging will keep the screen off, it will still use energy and slow down the charging process.
Turn off or reduce the screen brightness
Smartphones spend a considerable amount of energy when their screens are on. This is especially true while using higher brightness levels. And, of course, the bigger the screen, the heavier the consumption.
Reducing the brightness can save some energy. This helps to speed up the charging process.
For best results, lock your phone and leave it unsued so the screen stays off.
Switch on the airplane mode
Airplane mode cuts off the phone’s communications. Radio connections (2G/3G/4G/5G) will be shut down. You will not be able to receive or take calls. The same goes for text messages.
WiFi or mobile data are also off, and the same applies to Bluetooth.
That means that your apps running in the background will have very limited activity. For example, your apps won’t be able to get new notifications or even updates. This state of inactivity reduces energy usage.
All you need to do is access the particular airplane mode toggle button via the settings app and confirm whether there is a plane icon showing on the notification bar.
Switching on the airplane mode stops all active connections, which saves a lot of power.
Do away with apps that consume much power
At this point, it’s probably clear to you that apps will also consume part of the energy. But not all apps consume the same. While you don’t know how much they consume, you can easily detect which of them is the most power-hungry.
As a rule, video games and everything that has a video (especially high definition) will consume the most energy.
It becomes worse if you use power angry apps while the phone is charging since there can be more power discharge compared with the amount that is charging. In some cases, even while charging the battery will be losing power.
Leave your device intact without disturbance and allow it to load without usage. It boosts the charging speed.
Look for a good charging cable
This is often a forgotten matter.
Your phone might be able to support fast charging speeds. And your charger might be able to provide them. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be getting fast charging speeds.
Why? The cable that connects them has to be able to provide an adequate charge. Otherwise, your charge will be considerably far from the optimal charge speed.
Bear in mind that a longer cable might be more versatile but will diminish charging speed. When you need to charge faster opt for quality cables which are shorter.
If you’re charging your phone with the original charger and cable you should be fine.
Utilize the battery saving mode
Modern phones have a battery saving mode that limits the apps background activity. Normally, battery saving modes are switched off as soon as you start charging.
But that doesn’t mean they don’t help. While your equipment is not charging the power saving mode will help you to reduce power usage and make your battery charge last longer. By the time you reach your charger, you’ll have higher battery levels than otherwise.
Use your wall socket, not a PC
If you’re in a hurry to get your phone charged, don’t fill it on a computer’s USB port. Unless you know they can provide high amperages, also avoid ports available on laptops or car stereos.
Your computer ports may have low output levels (0.5 A). This is not fast charging.
The best way to quickly energize your phone is by connecting its charger to the wall socket with a high specification charger. Charging from the wall socket provides maximum charging rates.
Maintain an optimal temperature and battery health
Did you know that your pieces of equipment will not energize so quickly when they heat up? This is to prevent damage. Excessive temperature reduces the lifespan of batteries.
As much as you would want to fast charge your gear, you cannot achieve this unless you have a healthy battery. Therefore, do not leave the battery to drain past 20% since it takes a lot of energy to charge a flat battery. Once the battery is full, take it off from the power and safely keep your charger.
The rubber or silicone case that you use to protect your phone is advisable. It can mean the difference between breaking your screen’s phone or keeping it intact. But it helps to build up heat.
Therefore, to achieve optimum conditions, ensure you note the following;
- Remove the covering before you connect the device to its charger;
- Keep it away from direct sunlight or any heat sources;
- Avoid using power demanding while charging (for best results, avoid using it).
Because the charge rate of a battery can be reduced if it gets too hot, keeping it cool will help to fill faster.
I’m trying not to repeat myself but, again, it’s great if you can avoid using your phone.
For more information, check out an awesome article about avoiding your battery getting hot.
Get a fast charger (or use QuickCharge)
The sort of charger that you use has a significant impact on the power that you feed your phone with. That’s why you cannot ignore to check the ratings. A typical phone charger has a 2.4 Amp rating or higher.
You might be wondering if it is dangerous to use a tablet charger (3 Amp rating with an output of 10 Watts) to charge your device. Well, it is not dangerous since phones will only receive the charge they can withstand.
If your phone has QuickCharge or similar technology and you need to replenish it fast, use it. As you can read in our article on fast charging, this technology allows the battery to charge a lot faster than with previous technologies.
This technology has the most effect when the battery is below 50%, which is right when you need it.
Shutdown the phone
A lot of smartphone users believe that their phones charge much faster when they are inactive. Well, there are quite a lot of things in the tech world that people assume to be accurate. But sometimes that’s not completely true. Does your phone charge faster when it’s off? Read on to know the answer.
Switching off your phone naturally stops all activity and power consumption. The major downside is that you will get no calls, no messages or any other notifications.
Rather than power being used for other purposes, your phone is dedicated to ensuring a faster-charging response. If turning the phone off seems hard, you can choose to turn off its screen to reduce the level of power discharge.
Does your phone charge faster when it’s off?
If you’re charging your smartphone and playing games at the same time, the answer is yes. Definitely, your smartphone will charge faster if you shut it down.
But, more realistically, your smartphone’s battery will not lose a significant amount of power when it is idling. In fact, when it’s at idle, power consumption will be minimal.
Some of the aspects like maximum screen brightness, wireless connections, an active screen, music player, and poor network reception can significantly drain your battery. Surfing the web, watching videos or playing games will consume power.
But if your smartphone is lying on the table without active input on your part, power consumption will be very low.
Therefore, you might expect your smartphone to lose some charge through these aspects despite being plugged to a charger, and the only way out is to switch it off. That consumption is so low that, in my opinion, it nearly as it makes no difference.
Should you turn it off?
If you want to charge your device fully and don’t intend to use it for an hour or more and you feel like it, go ahead.
Otherwise, keep it on. Being idle (and locked) the phone will use very low energy.
And remember that starting your phone is a power-intensive task that spends some energy.
Again, it’s really not much in the grand scheme of things but the same can be said about the gains in shutting down your phone.
It makes less difference as technology evolves
Nowadays our phones have quick charging or fast charging technologies that weren’t mainstream a few years ago. Let’s use an example to make it simpler.
Take a phone that when idling consumes 150mA. (Don’t worry, it will actually use less power than that).
- Imagine that an old smartphone would be able to charge at 1A (that’s 1.000mA). That means it was using 15% of the energy received and adding 85% of the energy received.
- Now imagine a modern phone which gets 3A (yes, 3.000mA). It’s now using about 5% of that energy and adding almost 95% of the energy input.
As you can see, in modern phones it nearly as makes no difference.
You need to understand that the level of charging is different depending on the current battery level. For a flat cell, it might take quite long to raise the power from 0% to 20%. From that point, you might experience a fast charge until 80 %, which takes pretty long to reach a full charge. After 80% the charging rate is usually slowed down progressively as it gets closer to 100%.
Therefore, I try to keep my phone between 20% and 80%.
Charging fast in other situations
In different moments you might have different circumstances.
Let’s take a look at charging faster in other situations.
How to charge phone faster on laptop
Like I said before, your computer’s USB ports provide low charging rates. But if you really need to replenish your device that way, there are a few things you can do.
Additionally to everything that’s been said before, use the shortest cable you can get hold of. And avoid actively using your phone at all costs.
This might seem a little extreme. But the power you’re phone will receive in this situation is so little that it’s really important to cut back on power usage as much as possible.
A short charging cable really is important. These are my best tips on how to charge a phone faster on a laptop.
How to charge a tablet fast
You might be wondering how to charge a tablet fast. In general, the same rules apply. Let’s see their differences.
The most obvious difference is the screen size. Tablets are considerably larger than a smartphone, despite some modern phones featuring screens bigger than 6-inch.
Usually, the bigger the device, the bigger the battery. That’s usually the case with tablets.
What does this mean?
On the one hand, a bigger screen will use more power when active. On the other hand, a bigger battery takes longer to be topped up.
That means that a tablet can take considerably more time to charge. And as you know by now, it will be even longer if you’re using it actively while charging.
How fast is my phone charging?
Knowing how fast your phone is charging can be quite inconclusive, right? We can all make a guess if the phone is charging fast. But even better would be to have an app that would return an estimated figure.
Android users can get Ampere. That app will tell you the discharge or charge rate at each moment. That allows you to compare data.
It might not be the most precise way but it’s the best way to know how fast is my phone charging. And a lot better than guessing.
Wrap-up on How to charge Android faster (applies to iPhone, too)
Now you know how to charge Android faster. The same principles apply to iPhones.
And it’s not only smartphones but the same also goes for tablets and powerbanks. In some ways, these can also be applicable to Bluetooth headphones, sport bands and other smaller devices that benefit from USB charging, although these generally have lower charging rates.
A smartphone in this day and age is a device that we need to be always operational and at our disposal. My great advice is to avoid your charge going low.
If your charge level never goes low, you’ll have less urgency and need for fast chargings. You’ll also have less chance of your phone draining out its battery and going off on you. For that reason, take advantage of more frequent partial charges.
If you’re at the office finishing typing a report, get the phone charging. While you work it will be silently recovering energy. If you’re taking a bath, connect the phone to the charger. Your phone will be charging for some minutes. You won’t need it in your bath, right?
All of us have moments in our daily lives where we can put our phone aside for a few minutes. In many of those situations, you couldn’t use your phone. So take the time to charge it then, instead of only doing it when your battery is already going low and you have to go off to dinner with your family or friends.
I hope these great tips help you to charge faster.
If you want to know how much power your phone is drawing from your charger, there’s a tool you can use, the MakerHawk USB 3.0 Power Meter. It’s also available with USB C port.
Click the image to check the price on Amazon now!
Do you use any of these tricks to charge your device faster? Want to share a better way? I’d love to read your comment below.
