How to Optimize Battery Life in Field Service Tablets and Phones

The sudden death of a field service tablet or phone is at best inconvenient and inefficient. At worst, it may cost your business a customer. Fortunately, you have a best friend in the rechargeable lithium-ion battery, a marvel of the cell-phone age.

Educate your workforce on good battery charging practices and replace myths with facts. Your field service mobile phones and tablet batteries should provide daily full-shift service and last as long as two years.

Adjust device settings to conserve battery life:

• Recharge daily. (See below for facts about charging lithium-ion batteries.)
• Set screen brightness at the lowest level you can tolerate. Second best: set it at auto-brightness.
• Set a short screen timeout (on an iPhone, see Settings/General/Auto-Lock)
• Turn off Bluetooth when you aren’t using it. (Swipe up (iOS) or down (Android) to toggle
• Close background apps (iOS double tap the Home button, Android tap the multi-task button on bottom right of screen)
• Use a ringtone, not vibrate.
• Turn off non-business notifications. (Facebook, anyone?)
• Reboot the phone every few days.

Be cautious about power-saving strategies that interfere with location services:

• Turning off Wi-Fi will reduce battery use but will also reduce accuracy of location services.
• If your phone has a battery-saving mode, it may reduce accuracy of location services.

Plan ahead, treat your batteries well

• Replace aging batteries before they die on the job. Life expectancy of a battery is about 24 months, half as long if it works around the clock.
• Keep spare batteries on hand.
• Protect batteries from temperatures above 100° and sunlight.
• Wipe terminals clean before charging.

Know the facts about charging lithium-ion batteries.

Unlike nickel batteries, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are remarkably tolerant of charging methods:

• There is no reason to drain the battery before charging.
• There is no need to fully charge each cycle.
• It makes no difference if a charge is fast or slow (within manufacturer’s specs).
• You do not need a first-use 24-hour charge – your device was shipped partially charged.
• It does no harm to leave a fully charged device on a charger

Do you have any advice on mobile devices and battery life? Share your thoughts with our readers.