5 Ways to Improve Your Battery Life While Playing Pokemon Go on Android

Pokemon GO is a phenomenon that has lured hordes of players out of their houses to capture, battle and train the cartoon characters in real-world environments. This app uses your phone’s GPS to detect where your location in the game, allowing you to catch Pokemon through your phone’s screen, which appears around you in the real world.

Since it requires you to always have the screen on, along with the GPS tracking and data enabled, it ends up being a huge drain on your battery. Niantic Developers is aware of the issues and they’re looking for solutions, but in the meantime, here are the best ways to extend battery life on your Android device and allow you to enjoy Pokemon Go for hours.

1. Enable Battery Safe Mode

This game has a built-in Battery Saver mode that is designed to dim your screen and slow the refresh rate while you’re walking. It works really well as long as you remember to use it. When this mode is enabled, the game will dim your phone’s screen when you point the top of your phone towards the ground (e.g. like you would do when holding the phone down at your side while walking) and you will get vibration notifications when a Pokemon pops up on screen for you to catch.

To enable Battery Saver, tap ‘Poke Ball’ at the bottom of the screen, then go to ‘Settings’ in the upper right corner and turn on ‘Battery Saver’.

2. Turn Off Augmented Reality (AR) Feature

The Augmented Reality (AR) that lets you see a Pokemon on the sidewalk in front of you is really cool, but if you want to save battery life and catch Pokemon a little easier, it’s better to just turn this feature off.

You can turn off AR by hitting the AR switch in the upper right corner of the screen when you encounter a Pokemon.

3. Reduce Screen Brightness

This is one of the best ways to save battery life in general, not only for playing Pokemon Go. The only downside is turning down the brightness may make it harder to see what’s happening on the screen, especially if you’re playing outside in direct sunlight.

On Android, you can pull down the Quick Settings by swiping down from the top menu bar with two fingers and then adjusting the brightness slider or by going to Settings > Display >Brightness level and adjusting from there.

4. Turn Off Music and Sound Effects

You can also conserve power by turning off all the music and sound effects. These things eat up a little bit of battery life that adds up over the course of a play session. To turn them off, tap the ‘Poke Ball’ and go to the ‘Settings’ menu then uncheck ‘Music’ and ‘Sound Effects’.

5. Get a Battery Pack

If you’re often going out and hunting down Pokemon for hours, then investing in a portable battery pack might be your best bet. It can make sure that your phone doesn’t die just as you are about to capture the Pokemon you’ve been hunting for hours. This may be the easiest way to ensure that you can get hours of fun out of the app before being forced to head back to home and recharge your phone. All battery packs are not made equal, so be sure to do your homework before purchasing one