How to Save Your Battery While Playing Pokemon Go

Pokémon Go: much like everyone else, we're obsessed. But like most augmented reality games, they drain your battery. Big time. When we started playing, we watched our battery seriously plummet and within a couple of hours we were needing to charge our phone already...!

Here are some tips to help you be a serious Pokémon master without permanently being connected to a power source. We never saw Ash charge a phone did we!?

Lower Your Screen Brightness, Kill the Volume, and Disable Background Apps

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Start by lowering the brightness of your phone’s screen. In Pokémon Go, you have to keep your screen on the whole time while playing, and that’s where most of your battery drain will come from. In a Wirecutter test, they found that an iPhone 6s at minimum brightness used 54% less battery than at maximum brightness. 

You can also turn down the volume or turn the sound off completely. Also disable apps pulling data in the background - especially if you're streaming music.

And don't forget about the power saving mode within the game too! It's in the settings menu and makes your phone’s screen go dark—not completely off—while still running the game whenever your phone is upside down (like when it’s in your pocket).

Disable Bluetooth and Wi-Fi While You’re Out Playing

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When you have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled on your phone, it’s constantly searching for access points and devices, draining your battery in the process. Your phone is on a never-ending quest to find open Wi-Fi networks, authenticate with those networks, and re-pair with Bluetooth devices you paired with in the past. This can be especially draining when you’re around a lot of places with free Wi-Fi that are all vying for your phone’s attention.

Because you'll be moving around a lot, it's a good idea to stick with only GPS while you play. Disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on your device, and give your GPS priority. 

Minimize In-Game Actions When Your Battery Is Low

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Your phone gets exhausted trying to run these games and it uses up even more battery when you do certain actions in-game that make your phone request more information or process more data. In Pokémon GO, for example, constantly zooming in and out on the map, clicking on gyms in the distance, starting at the cute 3D models of the pokémon you’ve caught, and tapping those models over and over to play their adorable noises will add to your battery drain. 

So, don't do all that extreme zooming, don't check out all those portals in the distance and stop checking up on those damn gyms. 

We totes still want you to have a good time so these tips are just for when you're running really low!