Extending Battery Life

Old devices have old batteries

Older phones have two factors that contribute to poor battery performance. First, as batteries get repeatedly charged and discharged, their capacity slowly decreases. So a phone that has been recharged a few hundred times will perform worse than when it was new. Second, battery density continues to improve with technology advancement so a modern phone will have better performance potential than an older model.

General approach

In general, the idea is to turn off parts of the phone that are not necessary during your ride. By adjusting settings, you can turn off applications and functions so the phone will have more battery power to run ESR for a longer period of time. Don't forget to reset the changes you make to your phone's settings.

Reduce screen brightness or turn your screen off

Mobile devices use backlights or LEDs to create the light shown by their displays. These lights use a large amount of energy, so you should minimize the screen brighness or avoid use of the screen while recording a very long activity.

Airplane mode or Battery Save Mode

GPS is normally enabled in Airplane mode. This is a convenient setting that disables all voice and data radio communication on the phone. In most cases, the GPS capability is still enabled, but there are some considerations to keep in mind. For instance, some Motorola devices disable the GPS in airplane mode so be sure and test this out beforehand. An obvious side effect of this is that the phone will not be able to make or receive calls, texts, tweets, notifications, etc. as long as airplane mode is enabled.

Tip: To save battery, load your Go Ride map before you set off on your ride, move it around to be sure the location area you will be covering is loaded. Then set your device to Airplane mode and you will still be able to see the map and your point on the map. GPS tracking is enabled in Airplane mode but to track your ride correctly, Locations Services do need to be enabled.  

ATTENTION: CRASHLIGHT will not operate in Airplane mode. Technically, CRASHLIGHT will detect the crash but it won't be able to send notifications with your location!

Turn off Data

If you want to be able to receive voice calls, you can turn off data communication and save battery. SMS messages should still work, both sending and receiving. 

ATTENTION: CRASHLIGHT needs data enabled to deliver crash notifications.

Settings >Wireless & Networks >Mobile Networks >Data Enabled.

If you are in airplane mode, the rest of the suggestions involving communication settings will not provide further help. However, if you don't want to use airplane mode, some of the suggestions below can help.

3G or 4G

The faster the mobile network chips get, the more power hungry they become. Even if you're not using any data, variations in signal quality can cause expensive network switching and searching.

If your phone is 3G:

Settings >Wireless & Networks >Mobile Networks >Use only 2G networks

If your phone is 4G:

The settings show up in different places on different devices, so we can only give you some hints for your search. The 4G moniker can also be displayed as Wifi, LTE, etc. The easiest way to find out the steps for your particular phone is to search the web for it. Example: ‘HTC Thunderbolt turn off 4g’

Turn off Data Sync, Bluetooth, Wifi & NFC if you're not using them

Not the biggest savings in the world, but if they serve no purpose you might as well turn them off.

Settings> Wireless & Networks > 

More improvements: clean your house

Android is able to report on what is using the most energy. Check the information in the "Battery use" setting to figure out what is draining your battery and address it by shutting down, adjusting, avoiding, or removing major energy drains. Keep an eye out for applications that run in the background and periodically request network communication.