How To Maximize Your HTC One M8’s Battery Life [tips]

BreakingModern — Like all powerful smartphones, the HTC One M8 needs some decent battery juice. You’ll want to manage battery life so you get the most out of your device between charges. Here’s how.

HTC Extreme Power Saving mode battery lifeThe Power Saver Feature

One of the first things to do with your HTC One M8 is turn on Power Saving mode, a cool feature that’s built in.

Find it by heading to Settings > Power and flipping the switch to On. With Power Saver turned on, I am able to get through most of my workday. However, every user’s experience will vary depending on what they do with the phone.

Then there’s Extreme Power Saving mode (EPS). Turning this on gives you just the most-basic bare-bones interface, and only the most-essential apps and processes will run in the background. Most Android functions won’t be accessible in EPS mode. To get out of it and return to normal functions, tap the Exit button at the lower right of the screen. If you’ve been using your HTC One all day and don’t have a charger handy, EPS mode might just save the day.

Disable Location Services HTC One battery lifeDisable Location-Based Services

While the Power Saving mode does a great job at optimizing battery life overall, you might want to manage some of the other settings manually. Here’s a look at some individual settings and features that you can configure to get more life out of your HTC One’s battery. The personalized services you get based on location is very useful, especially when traveling. However, they are not always needed throughout your daily activities, so it’s helpful to turn them off as GPS navigation can be a serious battery eater. So I recommend only using these services when you need them. To manage your location services, go to Settings > Location and then, either turn it off or an alternative is to tap Mode and put it in a different mode to lower the battery usage — as shown in the image to the left.

Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Settings battery lifeTurn Off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi When Not in Use

Bluetooth offers some amazing functions when you’re using Bluetooth devices, like a wireless speaker system for example, but when you’re not using it, there’s no reason to keep it on because it’s a serious battery drainer. To disable Bluetooth when you’re not using it, go to Settings > Bluetooth and turn it off. In that same section, you can turn Wi-Fi off as well, which is a good idea while in your car or other location where you don’t need a connection. Turning Wi-Fi off will stop it from trying to find and connect to hotspots and save some juice.

App Useage History battery lifeKill Battery-Wasting Apps and Features

If you’ve noticed that your smartphone’s battery life has become shorter since installing a new app, you can check and see if you’re right. Go to Settings > Power > Battery Usage to get a history of apps that are using up a lot of your phone’s battery juice.

You can tap a hogging app and force-close it, as it’s likely having a battery issue that isn’t solved by closing it the normal way. This screen also gives you additional information, like the amount of time the app has been used, the CPU and battery energy it’s taking and more.

Flipboard Daydream on HTC One M8 battery life

Another thing to manage is the Daydream feature.

It’s a cool way to see information from the likes of Flipboard when the screen times out, but it can eat up extra battery if you don’t have it set up properly.

To make sure it’s set to only run when plugged in, go to Settings > Display & Gestures > Daydream. There you can select the type of content you want to show when the screen times out.

Then make sure the Daydream app isn’t set to run if it’s not charging or docked. Using animated backgrounds on your HTC One M8 is a neat feature that impresses friends when showing off your phone, but these types of wallpapers shouldn’t be left on all day as they drain a lot of juice. After you show them off to friends, go back to a static background. There’s plenty of live wallpapers you can find in Google Play Store. To change wallpapers back and forth go to Settings > Personalize > Choose Wallpaper.

Lower Brightness battery lifeLower Display Brightness

Lowering the brightness level of the screen is a simple way to eke out more battery juice for the day. To adjust levels go to Settings > Display & Gestures > Brightness then uncheck Automatic Brightness and move the Brightness Level slider to a lower level.

You’ll want to select a level that’s not so low that you have trouble seeing, but somewhere in the middle. This is a good setting to lower when you’re watching a video or playing a game.

HTC One Screen Timeout battery lifeMake the Screen Timeout Faster

Having a blank screen more often is a good way to save battery power. The HTC One M8 is set to two minutes by default. But you can make it timeout even faster. Go to Settings > Display & Gestures > Screen timeout.

There you have the M8 timeout after 15 seconds, all the way up to one hour. Just remember the less the phone is displaying, the more energy it’s saving.

These are just a few tips and suggestions on how you can help save extra battery life on your HTC One M8 throughout the day.

Do you have some other tips or suggestions that you have found to work well? Leave a comment and tell us about it. For BMod, I’m . Follow me @mysticgeek and via my +BrianBurgess page on Google.

All screenshots:

Disclaimer: HTC and aNewDomain Media co-produce this site, and its editors and writers are paid accordingly.

Brian Burgess

Author: Brian Burgess

Based in rural Minnesota, Brian Burgess covers tech for BreakingModern. Follow him on Google at +BrianBurgess and on Twitter at @mysticgeek.

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