Maximizing battery life on your device

[ProDigit]

This is a quick guide for those who are looking to maximize battery life on their book reading devices.
Most of it is common sense.

In my case, I'm using an Amazon Kindle Oasis; but many devices have similar settings.
I'll try to organize them in order of importance:

1. Disable wireless connections
   Just (down)load books and literature on your device, while the device being plugged in the power adapter. For an e-ink device, the wireless and indexing, is using up most of your battery, so do it while plugged in.
   After your device has downloaded all books into the memory, use either 'airplane mode' or disable wifi. Also disable Bluetooth, when you don't need it.
   
2. Dim screen light
   To get the correct display brightness setting according to studies done, your screen should be slightly brighter than your surrounding. Turning up brightness too much may be nicer to look at in the short term, but will tire out the eyes quickly in the long run, and can cause eye wear.
   On most e-ink devices, setting the back or front light to 'off' would be good enough.
   Especially when reading in outside light, save your eyes, and set the reader to 'night mode' if it supports it (white text on a black background).
   Screen light should be used in dim to no surround light only, and not too bright. Aside from burning your eyes, it will burn your battery too.
   
   If you are reading on a tablet, more than often, the darkest backlight setting is good enough for most indoor use.
   Unlike with e-ink devices, the lighter it gets outside, the brighter the backlight has to be set.
   
   Certain tablets allow for further dimming of the screen than the factory minimum.
   
   The Apple Ipad has a 50% dim in one of their zoom filters natively built in the OS. The procedure is found here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=285069
   
   Windows devices can install an app called dimscreen, found here: https://dimscreen.jaleco.com/
   
   Android devices can find an app called Screen dimmer, found here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...rand.brightcom
   
3. Turn off touch screen
   Some devices, like the Kindle Oasis, have page turn buttons. Since most E-ink devices use almost no power at all, aside from the wireless connections, and the screen light, the touch screen is the third heaviest battery eater on your device. If your device supports it, turn off the touch screen will save you battery.
   
4. Remove external memory cards
   If your device supports SD or Micro SD cards, you can further save battery by loading the books on internal memory only, and remove the (micro)SD card. The internal drive is 'always on' or always powered, but any external drives are only powered when they are connected. You can save a few more minutes to hours of battery life, by not using external cards.
   In case of a small internal memory space, this might mean to decrease your library (eg: by removing books that you already read, or aren't going to read anytime soon).
   
5. Focus on text based books, as much as possible
   Ebooks come in all formats and sizes.
   text files (.txt) are the easiest on internal memory, battery usage and CPU processing power.
   They do not always present well on an E-ink device, since the text does not have any sort of formatting.
   Ebooks like .mobi, .lrf, .epub, etc... are compressed HTML pages. They require little more CPU, but have nice formatting available, that makes it easy to read, and probably the best tradeoff between formats.
   Try to read books in formats that your reader or device natively supports.
   Many tablets support many formats, but for instance, Kindle formats, need to be read with a Kindle reader app program, that might be less efficient, battery wise.
   
   If there's no other way to get a book in a txt, html (epub, mobi, lrf) or doc format, reading books created by jpg or tiff files, or reading PDF files, require most processing power of your device.
   While possible to read them, these formats do require significantly more CPU power, and thus, consume more battery life as well....
   
   And lastly, audio/video books.
   Some ebook readers don't support this feat,because audio books, and video books are very CPU intensive.
   Try reading text-based books preferably. Picture based books second. And Audio/video based books last, if you want to save battery.
   
6. Unplug/disconnect as much hardware and software as possible
   Unplugging things like headphones, cameras, and disabling background services that are not necessary (like other tabs with programs running, Whispersync, and other company related feedback settings).
   
7. Disable dictionaries, underlining of popular texts
   You could further save a few seconds of battery life, by disabling the dictionary, and disabling the feat of seeing popular marked sentences in books.
   Generally this does almost nothing, however, sometimes when marking text on screen, the dictionary loads up; which can be prevented.
   

I'm sure there are more things

[Wearever]

Thanks, for the tips to save battery life. I just turn off Wireless, the rest wouldn't work out for me and my reading habits. I like the screen at a certain brightness, I like looking up words and highlighting things. It's all part of enjoying my reading experience. I guess I would rather use up the battery and just have to charge it more. I have noticed the battery drains quicker on my Oasis 2 , but still I wouldn't want to change my reading habits because of it.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

This is a quick guide for those who are looking to maximize battery life on their book reading devices.
Most of it is common sense.

In my case, I'm using an Amazon Kindle Oasis; but many devices have similar settings.
I'll try to organize them in order of importance:

1. Disable wireless connections
   Just (down)load books and literature on your device, while the device being plugged in the power adapter. For an e-ink device, the wireless and indexing, is using up most of your battery, so do it while plugged in.
   After your device has downloaded all books into the memory, use either 'airplane mode' or disable wifi. Also disable Bluetooth, when you don't need it.
   
2. Dim screen light
   To get the correct display brightness setting according to studies done, your screen should be slightly brighter than your surrounding. Turning up brightness too much may be nicer to look at in the short term, but will tire out the eyes quickly in the long run, and can cause eye wear.
   On most e-ink devices, setting the back or front light to 'off' would be good enough.
   Especially when reading in outside light, save your eyes, and set the reader to 'night mode' if it supports it (white text on a black background).
   Screen light should be used in dim to no surround light only, and not too bright. Aside from burning your eyes, it will burn your battery too.
   
   If you are reading on a tablet, more than often, the darkest backlight setting is good enough for most indoor use.
   Unlike with e-ink devices, the lighter it gets outside, the brighter the backlight has to be set.
   
   Certain tablets allow for further dimming of the screen than the factory minimum.
   
   The Apple Ipad has a 50% dim in one of their zoom filters natively built in the OS. The procedure is found here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=285069
   
   Windows devices can install an app called dimscreen, found here: https://dimscreen.jaleco.com/
   
   Android devices can find an app called Screen dimmer, found here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...rand.brightcom
   
3. Turn off touch screen
   Some devices, like the Kindle Oasis, have page turn buttons. Since most E-ink devices use almost no power at all, aside from the wireless connections, and the screen light, the touch screen is the third heaviest battery eater on your device. If your device supports it, turn off the touch screen will save you battery.
   
4. Remove external memory cards
   If your device supports SD or Micro SD cards, you can further save battery by loading the books on internal memory only, and remove the (micro)SD card. The internal drive is 'always on' or always powered, but any external drives are only powered when they are connected. You can save a few more minutes to hours of battery life, by not using external cards.
   In case of a small internal memory space, this might mean to decrease your library (eg: by removing books that you already read, or aren't going to read anytime soon).
   
5. Focus on text based books, as much as possible
   Ebooks come in all formats and sizes.
   text files (.txt) are the easiest on internal memory, battery usage and CPU processing power.
   They do not always present well on an E-ink device, since the text does not have any sort of formatting.
   Ebooks like .mobi, .lrf, .epub, etc... are compressed HTML pages. They require little more CPU, but have nice formatting available, that makes it easy to read, and probably the best tradeoff between formats.
   Try to read books in formats that your reader or device natively supports.
   Many tablets support many formats, but for instance, Kindle formats, need to be read with a Kindle reader app program, that might be less efficient, battery wise.
   
   If there's no other way to get a book in a txt, html (epub, mobi, lrf) or doc format, reading books created by jpg or tiff files, or reading PDF files, require most processing power of your device.
   While possible to read them, these formats do require significantly more CPU power, and thus, consume more battery life as well....
   
   And lastly, audio/video books.
   Some ebook readers don't support this feat,because audio books, and video books are very CPU intensive.
   Try reading text-based books preferably. Picture based books second. And Audio/video based books last, if you want to save battery.
   
6. Unplug/disconnect as much hardware and software as possible
   Unplugging things like headphones, cameras, and disabling background services that are not necessary (like other tabs with programs running, Whispersync, and other company related feedback settings).
   
7. Disable dictionaries, underlining of popular texts
   You could further save a few seconds of battery life, by disabling the dictionary, and disabling the feat of seeing popular marked sentences in books.
   Generally this does almost nothing, however, sometimes when marking text on screen, the dictionary loads up; which can be prevented.
   

I'm sure there are more things

1. Buy a new reader
   Turning of wifi is all well and good. But once you start disabling SD cards, touch screen and dictionaries, perhaps it's time to put that horse out to pasture.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Wearever

Thanks, for the tips to save battery life. I just turn off Wireless, the rest wouldn't work out for me and my reading habits. I like the screen at a certain brightness, I like looking up words and highlighting things. It's all part of enjoying my reading experience. I guess I would rather use up the battery and just have to charge it more. I have noticed the battery drains quicker on my Oasis 2 , but still I wouldn't want to change my reading habits because of it.

Turning off wireless has a dramatic effect on battery life, all the rest listed have a negligible effect unless brightness is turned up really high.

[Deskisamess]

I may be strange, but I pay little attention to the battery life of my e-ink readers. I only shut off the WiFi when I'm traveling or leaving the house with the device. I set the screen light the way I need it, and the same goes for the font size etc. I have no desire to shut off the touch screen on my Oasis. I rarely use the buttons, their clicking bugs me.

I use my Oasis every day, I may pick it up 15-20 or more times per day. I may read a few pages, or a few chapters, then out it down. If I want to send a book to the device, I don't want to have to dink with airplane mode. If I send books from my Amazon account, I want to wake the device up, and have them delivered, with no extra messing in the Settings.

I do change font and line spacing settings as needed, my vision fluctuates at times from neurological issues, so there is no ONE setting that always works for me.

My iDevices are in use daily also, and I also don't change their settings either, unless traveling. Even then, most of the places I take them have WiFi, and I want the device to connect once I'm there.

We have several multi-port chargers set up in our home. When a device needs charged, I plug it in. The only time I pay more attention to the battery life is after I send multiple books to the Oasis, to make sure no books are stuck indexing.

[Wearever]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Turning off wireless has a dramatic effect on battery life, all the rest listed have a negligible effect unless brightness is turned up really high.

Right, wireless and a bright screen is another battery drain. I use middle range and wouldn't want it any lower, it wouldn't be comfortable for me to read on. Everyone is different.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

I may be strange, but I pay little attention to the battery life of my e-ink readers. I only shut off the WiFi when I'm traveling or leaving the house with the device. I set the screen light the way I need it, and the same goes for the font size etc. I have no desire to shut off the touch screen on my Oasis. I rarely use the buttons, their clicking bugs me.

Not that strange. I never pay attention either. One of the benefits of e-ink is the extended battery life.

For the most part plugging it in to Calibre to shuffle books every couple of days/weeks is enough that I've never run the battery down.

I do turn off wifi on my reader, but that's because I have my Kobo patched to hell and gone and don't want a new O/S update to come through and wipe 'em all out.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Turning off wireless has a dramatic effect on battery life, all the rest listed have a negligible effect unless brightness is turned up really high.

Actually, on my Oasis 2, when I turned brightness down to 8 instead of 12-14 I more than doubled the battery life. Lowering the brightness had more of an effect for me than turning off wireless did.

Shari

[ProDigit]

I generally put the wireless off, screen brightness 0 to 4.
Despite the low power profile of ebook readers, i'm quite disillusioned in Amazon, that their kindle has compensated low power profile, with lower battery capacity
It results in a cheaper device, yet sold more than twice as expensive as competing devices out there... With the oasis you pay for the design, I guess...

Anyway, I do disable touch screen, but only for reading books. I do like the buttons more than the touch screen. Hate swiping,because of finger smudges, and comfort.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

I generally put the wireless off, screen brightness 0 to 4.
Despite the low power profile of ebook readers, i'm quite disillusioned in Amazon, that their kindle has compensated low power profile, with lower battery capacity
It results in a cheaper device, yet sold more than twice as expensive as competing devices out there... With the oasis you pay for the design, I guess...

Anyway, I do disable touch screen, but only for reading books. I do like the buttons more than the touch screen. Hate swiping,because of finger smudges, and comfort.

Aside from the original Oasis (which was criticized for it), Kindles have batteries that last weeks to a month. How much more do you want?

[ProDigit]

I was quite happy with my Paperwhite, only after I was able to completely disable the screen light.

[sjfan]

Originally Posted by shalym

Actually, on my Oasis 2, when I turned brightness down to 8 instead of 12-14 I more than doubled the battery life.

Brightness and wireless are reasonable adjustments that can have a real impact. Taking out the micro SD card to extend battery life, though, is like taking the head rests out of your car to improve gas mileage. Technically there's a theoretical impact, but you're way past the point of diminishing returns by then, especially on the cost-per-value curve.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Aside from the original Oasis (which was criticized for it), Kindles have batteries that last weeks to a month. How much more do you want?

A few people with Oasis 2 have been having to recharge after only a few days for multiple cycles.

[pwalker8]

In general, a battery not holding a charge is a good sign it's time to replace the battery (or device if the battery is not easily replaceable). Batteries do wear out. I've got a mophie for my iPhone 7 plus. When I first got the mophie, it typically still had a charge at the end of the day, my internal iPhone battery was never being used. Now it gives out by mid afternoon. Time to order a new Mophie.

In general, turning off the wifi and bluetooth are the biggest power savings. Battery technology is improving in leaps and bounds. If you have battery problems that are bad enough that you have to really worry about, then maybe look at updating your reading device.

[ProDigit]

I'm sure we soon will see services charging of up to $80, to replace an Oasis battery.
Maybe by that time, the Oasis got so much flame, that it's price dropped to $160; so you'd be left with refurbishing your device for $80, or getting a new one for perhaps a few bucks more.
I expect my Oasis to last me 12 years.
In reality, it'll probably die within the first 2 to 3 years of use.