So what is this miraculous approach to extending cell phone battery life I mentioned in the title? It's actually pretty simple. Make sure you stay within range of a cell tower at all times!! Ahhh, I can already hear some of the thoughts in your heads... "Well, what if that is simply not possible Mr. know-it-all?" "I live out in the country where my phone goes in and out of coverage all the time - do you expect me to re-locate or petition XYZ carrier to build a closer tower?" "What if I take a lot of back-roads when driving to avoid traffic and sometimes I drop calls, go into roaming, or lose service - do you expect me to sit in traffic jams on the major highways just so I don't have to plug my phone in every night?" My answer is, obviously, of course not, but there is something you can do to increase your coverage. If you can't be close to a cell tower at all times then make your phone think it is close to a cell tower at all times. The easiest way to do this is with a cell phone signal booster - also known as a cell phone signal amplifier or repeater.
A cell phone signal booster works by extending the cell tower's reach by capturing a weak signal outside a home, car, boat, RV, etc., amplifying it, and then re-broadcasting to the inside of a home, car, boat RV, etc. There are many different types of boosters for many different applications and they will not only increase your cell phone's battery life, but also reduce the frequency of dropped calls, improve voice clarity and ramp up your data speeds. You might be asking "so how exactly will a booster help improve my battery life? My phone shows 1 bar, so I'm not using up a lot of power searching for signal, and I know that boosters cannot boost a signal that is not present to begin with, like in complete dead zones, so I'll just turn my phone off in these situations." Well, you're partly right. Please read on for an explanation.
A lot of you probably already know that cell phones use a lot of power when searching for signal, but what a lot of you may not know is that a cell phone with 4 or 5 bars will actually use much less power than an identical phone with 1 or 2 bars situated further from the tower. This is because the formula that determines how many bars are displayed on your phone is also used to calibrate and set the transmit power of the phone. For example, it takes much more power to throw a football 60 yards than it does to throw one 10 yards. It makes no sense to waste your strength and throw a 60 yard pass when your receiver is only 10 yards away. Cell phones work in the same manner - they are constantly updating their transmit power based on their signal strength and distance from the closest tower in order to save their metaphorical throwing arms, or battery life. With cell phone signal booster amplifying both the incoming and outgoing signals, your phone can adjust itself to use a lower transmit power, thus increasing battery life. What is the point of having a WIRELESS cell phone if you have to keep it on the charger while at home just to keep it from dying on you? For more information on cell phone signal boosters please see the author resource box for this article.
Common sense tells you that the quickest way to drain a cell phone battery is to actually use the phone to make calls, surf the web, check email, and send SMS/MMS messages right? If you said yes, ding ding ding, you are correct (aside from actually removing the battery and placing a load on it to drain it quickly on purpose). So what is the second biggest battery drainer? When it has to search for signal. Go ahead and turn on your Bluetooth, IR, push notifications, Wi-Fi, etc. - they will not drain a battery faster than when it is out of range of a cell tower. If you don't believe me, set up your own experiment and try it sometime. As many of you have probably experienced, if you forget to turn off your cell phone in a cell "dead zone" the battery appears to drain as fast as if you were actually using the phone the entire time.