Optimize Battery is a feature of Android 10 smartphones that allows you to decrease the consumption of applications. Here's how it works
Smartphone battery life is one of the biggest dilemmas in the tech world. In recent years, manufacturers have integrated more capacious batteries in the devices, but the autonomy remains the same: one day of use. The reasons are various: more performing components that require more and more energy, more energy-consuming applications and, above all, operating systems that integrate more advanced functions.
Google in recent years has tried to improve Android by integrating tools that allow you to limit battery consumption, but with mixed fortunes. With Android 10, however, there has been a big step forward: the "Battery Optimization" feature is also available for third-party apps. What does this mean? That users can manage based on the use they make of a given app, the consumption on the smartphone. In fact, by enabling Battery Optimization, background usage of the app is limited, allowing the smartphone to consume less battery. Here's how to do it.
What is Battery Optimization
Few people are aware of it, but one of the main problems of battery consumption in Android smartphones are open apps in the background. What does that mean? When you open an app and close it after you're done using it, the app doesn't stop working, but remains active in the background. A practical example is WhatsApp: even if we are not using the app, we receive notifications of new incoming messages and this is only possible because the messaging platform remains active in the background. Like WhatsApp, there are dozens of apps that are always active and slowly drain your phone's battery.
That's why Android developers have introduced the Battery Optimization feature that allows you to block apps that are active in the background and increase battery life.
How Battery Optimization works
Battery Optimization is a feature present in all smartphones with Android 10 installed. By default it is active on all Google apps, but with Android 10 you can also use it for third-party apps (such as WhatsApp). How do I activate Battery Optimization?
The steps we'll explain in the next few lines may change depending on the manufacturer, but in general they are similar on all devices. First you have to open the Settings, press on "Apps and notifications" and then on "Apps with special access". This last item might be present within the "Advanced" section. At this point a new tab will open with many entries: click on "Battery optimization" and you'll have access to the list of all the apps on your smartphone.
For each app you can choose three different levels of Battery Optimization: Smart Control, Optimize and Don't Optimize. In order to consume the battery as little as possible, the advice is to choose the "Optimize" option for all apps that are used less.