Android
How to Fix Bad LG V30 Battery Life
The dual camera LG V30 has a lot to offer along with pretty decent battery life, but it’s not perfect. Even with fast and wireless charging, some users are experiencing LG V30 battery life problems. If that’s you, here are over 10 tips to improve battery life and enjoy your phone to the fullest.
This is the first LG V-series phone that doesn’t have a removable battery. Instead, LG delivered water-resistance and wireless charging. So while you can’t swap out a full battery, you can make software changes for a better experience.
Read: 20 Best LG V30 Cases
With a 6-inch OLED screen and a big 3,300 mAh battery, the V30 is on par with most other flagship smartphones. And while that’s enough for most it can always be better. These are some settings to change, steps to take, and options to consider to make your phone last as long as possible.
How to Fix Bad LG V30 Battery Life
LG phones are extremely customizable with multiple options, controls, and settings that you can change for an improved experience. They also come with a slew of features you might not use, which could hurt battery life. We’ll go over what to change, how to disable features, or what you need to know so you can find what’s causing battery life problems.
Reboot Your LG V30 to Fix Battery Life
First things first, a quick and simple reboot is probably the best tip we can give you. There are many different things that can cause your battery to drain faster than expected. Sometimes the easiest way to fix things or stop a problem is by rebooting the phone.
This sounds like a silly recommendation, but you’d be amazed how many minor problems get fixed by turning a phone off and back on, or hitting reboot. Try that first, then continue on for more information.
Find Apps Eating Up Your Battery
The other big problem is random apps that misbehave. You’ll want to find these before it’s too late and before your battery is dead. If you want to fix your bad V30 battery life, keep an eye on running apps in the settings menu.
Read: 10 Neat Things the LG V30 Can Do
It doesn’t matter if these apps come pre-installed or it’s something you downloaded from the Google Play Store. Sometimes apps just don’t work right, or don’t work well with new phones at first. Typically updates fix any issues.
If you use an application a lot, it’s going to drain your battery. At the same time, some situations occur where an app uses an abnormal amount, and that’s what we’re trying to avoid.
Go to Settings > General > Battery & Power saving > Battery Usage and look for apps draining too much juice, or anything near the top of the list.
You should see Android System, Screen, or Android OS near the top of the Battery Usage menu. If something else is at the top, an app, that’s a problem. Click the app and select “Force Stop” or uninstall the app to prevent further problems. If this is something you use often try reinstalling it or contacting the developer on Google Play.
Lower the Screen Resolution
The LG V30 has a big and beautiful 6-inch 2k 2560 x 1440 Quad-HD display. It’s stunning to look at, but do we really need a higher resolution than most HDTV’s in our homes? Samsung phones come running at 1080p out of the box, instead of the full Quad-HD they’re capable of.
And while this sounds silly to some, you’ll never notice the difference. Head into Settings > Display > Screen resolution and lower it to 1080p and enjoy the same great experience along with a bump to battery life.
Disable the Always-On Display
A feature most love about LG phones is the Always-On display. The small clock, date, notifications and battery meter on the screen at all times, even after you turn off the screen. This is the customizable always-on display.
LG has this feature turned off when you get the phone, but if you’re like most you probably quickly turned it on. The Always-On display shouldn’t use more than a few percentages of battery after an 8-hour day, but every little bit helps. Turn it off if your phone isn’t lasting as long as expected.
Head into Settings > Display > and scroll down to Always-On Display and switch the toggle to off. Now your screen will go completely black and turn off 100% when you’re done using it, which could improve battery life.
Screen Brightness & Sleep Time
Most users check their phone over 140 times a day, usually just to see the time or check a notification. The Always-On display cuts down on those 140 power-ups, so it might actually improve battery life. Try with it on and off and see what works best. Then, adjust the screen brightness and something called the Sleep Timer.
Make sure you hit the power/sleep fingerprint scanner button when you’re done using the phone, so the screen isn’t just turned on for no reason when you’re done using it. Most people just set the phone down when they’re done, and the screen stays on for a few minutes wasting battery. Turn it off when you’re done, and keep an eye on your screen brightness too.
Alternatively, you can adjust how long it stays on when it’s not in use. This is the Sleep Timer and something that makes a big difference for battery life.
Head into Settings > Display > Screen Timeout and set it to 30 seconds or less. This way every time you set the phone down the screen turns off within 30 seconds instead of 1 or 5 minutes.
Use a Black Wallpaper
This isn’t for everyone, but using a Black wallpaper will improve battery life too. This is because LG’s new OLED display technology in the V30. OLED screens are very efficient and display black colors easily. Pixels don’t need to turn on individually — or as high — to display a black image. As a result, a black image saves battery life.
After you’ve downloaded a nice wallpaper long-press a blank area of the screen and go into Wallpapers to apply it. This only helps a bit, but combine it with all of our tips and you’ll see good results.
WiFi, 4G LTE, Bluetooth & GPS
Again, every little bit helps when we use our phones for 8-10 hours a day, or more. With that said, if you aren’t using WiFi or Bluetooth, turn them off. Using WiFi is better on your battery, but if you aren’t connected it will search non-stop for a WiFi connection, and slowly drain the battery.
Another reason we run out of battery too fast is GPS. Whether that’s Google Maps or Facebook Messenger trying to find your location. Disabling what uses GPS can add a few hours to your battery life.
Head into settings and tap the magnifying glass. Type “Location” then enter location settings and change the mode to battery saver mode. GPS isn’t as accurate, but you’ll notice an increase in battery life.
Turn Off LG V30 Features You Don’t Need
Another option is turning off some of the many features LG added that you’ll never use. Things like KnockON where you double tap to wake up the screen, a screen saver, to the floating shortcut bar that replaced the second screen on the LG V20.
Head into Settings > Display > Advanced Features and turn some of these off. Or navigate to Settings > General > Floating bar and turn that off too. A lot of these are neat, but not necessary and take up battery for no reason.
LG Smart Settings
Before you try battery saver modes or anything too crazy, check out “Smart Settings” on the LG V30. This feature makes battery-saving changes after it learns your habits, then turns things like WiFi on or off for you. All based on your location or usage habits. Which results in nothing for you to do, but enjoy a long-lasting device. A lot of apps offer something similar, but LG has its own built right into the V30.
There are multiple profiles to choose from, and each one is completely customizable. Take a few minutes to look through this and apply any that sound useful. Another option is Snapdragon BatteryGuru. It does the same thing, only it’s more aggressive.
Battery Saver Modes
As a last resort, try some of the LG V30 battery saver modes and profiles. These “save battery by reducing performance and restricting features and apps that run in the background”. Basically, these modes lower the brightness, kill apps faster so you can’t multitask, and lowers how fast the processor is inside.
However, LG has a big list of exclusions too. This means you can take full advantage of battery saver modes, but exclude certain apps or activities from it so you still enjoy your phone completely. It will limit everything but what you want, so you get good battery life without consequences.
Other Battery Tips & Tricks
At the end of the day, battery life always comes down to how you use your phone. Some are heavy users, some aren’t. Another app worth checking out is BetteryBatteryStats. This program shows you what apps use what, and will highlight potential problems. It’s a pretty powerful app that will give you more insight into your usage habits.
Then, once Android 8.0 Oreo arrives we can expect even more improvements to performance, battery life, and more.
Read: How to Enable Full-Screen Apps on the LG V30
Another quick tip is to use Airplane mode. When you don’t need the “smart” aspects of your phone, or even need to make phone calls, turn on Airplane mode. This setting turns off all data, radios, services and more and most phones can last 4-5 days with it enabled. Or, try restarting your LG V30 every week or so to give the system a fresh start and flush everything out. I’ve noticed this helps with performance and battery life with almost any smartphone.
While you’re here, check out this list of the best LG V30 screen protectors. Then stay tuned for more battery-saving tips in the near future.
