Many on the eastern seaboard probably kept their cellphones on the charger as much as possible yesterday to ensure it would be fully juiced in preparation for a power outage. With more than 7 million remaining in a blackout after Hurricane Sandy swept through with high winds and massive flooding, keeping cellphones alive in the hours to days it might take for service to return is not impossible if you make some small behavior changes.
The website Quartz has some tips for stretching your battery power:
Use your laptop: You can charge your cellphone through your laptop battery (provided that’s fully juiced too), if you have a cord to connect the two.
Turn off Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and other radios can drain your battery. You can find these off switches in the “settings” section of most phones.
Turn it off completely: As painful as it may sound, if you’re not using it, turn it off. This will help ensure you have the mobile phone for what it was originally created for in the first place: emergencies.
Send texts: When communication is vital, sending a quick text message could take less power than a full on phone conversation.
Charge it in your car: If you or a friend has a car with a cellphone charger that hopefully fits your specific model, then you’re in luck. Turning on the car and plugging in the device could give you an extra boost to get you through.
Also, as much as you might want to snap photos of the damage around you from the storm, consider whipping out your old point -and-shoot camera and using that instead. Having dozens of apps open and running will drain batteries as well. Shut down apps that you don’t need.
by Liz Klimas
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