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How to save your battery while playing Pokemon Go

Don't let your phone go as dead as a used-up Pikachu.

Alina Bradford CNET Contributor
Alina Bradford has been writing how-tos, tech articles and more for almost two decades. She currently writes for CNET's Smart Home Section, MTVNews' tech section and for Live Science's reference section. Follow her on Twitter.
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Walking around town catching Pokemon can drain your battery. Some players are reporting up to 10% power loss in 20 minutes on some phones, while others are reporting a more conservative 10% to 20% per hour.

Luckily, Pokemon Go has a power-saving mode that's easy to turn on:

  1. Tap on the Pokeball at the bottom of the screen
  2. Tap on the Settings option at the top of the screen
  3. Tick the box beside the Battery Saver option

The power-saving mode doesn't seem to affect game play in any way, so if you want the full experience, but still want to throttle battery use, this is the way to go.

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Other power saving techniques

There's a few other ways to maximize your battery life while trying to catch 'em all. One big battery saver is dimming your screen's brightness. Usually, the screen brightness option can be found in the Display options in your Settings menu.

Another battery saver is turning off the augmented reality (AR) function. This turns off your phone's camera. This means you'll miss out on seeing a Pidgey perched on your car seat, but you will be able to claw back some battery life.

pokemon-go-ar.jpg

Augmented reality is cool, but it's no good for your battery.

Alina Bradford/CNET

To turn off AR:

  1. Find a Pokemon
  2. Target the Pokemon. The AR toggle only shows up when you're targeting it
  3. You'll see the AR toggle in the upper right-hand side of the screen
  4. Slide the toggle to the left

It will stay this way until you find another Pokemon and turn AR mode back on.

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