It’s frustrating when your phone starts getting hot and the battery drains faster than usual. A hot phone with fast battery drain can be caused by several issues – from faulty apps to problems with your phone’s hardware. Here are the most common reasons why your phone may be overheating and losing battery quickly, plus tips to fix the problem.
Reasons Why Your Phone is Getting Hot and Losing Battery Fast
There are several potential culprits that could be causing your phone to get hot and drain its battery quickly:
Using Resource-Intensive Apps
Apps that use a lot of processing power like 3D games, video editors, and graphics-heavy social media apps put a strain on your phone’s CPU and GPU. This extra work generated heat and drains more battery. If you’ve recently installed a new power-hungry app and notice your phone getting hot, it’s likely the culprit.
Bright Display Settings
Having your display brightness set to maximum, especially when displaying lighter colors, can make the phone work harder and get hotter. Check your display settings and turn down the brightness to see if that helps cool your phone down.
Background App Activity
Apps running tasks in the background can gradually drain your battery without you realizing it. Things like syncing data, downloading updates, tracking location, and refreshing content in the background use CPU and network resources. Disable background activity for apps you don’t need constantly running.
Weak Cell Signal
If you’re in an area with poor cell reception, your phone has to work harder to stay connected to the mobile network. This extra effort generates excess heat and drains the battery faster. Move to a location with stronger signal, enable Airplane Mode for a while, or turn on Low Power Mode to limit background activity.
Charging Issues
Problems with the charger, charging cable, or charging port can prevent your phone battery from charging properly. This may lead to faster than normal battery drain. Try replacing your charging accessories. Debris in the charging port may prevent good contact.
Extreme Temperatures
Heat is the enemy of lithium-ion batteries. Using your phone in very hot or cold environments, direct sunlight, or even just while fast charging can cause the battery to get hotter than normal. Avoid exposing your phone to temperature extremes when possible.
Old Battery
As phone batteries chemically age after hundreds of charge cycles, they lose capacity and efficiency. An older battery will drain faster and is more likely to overheat, especially when performing demanding tasks. Replacing an old battery can often fix heat and battery drain issues.
Software Updates
Major iOS or Android OS updates can sometimes inadvertently introduce bugs that cause increased battery drain or overheating. Updating your apps after a major OS update may help fix these issues. Restarting your phone or performing a factory reset as a last resort can also clear out any glitches.
Too Many Apps Open
Having many apps and browser tabs running simultaneously, especially graphically intense ones, makes your phone work harder, heats up the device, and drains battery faster. Close apps you aren’t using and limit how many are running in the background.
Faulty Apps
Apps that are coded poorly, have memory leaks, or get stuck in infinite loops can drastically overheat phones and cause fast battery drain. If you notice the problem starts after installing an app, it may be defective. Try uninstalling and reinstalling the suspect app.
Indexing After iOS Update
After updating your iPhone to a new version of iOS, your device may experience higher than normal battery drain and heat for 24-48 hours as it reindexes files and re-optimizes apps for the new OS. This indexing period is temporary.
Charging Port Issues
Problems like broken pins, accumulated debris, or even moisture in the charging port can block proper contact between the charger and phone. This can lead to slow uneven charging and excess heat. Clean the port thoroughly or get it repaired.
Damaged Battery
Physical damage to a lithium-ion battery from dropping, bending, water exposure, etc. can cause internal shorts and reaction abnormalities that generate excess heat. Replacing a damaged battery should resolve overheating problems.
How to Keep Your Phone from Overheating and Draining Battery
If your phone is running hot and the battery is draining quickly, here are some troubleshooting tips you can try to cool it down and improve battery life:
Close Unnecessary Apps
Double tap the Home button to bring up the multitasking view and close any apps you aren’t actively using. This frees up RAM and CPU resources.
Disable Background App Refresh
Turn off Background App Refresh for apps that don’t need to actively sync data in the background. This prevents unnecessary activity.
Reduce Display Brightness
Lower your display brightness below 50% to reduce GPU and battery strain. Auto-Brightness can also help optimize brightness for current conditions.
Turn Off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
If you don’t need internet access or Bluetooth connectivity, turning them off conserves battery. You can quickly toggle them in Control Center.
Disable Unneeded Location Services
Limit location access to only apps that absolutely require your location info. Constant GPS and cell triangulation drains battery.
Force Close Suspect Apps
If a particular app seems to be overheating your phone, force close it by swiping it away in the multitasking view. Reinstall it to fix issues.
Update or Reinstall Defective Apps
Check for app updates and install them. Reinstall apps completely if updates don’t help. This resolves most problems caused by apps.
Restart Your Phone
If closing apps doesn’t help, restart your phone, especially after installing new apps. This clears out any memory issues.
Check for OS Updates
Install latest OS updates, which often fix bugs causing battery drain and overheating issues.
Disable Widgets
Widgets constantly refresh data, so limit them to essential ones only to save battery life and CPU usage.
Use Airplane Mode Temporarily
Switch on Airplane mode for a while to isolate if heavy network usage is causing your phone to overheat and lose battery quickly.
Avoid Charging in Extreme Heat
Don’t charge your phone in very hot areas like under direct sunlight as heat degrades battery quicker. Charging also heats up phone.
Replace Old Battery
If your battery capacity is below 80% of original, replacing battery will restore normal battery life and reduce overheating.
Reset All Settings
Resetting all settings (not erasing content) clears out system glitches causing overheating and fast battery drain as a last resort.
Clean Charging Port
Carefully clean out your phone’s charging port to remove any debris preventing proper charger contact and charging.
When to Be Concerned About Overheating
Occasional overheating when doing demanding tasks is normal for smartphones. But consistent overheating even during light use, along with unexpected battery drain could indicate a bigger underlying problem.
Here are some scenarios when you should be concerned about overheating issues:
- Phone gets hot even when screen is off and no apps running
- Overheating occurs while charging
- Hot areas are concentrated near camera or at back center of phone
- Phone gets too hot to comfortably hold
- Phone turns off by itself due to overheating
- You get a temperature warning message
- Battery drains from 100% to zero in just a few hours
- Battery life has diminished significantly
Excessive overheating that persists could potentially damage phone components like the battery. Contact technical support if troubleshooting doesn’t resolve the overheating problem.
Conclusion
It’s normal for phones to occasionally get warm, but consistent overheating and fast battery drain indicates an underlying issue. Identifying battery-draining apps, updating software, removing debris from ports, replacing damaged batteries are common fixes. If overheating persists, the phone may require service to identify and resolve hardware defects causing the problem. With proper troubleshooting and maintenance, you can get your overheating phone back to working smoothly and lasting all day on a charge.