If you need help navigating unfamiliar streets or want a new shortcut to a place you visit frequently, you have no shortage of options. Waze is a popular app that has many hidden features, and some people claim that the service is better than Google Maps. However, Waze also tends to drain battery faster than other apps, even when running in the background, and these comparative advantages are partly to blame.
In order to offer features like real-time data updates and continuous GPS tracking, which help make the app more accurate than its competitors, Waze needs to send and receive data more often. This exploit requires the app to access several components more frequently, including your phone’s data connection and processor. This near-constant resource consumption requires equally constant power consumption, so unless a device is plugged into an outlet, Waze will draw on the battery’s reserves until they run dry.
Waze’s prodigious resource consumption produces more problems than just the frequent need to connect a power bank. The faster a battery dies, the hotter a device gets, and some users say Waze can consume so much power that their phones become very hot. Not so hot that the device starts to overheat, but hot enough that the built-in battery management systems turn off charging to prevent overheating. Unless you actively cool your phone when using Waze, you may not be able to charge the device fast enough to keep up with its power consumption.
Where there is a will, there is a way (ze)
Mapo/Getty Images
If you can’t stand Waze’s energy consumption, your best bet is to use another app. Simply turn off Waze so the program isn’t running in the background or uninstall it and rely on Google Maps or Apple Maps instead. Waze can’t drain your battery if it’s not on your device. But if you don’t support any other navigation apps, you can still mitigate the power consumption somewhat.
Since much of the battery requirement comes from Waze’s overabundance of features, turning them off can significantly reduce power consumption. Disabling “Background App Refresh” for the Waze app on an iPhone or disabling “Allow background usage” on Android can reduce battery usage when you’re not using the app. You can also extend your battery if you look outside of the app. For example, enabling your phone’s low power mode can limit Waze’s power consumption (as well as the consumption of all other apps). And if that’s still not enough, plugging the phones into external electricity sources like power banks or your car can also charge them while using Waze. Just be careful if you charge your phone in an electric vehicle; these cars also need this energy to move.
While turning off some Waze features should help avoid draining your battery, the app relies on many of them to provide comprehensive traffic information and suggest the quickest route. In the end, you may just have to choose your poison.
