It's important to consider fast charging when buying a new smartphone or any other electronic gadget that offers such these days. But if you have a smartphone without fast charging support, you'll often bump into apps that promise to improve your device's charging speeds.
Do these fast charging apps work, or is it just a hype to rake in millions of downloads and make money off ads? We'll examine how fast charging apps claim to work to improve your charging speeds and why you probably shouldn't use them.
How Fast Charging Apps Work
Fast charging apps come with a promise of increasing your smartphone's charging speeds. If you search for fast charging on the Google Play Store, you will see a wide range of apps. They are free, and you're probably wondering how they manage to deliver on their massive claims. How do fast charging apps work? Here's what you need to know.
If you thought fast charging apps work by increasing the power input to your device, think again. By their nature, fast charging apps work by disabling several battery-draining functionalities on your smartphone.
These include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, high screen brightness levels, screen rotation, mobile data (or cellular data), and GPS services. Fast charging apps can also switch your device to the older third-generation (3G) or second-generation (2G) mobile networks and kill background apps and services just to cut down on power consumption.
You certainly don't need to have most of these features running all the time in the first place.
The concept behind this is reducing the amount of battery drain while charging your device; your phone will retain more power hence charging a little bit faster.
Just don't expect your device to suddenly start filling up in about an hour, similar to what can be achieved with 25W, 45W, or faster-charging technologies.
Do Fast Charging Apps Work?
Yes, fast charging apps do technically work—but you may not actually notice.
As mentioned above, the rate at which they will increase your device's charging speed is very limited. This is because these apps don't increase the power input to your device—they only turn off different features to cut down on battery drain.
But even if your device doesn't support fast charging, you shouldn't install any of these apps. Here's why.
Why You Shouldn't Use Fast Charging Apps
Now that you know how fast charging apps work, it's evident that you can also turn off some of these features on your own. You don't need an app to disable Wi-Fi, cellular data, and GPS—you can do that by yourself. And that's basically what many of these apps do.
But before doing that, you should find out why your smartphone is charging slowly in the first place. Knowing some of these reasons might give you an idea that's long-lasting and probably will lead to a substantial increase in charging speeds than solely relying on fast charging apps.
Additionally, have a look at the different ways to charge your Android faster. And if you're an iOS user, we have a separate guide with various tips for charging your iPhone faster.
Ditch Fast Charging Apps for Good
You shouldn't install fast charging apps on your device. Fast charging apps don't do anything special to increase your smartphone's charging speeds. Instead, you should be able to do those things by yourself. Turn off mobile data, revert your mobile network to 3G if you need to, disable Wi-Fi and GPS, and turn on Airplane Mode if you must.
You can also just turn your device off while charging. By doing this, you'll achieve similar results, or better.
But even if your smartphone doesn't support fast charging, stay away from overnight charging.