Smartphones are getting more powerful which means there are more things they can do, plus the graphics make it hard for us to stop playing games or watching videos on the damn things.  The only downside is, with all this extra power and functionality, even if the battery gets bigger, it seems like your smartphone never has enough juice to last you the whole day.

Even if you leave the house with 100 percent battery, there’s a good chance that you’ll be coming home with just enough juice to get to your charger without it dying, or more likely it’s already died halfway through your day.

Is the device’s battery at fault?  Are we using our devices too much?  Or are there just things on going on with our devices that we ignore which could be draining our batteries?

For those using iOS 7, here are some battery saving tips to help your device last the day, and hopefully prevent you from missing some very important calls:

WiFi, 4G and Bluetooth

If you’re sitting around at home and you have a WiFi connection, the easiest way to save on juice is to just turn off your cellular data so your device completely relies on WiFi for internet connectivity.  Though WiFi also drains your battery, you can just set it to connect to only trusted connections, like your home WiFi, so it won’t be constantly searching for other available WiFis.  If you’re not using AirDrop and Bluetooth, just turn them off.  You can easily turn them back on in the Control Center if you need it.  If you leave it on, it will keep looking for devices to connect to and that drains your battery.

Go to Settings > WiFi then turn off Ask to Join Networks.  This will allow your device to connect to familiar, trusted WiFi networks.  To turn off cellular data, go to Settings > Cellular then turn off cellular data.  If you want to stick to using cellular data but don’t want it to drain your battery that much, then leave cellular data on but just disable LTE/4G. Though that would make things slower, at least it won’t drain your battery faster.

You can also limit which apps use location services by going to Settings > Privacy > Location Services.  You can choose to disable location services for all apps, of just choose which apps you want it to be turned on.

Notifications, Updates and Background App Refresh

Though you want some of your apps to constantly notify, you don’t need all of them to be always on the edge and waiting for the next update.  The new multitasking feature looks cool but did you know that it’s constantly refreshing to deliver you updated information?  That just drains your battery’s juice.

To turn off background app updates, go to Settings > iTunes & App Store, scroll down to see Automatic Downloads, at the bottom turn off Updates.  This would allow you to update apps manually, and you do that by going to the App Store and checking for updates.

For background app refresh, go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh then choose which apps you want the feature turned off or turn it off for all the apps.

Not all apps need push notification either, so go to Settings > Notification Center, go to the Include section and choose the apps you want the feature turned on.  Or instead of push notification, you can choose to fetch notification.  Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts and Calendar > Fetch New Data and choose whether to do that every 15,  30 minutes, hourly or do it manually.

Siri, Brightness and Parallax

Do you often use Siri?  If not, you can turn off Siri’s ‘raise to speak’ feature by going to Settings > General > Siri > Raise to Speak then turning it off.  If you need Siri, you can just hold down the Home button until Siri pops up so turning ‘raise to speak’ off isn’t really that big of a deal.

Setting the device’s display to its brightest setting quickly drains battery.  So just set it halfway or just a quarter from the dimmest setting.  Also, turn off auto-brightness.  To do so, go to Settings > Wallpapers & Brightness where you will see the brightness adjustment bar and the auto-brightness option.  Slide the brightness adjustment bar to a setting comfortable for eyes in any lighting condition so you probably need to go into different rooms and even outside to get the right brightness.  Then just turn off the auto-brightness feature.

Parallax seems like a character from Dr. Seuss and it does sounds interesting and it makes your device look cool with all the effects, but also drains your battery.  So go to Settings > General > Accessibility then look for for the Reduce Motion option and turn it on.

Li-ion battery care

The above tips are meant for iOS 7, but there are some things you can do to take care of your battery, on any brand of device.

First off, you should remember that your device uses a Lithium-ion battery.  Unlike Nickel-based batteries from the past which you need to charge full then drain to zero before charging to keep the battery from deteriorating, Li-ion batteries don’t.  To take care of Li-ion batteries, you don’t need to drain it, but instead whenever you get the chance, you should try to top it up, which means charging it.

To “train” your battery, some advise charging it just to about 80 percent full, unplugging it, and when it reaches 40 percent, charge it again.  Then once a month, charge it to a full 100 percent, then use it until it dies, then charge it to 100 percent again.  Then go back to your previous routine.

Most of us charge our devices when we go to sleep and we often leave it plugged on all night.  This is quite dangerous as you have probably heard of chargers and devices exploding while being plugged, so don’t leave your device and charger plugged when not needed.

Still, chargers these days are quite smart.  When your device reaches 100 percent, it stops charging your device and allows it to drain some of the juice.  When it reaches a certain level, it starts charging again.  This feature prevents overcharging of the battery.

Temperature plays a huge role in keeping your battery from deteriorating.  At an average temperature of 32ºF, a Li-ion battery loses six percent of its maximum capacity each year.  At 77ºF, it loses 20 percent and at 105ºF it loses 35 percent.  So keep your device cool by not leaving it inside your car.

Also, though wireless charging is cool, it does not help your battery life as it produces waste heat which damages the battery in the long run.

See more iPhone Battery tips and news in a full collection of SiliconAngle Smart + Connected Devices stories on our Springpad channel.