Your laptop had a full charge at the start of the day, but by noon, you're reaching for the outlet to refill the battery. The battery percentage kept dropping even though you didn’t stream anything or run a demanding task. That’s because Windows 11 isn’t sitting idle while you work. In the background, a quiet parade of apps, services, and sync routines run constantly in the background — none of which you ever asked for. The good news is that you can stop most of them.

No matter where you park or how many precautions you take, cars get incredibly hot, especially when left in direct sunlight. Sometimes, you have no choice but to leave your phone baking in the car, but what happens to its battery while you're gone might make you think twice.

You want your phone to last as long as it can on a charge, but you should pause before you swipe away those background apps — closing them might cause your phone to use more power, not less. It's counter-intuitive, I know, but here's why.

Battery-powered tools are now powerful enough to tackle most jobs, with an ever-growing range of options from impact drivers to nail guns and everything in between. These live in your shed or garage when you’re not using them—but this could be a big mistake.

Let's face it, you probably don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about your motherboard. Fair enough; neither do I. But did you know that there's a battery on it that can cause a whole lot of problems when it eventually dies?

Google is rolling out AI-powered Battery usage summaries to Pixel 10 and Pixel 11 phones to help users understand what may be draining battery life.

The post Pixel’s New AI Feature Can Now Explain What’s Draining Your Phone appeared first on TechRepublic.

The 5.3-inch Enough Phone promises Android 17, a removable battery and microSD storage, but the compact smartphone still faces a difficult path to launch.

The post Enough Phone Brings Back the Removable Battery in a Tiny Android Body appeared first on TechRepublic.

Redmi Note 17 Pro and Pro Max pricing varies by country, while the Pro Max adds a larger battery, faster charging, storage, and 4K video.

The post Redmi Note 17 Pro vs Pro Max: Battery, Price and Specs Compared appeared first on TechRepublic.

If you find yourself lost in the woods or adrift in the ocean, a GPS-enabled Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) is certainly a handy thing to have as it will pinpoint your location for rescuers. The one [Steve Jernigan] has is relatively affordable considering it might save your life one day, but it turns out that replacement batteries for the unit are extremely expensive and hard to come by because the manufacturer would rather you send the unit back to them for refurbishment. So naturally, he took it apart and figured out how to do it himself.

His DIY battery pack consists of a small custom PCB and pair of off-the-shelf 6 volt lithium manganese dioxide cells in a 3D printed enclosure that slots into the rear of the McMurdo PLB. In assembly video below, [Steve] shows how the pack goes together and demonstrates the use of a two-part potting compound in an effort to keep the elements at bay.

Before anyone says it — putting a homemade battery pack into a device which one day might be the only thing standing between you and death is probably not a great idea. [Steve] mentions in the description of this project that this is meant for backup purposes, and that you should really spring for a legitimate battery if there’s a chance you might actually need to be rescued at some point.

If you’re interested in battery pack hacking that doesn’t potentially risk life and limb, fixing the one that came with your cordless drill might be a better project to start with.