Does a VPN drain your battery? How to solve it

Installing a VPN on your mobile is one of the best ways to protect your Wi-Fi connection, but to what extent can it impact the performance of your device? Some users claim that their VPN It reduces the durability of your battery, and the truth is that having one more application running in the operating system necessarily implies extra battery consumption. However, in most cases it is a very minimal consumption, and can be reduced even further.

Let’s first understand how a VPN works, to what extent it can impact your battery performance, and what measures you have at your disposal to reduce this impact.

When you have a VPN app active, the app takes care of redirecting your traffic through a VPN server and, in the process, encrypts that traffic to protect your information. The application then takes care of three fundamental tasks: redirecting your connection through a VPN server, encrypting the connection to send it securely, and decrypting the incoming information so that you can browse normally from your smartphone.

These three processes require the use of your device’s processor and memory, so logically they will consume a little battery. However, studies show that VPN battery consumption on a typical phone is below 1% for VPNs that are best optimized, and below 5% for VPNs that are least optimized. Additionally, we can manage the VPN carefully to reduce this consumption even further.

Techniques to reduce VPN battery consumption

Depending on the configuration options of your VPN, you will have the option to reduce its consumption so that its impact on your battery is truly minimal. These options include using split tunneling, choosing nearby servers, and manually disconnecting the VPN when we are not using it. Let’s see how each one works:

• Split tunnel. This feature allows the VPN use encryption only in some apps or websites, and not in others. You can activate it to allow certain applications to connect to the internet without encrypting the connection, so that the battery consumption of the VPN will be less because it simply will not have to encrypt and decrypt as much information.
• Server selection. You can also make sure your VPN connects to the server closest to you geographically. Although the encryption consumption will be the same, the connection time will be less, which in turn will reduce the time you will spend browsing and, consequently, the total battery consumption on your smartphone.
• Disabling automatic connection. It is common for VPNs to include an option to connect automatically when you turn on your device. If you don’t need the VPN to be up and running all the time, disable this option. This way, you can manually activate the VPN before you start browsing, although you will have to remember to do so if you don’t want to leave your connection exposed.
• Manual VPN Disconnect. Of course, when you’re done browsing you should disconnect your VPN if you don’t plan to use it for any other apps on the Internet.

background. This option does not usually appear as an automatic feature of VPNs, so you will have to remember to disconnect the VPN manually. Use of more efficient protocols. Finally, you can choose a VPN that incorporates efficient protocols such as WireGuard to consume even less battery. This protocol is one of the fastest and most efficient, so it will consume less battery than older and slower protocols.

You have other methods to extend battery life In addition to optimizing a VPN so that it consumes the least amount of battery possible, you also have other options that can be used to reduce the battery consumption of other apps or to extend the battery from your phone. Some of the main alternatives that you have at your disposal are:

• Close background apps. Make sure to close apps that are consuming your smartphone’s battery in the background whenever you don’t need them. You should never close your antivirus, for example, but if you have games or other apps that you don’t need to be active, you should close them as soon as possible.
• Get an external battery. You can also use an external battery to have a greater amount of energy available. Just make sure you use an appropriate battery in each context. On some airplanes it is not allowed to use batteries larger than 10,000 mAhso choose yours accordingly.

By optimizing the performance of your VPN, reducing the battery consumption of other apps, and getting an external battery to expand the capacity of your smartphone, you will surely notice the difference. You will certainly be able to use your phone for much longer!