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Does GPS Drain Your Phone Battery? Here's What We know

By Lokmat Times Desk | Updated: September 24, 2025 18:32 IST

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Smartphones have become an integral part of our daily lives these days. Apart from calling and messaging, we use them for navigation, online payments, social media and many more. Location services are one of the important features that we often use for maps, cab booking, food delivery apps or weather apps. But have you ever wondered how quickly your phone's battery drains due to constantly keeping the location turned on? Let's find out.
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The GPS in your smartphone receives signals from satellites and tells you your exact location. Along with this, it also takes the help of mobile networks and Wi-Fi to make the location fast and accurate. This means that when you keep the location turned on, your phone is constantly connected to the satellites and networks and exchanging data. This process increases the battery consumption to a large extent.
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The amount of battery consumption when you keep the location turned on depends on many things. For example, what apps you're using, how power-efficient your phone's processor is, and how many apps are using GPS in the background.
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If you're constantly using an app like Google Maps for navigation, the battery drain is the most. In such a case, the battery can drop by 6% to 15% in an hour. If location is only running in the background for an app, it uses 1% to 3% of the battery per hour. High-end smartphones have slightly lower battery consumption, because their GPS chips and processors are more power-efficient.
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When you're traveling or in areas with weak networks, the phone has to spend more energy to acquire a GPS signal, which can drain the battery faster. In addition, many apps are secretly using your location in the background, which can cause sudden increases in battery consumption.
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If you want to reduce battery consumption even when location is on, here are some tips that may be useful to you. The first is to only allow apps that need location. Instead of setting location to 'Always On', set it to 'While Using App'. This will only start location when the app is running.
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Finding location using Wi-Fi uses less battery than mobile data. When you don't need location, turn it off.
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Although keeping location on is important for a smartphone, it definitely affects the battery. Therefore, it is best to use location as needed and control app permissions. Doing so will help your phone's battery last longer and the phone's performance will also be better.
Tags: GPSMobile phones
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