Nintendo Switch Battery Life
The battery life of a Nintendo Switch is a topic near and dear to me since my Switch is our favorite gaming console. We use ours every day and want to maximize our battery life. We want to follow the best practices for a healthy battery life.
No battery lasts forever and after 5 years most start degrading. For the Switch it depends on how much handheld use it gets. The more you use handheld mode, the more use battery is used.
In my experience, it never lasted 6 hours even when new. Our Switch is probably used in the docking station 80% of the time. It’s reached 5 years and the battery still lasts 2.5 hours in handheld mode. Although, I anticipate needing a new battery within a few years.
If you primarily use your Switch in handheld mode then the battery is going to need replaced sooner. It’s just inevitable. Nintendo says a battery starts to degrade after 800 charging cycles.
Of course, not all charging cycles are the same. Batteries can drain to 10% then be charged back to full. Or only drained to 70% then fully charged. Knowing how often to charge your Switch causes less wear and tear on your battery.
How Often to Charge Your Switch
In my experience with Switch batteries, laptop batteries, and phone batteries should be charged whenever they fall below 20%. This isn’t always convenient or possible.
But as a rule of thumb, avoid completely draining a battery. Don’t ignore those low battery warnings. If you can pause the game then let it charge for 20 minutes before finishing Rainbow Road.
Conversely, it isn’t good for a battery to be at 100% all the time either. It’s fine to leave your Switch in the docking station all the time. The circuit’s are smart enough to stop charging when it’s full.
Just don’t worry about having the battery at 100% all the time. It’s fine to leave it in your backpack for a few days as long as it isn’t at 10%.
Batteries still lose power even when your Switch is off. But it shouldn’t completely drain the battery. If you find your battery drained while it’s off, then turn off the internet connection while in sleep mode.
Sleep mode isn’t the same as powering off. Sleep mode shuts off the display but still keeps software running in the background. Whereas power off completely shuts down your Switch.
How to Extend the Life of Your Switch Battery
If you want to extend how long your battery lasts while playing that’s another matter. Extending the overall lifetime of a battery is a matter of:
- Not completely draining your Switch battery regularly is the best way to maximize the life of your battery.
- Not leaving a battery at 100% for more than a week is another way to extend its life.
Extending the life of a battery while using a Switch in handheld mode is a different matter. In that case, extending the life of a Switch battery comes down to reducing the biggest draw on the battery. Those are:
- Display brightness
- Wifi use
- Use headphones
- Lower the resolution
Display Brightness
The largest consumption of power on a Switch battery is the display brightness. Keeping it off the maximum brightness has a noticeable increase on battery life. Sure, lowering the brightness to 10% might add an hour or more to the battery life. But who wants to play at 10% brightness?
Even 50% brightness is annoying. However, 80% brightness is easier on the battery with little impact on gameplay. Less is better, but in reality 70% is about as low as I go.
Wifi Use
The Wifi is the next largest drain on a battery. Turn on airplane mode if you aren’t playing online. If you are playing online then you need wifi.
However, if you’re playing local then there’s no need to drain the battery keeping the wifi signal active. It doesn’t have any impact on local play but you will notice a difference in battery life.
As mentioned before, keeping the internet active while in sleep mode drains the battery. If you don’t want your battery drained while in sleep mode then disable the internet connection while in sleep mode.
Use Headphones
Plugging in headphones instead of using the built in speakers in another way to extend battery life. Turning down the volume is good. But the built in speakers still draw a lot of power. Using headphones are better for your battery.
Lower Resolution
Next, your graphics processor will thank you for turning down the resolution while playing in handheld mode. the graphics processor doesn’t draw too much power. So this doesn’t add as much life as lowering the brightness.
When to Replace a Nintendo Switch Battery
Rechargeable batteries eventually reach the end of their life and need replaced. In my experience, most Li-ion batteries last 3 to 5 years.
The first thing I notice when they start going bad is they don’t hold a charge nearly as long as they used to. It’s usually triggered by draining a battery extremely low.
But it can just happen suddenly. Instead of getting 2.5 hours of play, it only lasts 1 hour. Then after a few charging cycles, even less time. Until the battery barely lasts 20 minutes.
When your battery time drops below 1 hour on a full charge, it’s a sure sign your battery is going bad and should be replaced. Once a battery there isn’t any way to recover it.
While you can see the battery life on the display, there’s no indicator of battery health. You can tell a healthy battery by how long it holds a charge. For a Switch 2 to 3 hours is a healthy battery.
Sure, playing Snipper Clips on 10% brightness lasts 6 hours. However, in the real world 2 hours is good for most games. Only getting 1 hour from an intense game isn’t great but changing some settings can help that.
Best Practices
The life of a Nintendo Switch battery depends on taking good care of it. Most importantly, this involves avoiding completely draining the battery.
Don’t ignore any prompts for you to charge it. Better still, charge it when it gets to 20%. This improves the longevity of any Li-Ion battery.
Keeping the Switch on the charger whenever it’s not in use is fine. But powering off instead of sleep mode when not in use is less wear and tear on the battery.
Turning down the brightness to 70% has the biggest impact on battery life. Other settings help but the display draws the most power.
If your battery is over 3 years old and doesn’t hold a charge more than 1 hour then it should be replaced. Don’t tax an unhealthy battery. Replacement batteries for the Nintendo Switch are affordable and not too difficult to replace.
While the Nintendo Switch battery is a consumable item. Taking good care of it extends it’s longevity and allows you to get the most time playing out of it.
How to Win at Mario Kart 8 Deluxe brought to you by David M.
I’m David M. I’ve been playing video games a long time, my pong game was fire. Now, my kids run circles around me but we always have a good time. We mostly play party and family games. Strategy and battle games are still among my favorites. I like writing about games almost as much as I do playing them. My favorite games are: Moving Out 2, Out of Space and Overcooked All You Can Eat.
