4 Useful iPad Battery Automations for the Daily User
I explored Automations for 24 hours to brainstorm 4 useful automations to save your battery and increase charging speed. Here they are.
Introduction
"Alexa, execute Order 66"
"Yes, my lord"
The lights turn red, and from the corner of my bedroom, the ominous Imperial March plays.
Most people who've been to my house have probably experienced this iconic Alexa automation. Even non-Star Wars fans are entertained when they see the scene playing out in front of them.
And that's why I love automations.
For 1 day, I sat down and thought of 4 iPad battery automations I could use with my favorite piece of technology. Here's what I found.
Automation 1: Who Needs a Fast Charger?
This first one is essentially the popular "fast-charger" shortcut but with an extra feature.
For those who don't know, the fast-charger shortcut speeds up charging time by changing settings to minimize power consumption. There isn't really a set fast-charger shortcut - instead, you can customize it based on how efficient you want to be.
If you're willing to risk a few missed calls, for example, you could turn on airplane mode when charging your phone. If you don't want to sacrifice that much, you can just turn on the Reduce Transparency mode.
With an automation, you can automate this process to happen any time you start charging your device.
Note: I don’t know what the issue is, but every time I add an image to a Substack post it is automatically placed at the top of the post. To address this, I’ve made a link for each photo.
Here’s the link for the photo that belongs here: https://ibb.co/wgq5jZj
One concern I had was about the context of different situations where I would charge my iPad. Maybe I'm in the flow while doing my work, and I don't want everything to be turned off.
Thankfully, Apple has a solution. I set the Automation to ask each time before it runs, meaning I can decide what to do based on my situation.
Automation 2: The Anti-Automation 1
But what happens when you no longer need fast-charging? If you're like me, I'm assuming you don't want to look through all the settings of your iPad to get it back to the way it was.
That's where Automation 2 comes in. To "reset" your iPad, you can simply use the reverse automation: execute the opposite of the actions from Automation 1 when the iPad is disconnected from a charger.
Photo: https://ibb.co/tpvkG5w
Automation 3: Low-Power Mode Dominance
Some iPad users (including me) generally prefer to keep their iPads on low power mode. That means that it can be a little annoying when the iPad automatically turns off low power mode at 80%.
With this automation, you can automatically turn low power mode on again to increase your iPad's battery life.
One important thing here is to make sure that both "Ask Before Running" and "Notify When Run" are turned off: otherwise, it can get pretty annoying to deal with this automation.
Photo: https://ibb.co/str2BpW
Automation 4: Sorry Programmers
This last automation probably won't work for everyone. In my case, it happens to save some battery life.
From my use, I tend to use higher brightness when my iPad is in Dark Mode compared to when it's in Light Mode. That's just a personal preference, but it means that I can automate my iPad to automatically enter Light Mode and decrease brightness when my battery is low.
Photo: https://ibb.co/yBCrsqD
Conclusion
Automations are truly fascinating to work with, and it's interesting to see the different possibilities of what you can create. If you have any other useful automations, feel free to comment on this post to discuss your ideas.
Thanks!
Adi