HOW TO USE IT

Battery saving

What battery saving changes during a session, when it turns on by itself, where to turn it on and off, and what you can do to save battery in a long session.

4 min read

During a session the screen stays on, the microphone listens and the circle is drawn all the time. In a short session the effect on the battery is small; in a twenty-minute session or when the battery is low, you notice it. Battery saving lightens everything else without touching the part of the session that matters to you.

What it changes

While saving is on:

• The sparkles and specks around the circle go away.
• The circle is drawn at a lower frame rate: at most twenty frames a second. The motion may look a little less smooth; the rhythm is the same.
• The room is re-measured less often: every three minutes instead of every minute. We explain why the room is re-measured in a long session in a separate article.
• On iPhone, the Live Activity on the lock screen updates at most once a minute instead of every round.

What it doesn't change

Hearing your breath, counting your exhales, the score, the rhythm haptics and the sounds carry on exactly the same while saving. The screen doesn't dim; brightness and when the screen turns off are in your phone's own settings.

When it turns on by itself

• If the battery is below thirty percent at the start of the session and the device isn't charging. On the Standard and Advanced interfaces a Battery saving switch appears on the last screen before the session, already on; you can turn it off for that session. On the Simple interface there's no switch; saving turns on by itself.
• If the battery drops below twenty percent during the session.
• If the device gets noticeably warm.
• If Low Power Mode is on on your phone (on Android, the device's battery saver).

When it turns on during a session it does so quietly: no warning appears on the screen and the flow of the session isn't interrupted. Once on, saving doesn't turn itself off in the middle of the session because the device has cooled down or Low Power Mode has been turned off, so it doesn't keep switching back and forth.

If you plug the device in, saving turns off. But if you turned it on yourself, or if Low Power Mode or the warmth continues, it stays on. If the battery is still below thirty percent when you unplug after a short charge, saving turns on again.

When you drag the length past ten minutes on the picker, a short note appears saying a long session uses more battery. There's a similar note on the last screen before you start a long session.

Settings

In Settings → Battery:

• Always save battery in sessions: every session starts with saving on, whatever the battery level.
• Turn off saving while charging: on by default. If you turn it off, saving carries on when the device is plugged in too.

Also, if you turn off the Particles on the session screen switch in Settings → Appearance, the sparkles don't appear in any session, whether saving is on or not.

In the report

On the Standard interface, if saving turned on during the session, the report has a single line saying so: whether it was on from the start, or in which round it turned on. On the Advanced interface the report's Battery section shows the battery percentage at the start and end of the session, how much of the battery the session used, when and why saving turned on and off, and how warm the device got during the session. On the Simple interface these lines aren't there. The rest of the report is in the reading the report article.

Saving battery in a long session

• Charge the device before a long session, or do the session while it's charging. While charging, saving turns off by itself; if you want it to stay on, turn off Turn off saving while charging.
• If the battery is already low, turn on your phone's Low Power Mode: the rest of the phone uses less, and Soluklan switches to saving too.
• Turn the screen brightness down to the lowest level you can comfortably read. Because the screen stays on throughout the session, brightness takes a noticeable share of the battery.
• If you don't want the sparkles at all, turn off Particles on the session screen.
• Don't use the device while it's warming up in a hot place, in the sun or inside a case. A warm device uses more battery and also turns saving on.

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