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Windows 11 Introduces New Energy Saving Mode to Increase Battery Life

The latest Windows 11 insider update brings smarter power saving techniques to the table.

Microsoft is currently testing a new power saving mode for Windows 11 with the aim to improve laptop battery life or potentially desktop power consumption by disabling power-hungry background applications while not actively in use. The new power saving functionality is currently available in Windows 11’s latest Insider Canary build 26002.

The official Windows statement by Windows Insider head Amanda Langowski and senior program manager Brandon LeBlanc reads, “It is an easy way to extend battery life and reduce energy use by trading off some system performance”. At this point its still early into the testing phase, thus we are not certain what kind of performance and battery life impact the new energy saving feature will have.

The below screenshot from Microsoft shows a label that reads “Reduce power consumption and increase battery life by limiting some background activities”. It is not yet clear whether the background activities being limited are adjustable by the user or a blanket rule limiting any activity not currently in use. The label suggests that this improvement is being carried out on the software side as well.

Credit: Microsoft

The technique appears to be very similar to how modern smartphone operating systems extend battery life. In modern Android and IOS devices, background apps and tasks are constantly being kept in check to prevent processes from unnecessarily draining battery life.

Uncontrolled background applications often go unnoticed or are invisible to the user, such as Windows updates, browser tabs, uninterrupted video playback, backup programs and much more. These background applications are the primary cause of accelerated battery drain. Thus, this new Windows 11 feature could stand to make a vast improvement on the battery life of mobile devices running Windows 11. This could affect millions of devices running the operating system, potentially having a major impact on those struggling with a limited battery life.

If you have access to Canary build 26002, you can access Microsoft’s new software-focused energy saver feature by going to the Power section System sub-menu in the Settings app. From there you will be able to activate the energy saver and toggle it to always run no matter what. This feature can also be toggled the in the system tray should you wish to have full performance available for heavy workloads.

 

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