If you’re accustomed to using your cell phone for texts, mapping, weather forecasts, and searches during cold weather hunts, you face a problem. As if cell phone batteries don’t fail fast enough, add cold weather to the regions where your device will constantly try to get service, and battery life plummets. Here are a few tips to keep your cell phone powered up.
Keep the battery warm. I found by storing my phone in my breast pocket that the battery stayed at body temperature and avoided the cold weather drain.- Turn your phone off if you’re in a poor service area. Keep the battery warm and turn it on when you need it or when service is available.
- Use a battery charging device such as the Cyclops unit (shown below). It provides up to five charges, but the cold weather can reduce its efficiency. After forgetting to turn my phone off, I connected the two from my breast pockets and quickly received a charge.
- Cold weather drains camera batteries as well Since I couldn’t put my full-body Nikon in my pocket, I removed the small battery, placed it in my pants pocket and inserted it whenever I planned to shoot. Putting a hand warmer in your camera bag will also help maintain battery strength.
Smartphone rechargers are available from Brunton, which offers a gamut of chargers, from the tiny Bump (with its single charge) all the way through the powerful Resync, which will charge a variety of devices; they’re available from Brunton. The Cyclops will charge a cell phone up to five times, and can be found at the Cyclops website.
