1- KEEP YOUR PHONE OUT OF DIRECT SUNLIGHT

This may seem like a no-brainer, but keeping your phone out of direct sunlight will help you avoid an overheated, unusable phone.  Light and heat are captured and retained by your phone instead of reflecting it – meaning that it gets exponentially hotter the longer you leave it in full fun.

2- TAKE OFF YOUR CASE

This may not apply to you, but depending on if you have a case or not and what materials the case is made out of can affect the temperature of your phone.  Your phone is equipped with tiny vents to allow passive cooling, and many custom cases block or cover these vents.  Take it off and let the phone do its job.

3- TURN YOUR BRIGHTNESS DOWN

This little hack is also true for saving your precious battery life. Turning your brightness down won’t make the battery work as hard and will create less heat.  There is also a tonne of anti-glare screens that help your screen be more visible in low or full light environments.

4- CLOSE BACKGROUND APPS

Just like a screen that’s too bright, apps running in the background forces a bigger output from your battery and, as a result, more heat. Make a habit of closing down all apps after use or install an automatic app killer to do the job for you.

5- UPDATE APPS & SOFTWARE

Developers and coders are constantly finding bugs and faults in their code.  That’s why some apps get almost weekly updates, full of bug fixes and patches.  Many of these existing bugs can cause excessive battery use and, therefore, extra battery heat.  Make sure you always have the most up-to-date phone operating system and app updates.

6- AIRPLANE MODE SAVES POWER

The more functions you can disable on your phone when it’s hot, the better.  Cellular radio antenna uses a massive amount of battery. It can cause your phone to heat up, especially in low-signal areas where it is working harder to stay connected with the tower.   Switch to airplane or flight mode can be the difference between a working phone and the dreaded hot brick.

7- KEEP YOUR ENVIRONMENT COOL

Even if you follow every one of these tips exactly, a hot environment or weather can affect the temperature of your phone.  For those of you who live in particularly hot or humid climates, you can do everything wrong but still, get the dreaded overheated warning on your phone.  Especially on hot days in the car with your phone mounted in full sun.  Air-conditioning and the use of fans can help, but if it’s too hot, there’s not much you can do without turning your phone off, putting it in the shade, and giving it a rest.

8- DON’T PUT YOUR PHONE IN THE FREEZER

Sure it sounds like a good idea, but there are a few reasons why putting an overheated phone into a freezer is horrible advice.

Firstly, if you’ve ever put a hot piece of glass into cold water – you’ll know that extreme temperature changes can cause glass and other materials to fracture, crack and break.  Do you really want that for your $1000 smartphone?