Your battery indicator. Probably the most boring aspect of any smartphone. In fact, I bet the only time you notice it is when you’re phone reaches 15%. For most of us, our battery icons do not do a good job in showing just how much juice is left in our phone.
Sure, you can toggle an actual battery percentage to appear in your notification bar, but that takes up valuable space. And if you have the percentage displayed in the icon itself, the number is no readable at a glance. Haven’t you always wanted a freaking glowing bar at the top of your screen so you could always tell your battery level at a glance? No? Well finish the review, and I bet you’ll want one.
Haven’t you always wanted a freaking glowing bar at the top of your screen so you could always see your battery level at a glance? No? Well, finish this review, and I bet you’ll want one.
Setup
Before we take a dive into the Energy Bar app, let’s take a second to discuss the super straightforward setup. The app is free to download, and once you have it installed, you just need to enable it in the app. It will also take you to the Accessibility menu of your phone where you will also need to enable Energy Bar.
Experience
So what is Energy Bar all about? Its description calls it a pulsating energy bar, which sounds like the most annoying thing you could ever experience. But let me assure you that it is far from annoying.
Once enabled, it appears as a glowing bar across the top of your screen. As your phone’s battery diminishes, the bar moves to indicate how much charge is remaining. While it does not give any precise numbers, the bar does provide the easiest way to check your battery with a glance.
From my experience using Energy Bar, I found that it was quicker for me to tell how much battery was left using this rather than the stock battery indicator. How many times have you needed to know your exact battery percentage anyway?
When you are charging your device, you will also get a nice animation with segments of the bar being added as long as you have your device plugged in.
In the Energy Bar app, you will find several options for customizing the bar. First, you can choose between Normal Bar and Status Bar. The latter will replace your notification bar with the Energy Bar for a unique look. If you stick with Normal Bar, you can then decide how thick you want it to be.
You can also change the origin of the bar if you would like it to begin in the middle or right of your screen. The one setting I highly recommend selecting it to Auto Hide the bar for fullscreen apps. This way, any time you are using an app that takes up the entire screen of your phone, the Energy Bar will disappear along with the notification bar.
Under Color Configuration, you can let your creativity flow and change the color of your battery bar. You can separate the bar into segments of different colors so that once your battery passes a certain percent, the bar changes colors, too. This option makes seeing your battery percentage with a quick glance even easier.
If you would rather have your bar move as a gradient from one color to the next as your phone loses battery, you can select that option instead.
Here comes my biggest complaint with Energy Bar. While the most important settings like Auto Hide on fullscreen and bar thickness are included with the free version, more advanced settings like Status Bar mode and Gradient bar color are only usable after you pay. Unlocking all the features will cost you a whopping $1.99.
Final Thoughts
For many, I imagine the free version of Energy Bar will be enough. But those of you looking for more creative freedom might have pause when it comes time to pay. Â I personally stuck with the free version, but $1.99 isn’t a bad price to pay for an app like this. The paid version is ad-free, as well. Energy Bar adds an extra level of convenience to your phone as I believe all customization apps should, and I recommended it with the highest of praise.
Get your glow on!
