Restore factory
Unfortunately, you cannot use the power button in this case to restore the phone. However, you can still use the ‘Backup and Reset’ feature available under Settings that will automatically restore the phone to its original factory reset. Although there is a catch. The might reboot after the process is over but there are chances that some mobiles of different makes and models won’t switch on unless the use long presses the power button and in such case, if the power button is broken, you won’t be able to restart the device.
It is imperative to know what you could do if the power button is not working at least temporarily. Here, there are three cases depending upon which we have prescribed the possible ways that you can utilize.
Case 01: Phone is turned ON and the screen is alive
Here are a few ways you can use a phone with a broken or damaged power button.
Elongate screen alive duration
This is the explicit duration that the phone’s screen will stay alive without any stimuli. The maximum duration that you can set on Vertex on any other Android smartphone is 30 minutes which means you can do your work or anything but remember to tap on the screen at least once every half an hour.
Use fingerprint scanner
The aforesaid method is effective but requires you to constantly provide stimuli when needed. However, if your phone has a fingerprint scanner, use it for good. Almost all the smartphones have FPS now so you can simply tap on the sensor to unlock the phone no matter if the phone was not in use for hours. The only giveaway is that the phone must be at least switched on before you’ll need a power button to restart the phone if its battery drains out even when on standby.
Enable double tap lock/unlock
Yes, most smartphones have it while others can enable this feature by downloading third-party apps available on Play Store that enables a user to simply double tap on the screen to either unlock the phone or lock it up. Again, this is an effective solution to power button not working problem.
Set up alarms
If you think that you can’t stay on your phone whilst in a meeting or lecture or while driving, etc, you can set up alarms on a specific time when the alarms will go off bumping up the screen and hey, there you have it. Since the screen is lit, your facial recognition or pattern, PIN, password, etc to unlock the phone and there you have it.
Scheduled On/Off
This particular method allows users to use his/her phone whilst saving a chunk of battery life that otherwise will be spent lighting up the screen for hours on end. You can schedule switch off in the night when you can’t expect using a phone whilst sleeping and schedule it to turn on in the morning. This will save a lot of battery every day while also refresh the phone since you are actually giving it a rest during the night by rebooting it.
Case 02: Phone is turned OFF but the screen is OFF
I would recommend you to use the methods mentioned in ‘Case 01’ and combine it with the ‘Case 02’ to get a few methods to use in hand in every possible scenario.
Ask someone to call/text you
You want to call or text someone but as soon as you pick your phone to unlock it, you realize that the power button is not working. In this case, you can actually arrange a call or text from a spare phone or borrow someone else’s phone to ring. This will light up the screen and that is when you can configure it to use in both ‘Case 01’ and ‘Case 02’.
Scheduled On/Off
This is actually the same as in ‘Case 01’ although I mentioned it here to signify that it works in this scenario too.
Case 03: Phone is switched off
Well, there’s not a lot of things that you can do if the phone is switched off since the power button is required to switch on the device. If you have USB debugging mode enabled beforehand, you can use PC Suite or ADB & Fastboot Tool to switch on the phone after connecting it to a computer.
What to do if the hardware is to be blamed?
Check if there’s any debris or dirt
Note that not every smartphone has a power key that allows the user to see or glance from a small opening or slit across the key. But if your phone has it, you can use it to check if there’s any debris stuck or not. You can try to pluck out the dirt using a needle or anything sharper or smaller than it and that must do the job for now.
You remember how the power button on your phone responded when you bought it. You know how tactile it is so you can use the same to check if there’s something wrong with the device or not. Here, you need to press the key and listen to its click and a slight wobble means there’s something wrong with the button itself.
Fortunately, the Google Play Store simply has tonnes of apps that you can use to mimic a power button if it’s broken but again, it only works if the phone’s screen is working right now.
Gravity Screen
As said, this app works with a gravity sensor on your phone. There are a number of orientations that you can select instructing the phone whether to turn on the screen or not or stay locked such as when in the pocket or on a table.
Proximity Actions
This particular app that the features that you’ll get with Gravity Screen, a step further. You can actually do a lot then just locking and unlocking the phone and that is all you can configuration by yourself in the Settings.
The name of this application is pretty self-explanatory. This particular app switched the functionality of a broken power button to a working volume button either as per your choice or it set it by default. Anyhow, if you are looking forward to using it, remember that the phone must be at least switched on to install and use it unless you have it pre-installed for any reason.
What is the final resort?
It is possible that you haven’t found the root cause of the issue yet. In such cases, it is difficult to use any of the methods prescribed above blatantly just to see whether it fixes the problem or not. The final resort that we recommend is to report to an authorized or partnered service center and get the power button not working problem fixed right away. Since a broken power key can simply render the phone useless at some time if not now, it is crucial to fixing it.
