The internet of things (IoT) is prominently used in the present world. Although it has vast potential in several applications, it has several challenges in the real-world. One of the most important challenges is conservation of battery life in devices used throughout IoT networks. Since many IoT devices are not rechargeable, several steps to conserve the battery life of an IoT network can be taken using the early prediction of battery life. In this study, a machine learning based model implementing a random forest regression algorithm is used to predict the battery life of IoT devices. The proposed model is experimented on ‘Beach Water Quality – Automated Sensors’ data set generated from sensors in an IoT network from the city of Chicago, USA. Several pre-processing techniques like normalisation, transformation and dimensionality reduction are used in this model. The proposed model achieved a 97% predictive accuracy. The results obtained proved that the proposed model performs better than other state-of-art regression algorithms in preserving the battery life of IoT devices. © The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020