Is it bad for the phone? If you're using a knock-off cable that isn't from the manufacturer, or at least "certified" in some way (iPhone Lightning cables should be MFi certified, for example), it could be a problem. Inside is most likely a lithium-ion battery, which is partly responsible for how thin phones have become, as well as how they can last through a day with life to spare. Why so few? Many experts recommend taking a phone out of the case to charge overnight. “In fact, it is better not to fully charge because a high voltage stresses the battery.”. That wears out a lithium-ion battery even faster than normal. Should it go down to zero every time? These trickle charges can lead to higher ambient temperatures for your phone, which can reduce capacity over time. Up to 100%? Mobile phones contain a rechargeable lithium-ion (or li-ion) battery. Plug the phone in before it asks you to enter a low-power mode; iOS will ask you to turn that on when you hit 20% power. Rechargeable batteries are also basically doomed from the start. But if you hang onto your phone for more than a couple of years, resist the urge to charge it overnight, and your battery will retain its capacity that much longer. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our. “So even though the manufacturers try their best to cover this scenario, this process inevitably lowers the capacity of your phone’s battery.”. But that's not always feasible with a complicated protective case. For that reason, many people (myself included) probably charge their phones overnight. What happens when you overcharge a battery? You could use 75% one day, 25% the next, again, that's one cycle. The display of third-party trademarks and trade names on this site does not necessarily indicate any affiliation or the endorsement of PCMag. You can’t overcharge your phone’s battery, so don’t worry about that. If you leave the smartphone plugged in overnight, it is going to use a bit of energy constantly trickling new juice to the battery every time it falls to 99%. Why bother making it easy to swap a battery? By “overcharged”, I mean when they’re plugged into an outlet for charging beyond the time it takes to fully recharge the battery. After an uproar, Apple offered battery replacements for these phones at a discount for a while. But the other part is due to the way we use our phones. There are a lot of questions about cell phone batteries. Phone batteries measure their lifespan in "charge cycles." Over time, the materials inside are simply going to hold less and less power. You should also keep your phone cool, as higher temperatures accelerate the loss of battery capacity. If you've got an older iPhone still in use and wonder why it's only got a charge for a few hours compared to the almost full day (or two) you got when it was new, that's why. Capacity diminishes over time. The battery is not alone in hating heat: all the internals of any smartphone dislike warmth. We’re often lucky to get through the day without our phones losing all their juice. Extra protection chips inside make sure that can't happen in a tablet or smartphone or even a laptop. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. In the summer, keep it off the dash of the car, preferably in the shade. So why do lithium-ion batteries not seem to last as long as they age? An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. All those activities eat up a single charge, causing our phone batteries to run out of gas, often sooner than expected. With cold, repeatedly charging a smartphone in sub-freezing temps can create a permanent "plating of metallic lithium" on the battery anode, according to BatteryUniversity. The concept is that if you leave your phone on the charger for a while after it hits 100 percent, it will keep pumping in the current and that will reduce the capacity of the battery or even cause it to catch fire. That is eating into your phone's lifespan (see below). https://www.pcmag.com/news/charging-your-phone-overnight-battery-myths-debunked, The Ultimate Guide to Health and Fitness Tech, How Do Bots Buy Up Graphics Cards? Get 1 year for just $15. Leave your black screened smartphone sitting in the sun as you laze by the pool someday, and don't be surprised when it throws a warning that it needs to cool off. Even if you do use the phone all the way to auto-shutdown, that may not mean the battery is actually at 0%. The debate goes well beyond the worry of moderate harm to a device, as some people have fears of "overloading" a smartphone battery. For example, when the battery reaches 100%, the protection hardware inside the phone will stop current from coming in and the charger will turn off.”. Keep the phone battery charge between 30-80% to increase its lifespan. © 1996-2021 Ziff Davis, LLC. Batteries are on borrowed time from the get-go. | Wirecutter Your iPhone Overnight Shortens Its Battery Life Every mobile phone battery’s capacity diminishes after 500-1000 charge-discharge cycles. Connect the electrical wire to the positive and negative terminals of the cell phone battery first, as … The insides are in a constant state of decay that can't be helped. Once the internal lithium-ion battery hits 100% of its capacity, charging stops. Get 1 year for just $15. This is the safest side-effect, but not the only thing that can happen. Another way to look at it is that newer batteries are just hungrier to suck up all that power. The amount of charge going into your device shouldn't be an issue as most are smart enough to stop taking a … Don't skimp by buying chintzy cables. This is your last free article. How do you get the longest life out of the battery inside a smartphone? Such a “trickle charge” attempts to keep it at 100% to compensate for the small bit of charge that your phone just naturally loses on its own. Few new smartphones have a user-swappable battery, but they include the not-exactly mainstream Samsung Galaxy Xcover Pro and the Moto E6. Do any of the above, and you can expect the phone to get hot—not necessarily enough for spontaneous combustion, but enough to damage the battery (see below). Please attempt to sign up again. “If you think about it, charging your phone while you’re sleeping results in the phone being on the charger for 3-4 months a year,” says Hatem Zeine, founder of Ossia, a developer of wireless charging technology. Most lithium-ion batteries perform effectively for around two to three years, and that's when the manufacturers would prefer you upgrade to a new phone. Even though a charger turns off the juice when your phone reaches 100%, the charger will continue to top off the charge during the night, says Bradshaw. Apple iPhone batteries also support "fast charging," so they'll get to 80% pretty quickly. As long as your battery does not get hot you should be fine. For the most part, leaving your modern phone plugged into a charger overnight isn't going to be a problem. However, if you want to stretch things out, use best practices for lithium-Ion batteries as described above. If this happens, you'll need to charge the battery more frequently and it may last only a few hours before needing a charge, for example. Thank you for reading TIME. He was on the founding staff of, Read Great Stories Offline on Your Favorite, How to Free Up Space on Your iPhone or iPad, How to Save Money on Your Cell Phone Bill, How to Find Free Tools to Optimize Your Small Business, How to Get Started With Project Management, leaving the charging device on a dish or saucer, 9 Tips to Boost Your Android Phone's Battery Life, How to Check Your Laptop's Battery Health in Windows 10, No Charger in the Box? Your phone stops drawing current from the charger once it reaches 100%, according to Cadex Electronics marketing communications manager John Bradshaw. More importantly is always to be sure that if you … Lithium ion batteries can be quite volatile and it’s true that ‘overcharging’ it will make the battery unstable. Lithium-ion batteries hate two things: extreme cold and extreme heat. That’s why you can plug your iPhone or Android phone into a charger, and revving it up to at least an 80% charge happens fairly quickly. Keep an eye on your inbox! 3 reasons to avoid overcharging your batteries. DON’T OVERCHARGE. But guess what? Charging My iPhone Overnight Will Overload the Battery: FALSE. I’ve owned my current iPhone 6 for almost three years and have seen a significant drop in capacity, especially over the past few months. Constantly checking email, texting people, listening to music, watching videos, using apps, playing games. If you replace your phone every year or two, then don’t sweat the overnight charging since you’ll have a new phone before the battery in your old one starts to conk out. It's not about "memory," it's about capacity. It's hardly guaranteed—in fact, many people don't think it works at all—but it's recommended by some, especially if you've got a phone that hits 10% (or even 20% or 30%), then abruptly dies. You may already have heard the warnings: Don’t overcharge your mobile phone. Bradshaw recommends that you wait until your phone gets down to around a 35% or 40% charge and then plug it into a charger. Cadex manufactures battery charging equipment. Modern devices like Fitbits have built in protections against overcharging. Leaving it plugged in longer is pointless. Whew, that’s a relief. Your smartphone battery over its lifetime degrades enough that in the same amount of time charging, a new phone could hit a full charge, while an older phone might only get to around 82%. That will help preserve the capacity of the battery. Pull the plug at 80-90%, as going to full 100% when using a high-voltage charger can put some strain on the battery. And don't put your phone in the freezer. According to Battery University, a website run by the company Cadex, charging your phone … Battery replacements are generally best done by a professional. Leave the phone alone for a few hours, if you believe this is worth doing. Now that the average smartphone user in the US keeps a phone for around 33 months or more, according to Strategy Analytics—a number that seems to increase all the time—there's even less incentive for phone makers to help you keep it running. Bad things (like fire) happen if a Lithium-Ion battery is overcharged, so every company using them must design-in a smart charging circuit to prevent that from happening. When we overcharge the battery like this, we are causing a small fault or damage to the extremely thin separators that keep the elements of the battery apart. Don't worry about this too much. * The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. The quest for power is eternal. Don’t wait until your phone gets close to a 0% battery charge until you recharge it, advises Cadex’s Bradshaw. Potential problems that could be encountered while charging overnight: Trickle charges can generate some heat. In late 2017, Apple admitted to secretly slowing down batteries on older iPhones in the name of "overall performance and prolonging the life of...devices." PCMag, PCMag.com and PC Magazine are among the federally registered trademarks of Ziff Davis, LLC and may not be used by third parties without explicit permission. A battery can quite simply die from being overcharged. Digital The battery may stop functioning. That's not much of an option if you use a wireless charging pad, so don't sweat it. But as we've explained before, unless a device has some serious manufacturing defects like that phone did, the fire-in-your-pocket (or on the nightstand) aspect is unlikely. This myth has some pretty legitimate origins, so it’s no surprise that it’s stuck around. Another common cause of an overcharged battery is trickle chargers. Cadex manufactures battery charging equipment. Apple claims that "Apple lithium-ion batteries are designed to hold at least 80% of their original capacity for a high number of charge cycles" but also admits that the amount differs from product to product. By signing up you are agreeing to our, 5 Tips for Surviving Uncomfortable Conversations, What America's Richest Ski Town's Handling of COVID-19 Shows. It may help. The myth about overcharging your phone is a common one. That means every time you discharge up 100% of the capacity, it's one cycle count, but it doesn't mean you went all the way to zero. It's much cheaper than a brand new phone. Here's Apple's graphic trying to explain it: While your phone battery doesn't have a "memory" that makes the capacity worse and worse, that limited lifespan means you may want to swap in a new battery. That worry seems relatively justified since it was only a few years ago that Samsung's Galaxy Note 7s were bursting into flame due to battery issues. Is Charging Your Phone All Day Really That Bad? You have a limited number of free articles. However, it’s not really possible to overcharge, even if you leave the phone charging overnight. Rechargeable batteries lose a little bit of their holding capacity every time they’re overcharged. It's a computer in there, and computers and hot air are mortal enemies going back decades. You have 2 free articles left. You have 1 free article left. So, what exactly happens if a lawn battery is overcharged (leading to probable damage)? Sign up for What's New Now to get our top stories delivered to your inbox every morning. Running a smartphone until it's dead—a full discharge—every time is not the way to go with modern lithium-ion batteries. Stop worrying about "memory." Battery Full Notification. Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology. You have 3 free articles left. Get 1 year for just $15. That means your charger should be lower voltage. Signs that your car battery is being overcharged are that it is hot to the touch and the top may begin to swell up. An Apple webpage about batteries cautions that the capacity diminishes after a certain amount of recharging, and that the capacity on li-on batteries diminishes slightly with each charging cycle. We've narrowed down the right and wrong things to do as best we can. It first applied the slowdowns to iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, and first-gen iPhone SE devices, but extended it to iPhone 7 devices, too. Fast charging isn't great for lithium-ion battery either. Developing a "memory" was a problem with older nickel-cadmium (NiCad) batteries. And for the love of Jobs, do not put it under your pillow. Or plug your phone into a smart plug that's on a schedule to turn off. That's where the whole "discharge the battery entirely" thing came from. What's the right thing to do? “Go ahead and charge to 100%,” Bradshaw says. If you are going to charge overnight, don't fast charge. PCMag Digital Group. Leaving the phone connected to the charger (when the phone is completely charged) while you are using it may lower battery life if you do it repeatedly. The one thing all … Use a slow charge. This results in a gradual loss of their capacity, or ability to hold a charge. Battery overcharging is a common problem in vehicles today. So, overcharging is not an issue for Lithium batteries. Like we said, it's not necessary on lithium-ion batteries. At the very least, do NOT stack a bunch of crap like books or other devices on top of a charging device. The direness implicit in those imperatives may be overblown, but they’re not paranoid conspiracy dictums — you still shouldn’t overcharge your phone. “Modern smart phones are smart, meaning that they have built in protection chips that will safeguard the phone from taking in more charge than what it should,” says Campos. Magazines, article from Cadex’s Battery University site, Why You Shouldn't Charge Your Mobile Phone Overnight. Charging and recharging the battery doesn’t help. So what happens if you act as I assume most do, and leave your phone plugged in overnight? If you click an affiliate link and buy a product or service, we may be paid a fee by that merchant. Batteries in mobile devices are in constant decay from the moment they’re first used, says Campos. PCMag.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering Labs-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services. The cord and connectors may not be up to the specifications needed for the phone or tablet. Trickle Chargers Left Unattended. Or else. This is the least possible damage you can expect. The casing of the battery can become hot to the touch, and begin to melt or swell. If the phone's capacity has eroded enough, you may have to do that 50% charge-and-use a couple of times a day—and that's when the battery lifespan goes downhill even faster. The problem is, some of the research and opinions out there are diametrically opposed. If you wake up in the night, unplug it or move it to prevent constant trickle-charging. This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Here’s why. You have reached your limit of 4 free articles. Don't even let it get that close to 0%. If you plan to swap phones every year or two, charge it any way you want, as often as you want, and don't worry about the diminished capacity. Get 1 year for just $15. By keeping your phone charged overnight, you’re actually increasing the amount of time your device spends with the charger, thereby degrading its capacity that much sooner. A graver consequence of batteries getting overcharged is that the contents of the batteries such as sulphuric acid and water mix together and boil due to the heat. In most cases, your phone probably needs only an hour or two to hit 100%. Your phone stops drawing current from the charger once it reaches 100%, according to Cadex Electronics marketing communications manager John Bradshaw. Your subscription has been confirmed. Can you overcharge a phone battery? Any voltage over 14.8 volts can overcharge the battery and damage it over time. Overcharging shortens the battery life of a batter, causing it to lose it's charge a lot faster. That’s why those who’ve owned a phone more than a couple of years tend to find that their battery loses its charge quicker than just after purchase. Please try again later. Make sure you unplug it from the charger after it reaches 100%. © 2021 TIME USA, LLC. If you are afraid of fire, some in the UK recommend leaving the charging device on a dish or saucer while plugged in, or putting it on something metal that is more likely to dissipate heat, like a heatsink does on the chips inside a PC. Partial discharge is the way to go. We Rented One to Find Out, Intel Ships Record Number of Laptop Chips on Rising PC Demand, Apple's New Siri Remote Doesn't Support Motion Controls, Netflix: Relax, We're Not Cracking Down on Password Sharing, Eric has been writing about tech for 28 years. If you stick to the Qi-based wireless charging, keep in mind that most support 7.5W, with wireless fast charging now available.\. Don't charge a phone when it's too cold or hot. Updated: September 27, 2017 8:48 AM ET | Originally published: September 25, 2017 8:00 AM EDT. The loss of capacity generally doesn’t become noticeable until after the second year. When's the right time to plug in? Older iPhones came with a 5-watt (that's 5 volts at 1.1 amps) charger block, which works, but of course, you can charge faster with a 10W charger, which has an output of 5 volts at 2.1amps—that's the kind of charger that comes with an iPad. Overcharging your battery can significantly decrease its lifespan, make it more difficult for it to turn over, lower its efficiency, and in extreme cases, can even lead to battery explosion. BatteryUniversity calls it "old man syndrome.". If you are new to vaping or have any specific vape battery questions, feel free to contact us any time or contact your local vape shops for in person help. In fact, how much should you charge your phone?