Battery charging best practices (lithium-ion)

[nutcrackr]

How do you guys keep your smartphones (or tablets) charged. I've seen conflicting reports.

Some say it's best to not fully charge or discharge the batteries, but then there is the aspect of battery memory so maybe it's better to fully charge and discharge once per month.

Do your battery charging techniques result in long life?

 

[Zero]

Don't care, replace batteries if needed or buy new device. Plugged in all the time, deep discharge, deep charge, whatever. My stuff still works as expected.

 

[Nunz]

I charge it when I need to or when it’s available. It’s not the early 2000s where batteries were getting ruined by that kinda stuff.

 

[bill dennison]

it's plugged into carplay 95% of the time

 

[Meteor_of_War]

"Fully charge and fully discharge" is probably the closest option for me.

I will let it run down to like 5% then plug it in and charge it to 100%.

 

[lviz]

"Fully charge and fully discharge" is probably the closest option for me.

I will let it run down to like 5% then plug it in and charge it to 100%.

I run down to about 20 %, then charge to 100 %. No idea if it helps with battery life or not.

 

[GTwannabe]

I plug it in when I get home from work and unplug it in the morning.

 

[|MaguS|]

"Fully charge and fully discharge" is probably the closest option for me.

I will let it run down to like 5% then plug it in and charge it to 100%.

That is actually worse for most batteries. Charge cycles are more affected with a greater depletion of charge in the battery. Keeping it as charged as possible with make it hold more charge cycles longer.

New batteries are more affected by charge cycles rather than memory. They will degrade in total life normally but charging more often will allow it to maintain its maximum charge cycles for longer.

In short, Charge often (leaving it on the charger doesn't affect it at all really since phones and their chargers are designed to limit power to battery after it's 100% (similar to how a laptop can power on without a battery installed).

 

[Meteor_of_War]

That is actually worse for most batteries. Charge cycles are more affected with a greater depletion of charge in the battery. Keeping it as charged as possible with make it hold more charge cycles longer.

New batteries are more affected by charge cycles rather than memory. They will degrade in total life normally but charging more often will allow it to maintain its maximum charge cycles for longer.

In short, Charge often (leaving it on the charger doesn't affect it at all really since phones and their chargers are designed to limit power to battery after it's 100% (similar to how a laptop can power on without a battery installed).

Yeah there's all kind of different suggestions on how to charge phone batteries. For example Samsung has an article on their own website suggesting that your battery will perform better if you never let it drop below 50%, and never charge it fully to 100%. Seriously? So they expect me to keep it between 50-90% always? Just not practical in my busy life.

Letting it get down to 5% is an extreme case for me. Usually by the end of the day its in the 20's, and I just charge it overnight. Been doing this with my phones for years and never experienced any premature battery problems.

 

[guest]

So if you charge your device to 100% are you using the battery at 100% capacity or is it only at something like 80%?

If you run your device all the way down is the battery capacity at 0% or is it actually at 20%?

Without knowing such info it's pointless to worry about this crap.

 

[|MaguS|]

The phone should be accurately displaying your battery life.

Sent from my VS996 using Tapatalk

 

[0091/2]

I charge it whenever I can. I avoid deep discharges as it take longer to fully charge.

 

[OzzieBloke]

Over a day's work, it gets down to about 50%. I then wake up at 5:30am , plug it in to charge, and it's ready to go by 7ish.

 

[nutcrackr]

Reading more, it seems like the worst thing you can do it let it fully discharge. It's also better not to let it fully charge always although leaving it plugged in isn't bad. Looks like it's best not to care too much.

 

[Dave]

I plug mine in at home when I get the 15% battery warning. While driving it's plugged in too. Rarely do I charge overnight while sleeping, having a fast charging phone and 3500mah battery helps

 

[ice]

I plug it in at the end of the night unless it needs it before. Typically anywhere from 3-20%. I've had the S7 Edge since it came out and I average 5 hours of screentime per day since I started tracking it in May. Don't think my battery is any worse for wear.

 

[logical]

I dont care where the battery level is. I use it til the end of the day and then plug it up while I sleep. Sometimes its 80% sometimes its 2% it doesnt really matter. I dont ever fully intentionally discharge my batteries unless it dies while Im using it. No need to concern with prolonging the life of the battery.

Is there any data showing the life of a battery lasting longer or shorter by charging it a certain way?

 

[Kain]

I charge my iPhone 6s overnight every night. Unplug it in the morning and by the end of the day it is at around 20-40% remaining depending on usage. I don't charge during the day.

 

[MasterGoa]

seldom fully charge of discharge except a full cycle once a month so it does not get lazy.
Do this with my laptops also.

 

[Sasquach]

Ive just charged it whenever I got home.
Over time the battery capacity charge/discharged tended to get worse but after 4 or 5 years or so...its time for a new device anyways.

My Lumia 930 eventually needed replacement (screen went kaput) but I tended to always put it on the wireless charger at work all the time. It kind of needed that as the battery capacity had diminished over the course of the years (plus I dropped it in some water at one point in time and I think that may have killed some of the battery)