cell phone batteries

[stangguy]

believe it or not, wife and I just recently got rid go our land line, and got cell phones. ( she is 75 I am 79). My question is, is it best for the batteries sake , to charge when it is nearly dead, or just charge every day and keep it full charge, rather than run it low and then charge???

 

[dadto2]

They say the sweet spot for long life is to not let it go below 20% or over 80%. That said, I charge mine nightly from 75% to about 100%, but don't leave it charging overnight. Mine tend to last several years before I can notice any degradation.

 

[b_b]

new phones manage the battery internally using software. as long as your not running it dead every day, there's nothing you can do to preserve the battery beside use it less. new phones even hold the charge at 80% overnight and finish charging just before you start your day. mine knows i get up at five so at 3 am it finishes charging from 80 to 100.

 

[dogememe]

Don't worry about it too much. Most modern phones automatically manage charging rate and max charge percentage if you just plug it in when you go to bed.

At the end of the day, the battery will last how long it lasts and then you'll have to decide if it's time to replace the phone or have the battery replaced.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Most modern phones automatically manage charging rate and max charge percentage if you just plug it in when you go to bed.

Apple/iOS does this. Android does not, although some manufacturers (Samsung maybe) have implemented maximum charge limits on some of their devices.

 

[KGMtech]

My new Samsung SE20FE allows me to limit the full charge to 85% for longer battery life, so that's what I do.

 

[Silver]

All I can say is ask for technical proof of any answers you see. It's like asking what oil is best.

 

[mk378]

If you are home most of the time, don't leave phones sitting plugged in and charged to 100% all day. Other than that it's not a major thing what you do.

 

[TmanP]

I charge my phone every night so that it’s ready to go in the morning, and will plug it in when I go to bed regardless of how full it is (typically 30-50%). Apple has some logic that manages battery health, and that seems to work reasonably well IME. I had an 11 for most of two years that stayed above 90% health despite moderate use. I only upgraded to a 13 because of a fantastic deal from Verizon.

To me, deliberately underutilizing the battery (only charging to 80% or something) seems like kneecapping the phone’s functionality in the first place… if it’s only ever charged to 80%, you essentially only have use of 80% of the battery, which seems a lot like a worn out phone battery in function.

I’m not sure how that’s better than a slow degradation that ends up with you having a four year old phone that was charged normally and has, say, 80% capacity/battery health at that point.

I’d say use it normally and enjoy the full capacity while you have it. The slow degradation in capacity likely won’t land below the 80% mark for a number of years. And who knows if you’d slow this by much by avoiding fully charging the phone, anyway.

 

[Skippy722]

My phone basically lives on a charger/100% for 10-11 hours a day while I’m at work. Still reporting 100% battery life remaining. Just don’t use all 100% of it every day and avoid wireless charging.

 

[JMJNet]

Regardless, most battery will last 2 years or less anyway.
Charge it when you need it.
No need to overthink.

If you know you are not going to have access to charger e.g. travelling, charge it full before you go.

 

[Wrenchturner44]

Stangguy, another thing that I recommend that you do is reboot or turn off the phones and then turn them back on at least once per day. You need to do this so that the network can renew the PRL (primary roaming lookup) tables at least once per 24 hour period. If you dont do this, you risk having calls go straight to voice mail or text messages not getting through to you. If most people saw what happens behind the scenes to make cell phone technology work, you would be amazed that it works as well as it does.

 

[DejaVue]

Similar thread from six months ago:
https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/cell-phone-batteries.353633/

I still use my ancient first-gen Moto G for some things. It's been plugged in practically its entire life until recent months. Original now-9-year-old battery from 2013. Still lasts a week+ at idle when not on the charger. I just looked at it, it says it's been off the charger for 6 days, 16 hours, and still has 42% battery left.

Every phone I've ever had I've kept plugged in a lot. Only ever had battery problems on phones bought used with an unknown history, and even those batteries still lasted five or so years.

I'm not going to give much credit to the theory that newer phones and batteries are worse at being plugged in 24/7 than 2013 phones and batteries.

Note: I don't use fast chargers. Some fast chargers really pump out the volts, and I can see those requiring extra precautions to make the battery last.

 

[andrew_j]

Don’t worry about cell phone battery. Do what is convenient for your life not the phones short relatively life. The phone serves you , you don’t serve it. Generally plug it in every night if convenient when you sleep and as it needs or you feel like charging it.

 

[nthach]

Apple/iOS does this. Android does not, although some manufacturers (Samsung maybe) have implemented maximum charge limits on some of their devices.

Google and Samsung have some semblance of adaptive charging on their phones. For sure Google starting with the Pixel 3/3a and Samsung on the Galaxy S series.

 

[dogememe]

Don’t worry about cell phone battery. Do what is convenient for your life not the phones short relatively life. The phone serves you , you don’t serve it. Generally plug it in every night if convenient when you sleep and as it needs or you feel like charging it.

Exactly this.

Even my iPhone SE 2nd gen that sat in a hot car either fully charged or drained for weeks at a time (secondary phone I didn’t use often) had great battery life when I traded it in after 2 years.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Google and Samsung have some semblance of adaptive charging on their phones. For sure Google starting with the Pixel 3/3a and Samsung on the Galaxy S series.

But there is no way to limit charging to less than 100% on my Pixel 5.

 

[dubber09]

My 3 years old Moto G Power still shows 70%+ batt left at end of day with regular use, I charge it every night.

 

[andrew_j]

My battery health sits at 84% after three years with an iPhone 11 and no concerns of charging style. Most charging is the high speed type of 50% in about 30mins.

I plan on trading it off for an iPhone 14 pro as a $699 phone apparently is worth $220 after three years daily use. Not bad.

 

[hank2]

My 3 years old Moto G Power still shows 70%+ batt left at end of day with regular use, I charge it every night.

That's good to hear. My wife and I got new Moto G Powers at the end of last year. $150 a piece. 4G phones. Unfortunately, the 2021 models which were a downgrade on speaker and screen resolution from the previous year. Still has the great 5000mAh battery though. I use it heavily online on wifi and have the same daily 70-80% life remaining as you do. Also switched to T Mobile which these phones are enabled for wifi calling. A deal maker, as there is nearly no cell signal at home, just a scrap of the departing 2G.

I tend to keep phones until they don't work. I got about 6 or 7 years out of an old Droid Turbo with non replaceable battery. The Droid Pro before it had a replaceable battery. I kept that going for years with new batteries. Cell battery prices usually fell to $1 after a phone was 2 or 3 years old.