Wired vs. Wireless Charging

[Nick1994]

Next month will be 2 years that I’ve had my iPhone 11 that I ordered on release day. I ordered my aunt’s at the same time, identical phones.

At the time I did a little research about wireless charging. It didn’t seem like it was too bad for the battery, so I have since almost exclusively wirelessly charged. It’s only plugged in for Apple CarPlay from time to time.

My aunt wirelessly charges from time to time, but primarily just plugs it in at night.

My phone’s battery health is 79% while hers is pretty good at 88%.

Any thoughts? Thinking about what I should do with my next phone. Maybe it’s a coincidence?

 

[Skippy722]

Depends how you use it. I almost exclusively wireless charge mine while my wife uses a wired charger. My iPhone 11 was at 89%, she was at 82% when we got 12’s back in April. My 12 pro max sits on a wireless charger while I stream music or listen to YouTube videos at work. What does your battery usage look like?

 

[IveBeenRued]

I do a blend of roughly 50% plugged into CarPlay and 50% wireless charging. My nearly 4 year old iPhone X still has 89% battery life. I bought two 5W wireless chargers that stand up, they are slow but they don’t heat up the back of the phone like the 10W chargers that lay flat. In addition, I try to never let my phone go below 25% and usually take it off the charger around 90%.

 

[DemoFly]

Wireless charging is unanimously agreed to be much worse for the battery than wired charging. It's interesting that your initial research gave you a different opinion. However, it's agreed that it doesn't make much of a significant impact to the typical device life cycle of ~3 years.

Wireless charging is much less efficient, and waste heat goes directly into the device and battery.

That being said, the real enemy of your battery is charge wattage, heat and cycles. A 5W wireless charger will do less damage to your phone battery than a 30W wired fast charger. Using your phone for rigorous use cases like gaming or video editing also put excess heat into the phone battery. There's lots of people who use their phone in a phone mount in their car, with the screen on, charging, in summer heat. They don't realize that's a nightmare scenario for their phone's battery. It's difficult to compare your phone battery to your aunt's phone battery because we don't have all of these metrics for an apples to apples comparison. Pun intended.

 

[Quattro Pete]

One thing you can do to prolong your battery health is to not allow it to charge all the way to 100%. If you have an option, limit charging to say 75% only. This puts less stress on the battery, alas, you'll have less total juice available, so it's a trade-off, of course.

 

[930.engineering]

That's accomplished to some degree with the "Optimized Battery Charging" setting in iOS.
I agree with most of what's been said - don't get confused by apples to oranges comparisons.
Different users use to use different.

 

[Quattro Pete]

That's accomplished to some degree with the "Optimized Battery Charging" setting in iOS.

That setting just delays the 100% charge (based on how you set your morning wake-up alarm) but does not actually prevent it, unless I'm misunderstanding how it works.

 

[wwillson]

That setting just delays the 100% charge (based on how you set your morning wake-up alarm) but does not actually prevent it, unless I'm misunderstanding how it works.

I believe you are correct about delaying the 100% charge. From my understanding not charging to 100% until just before wakeup time means the battery spends less time at 100% charge. Being charged to 100% (highest voltage) is chemically hard on the battery and will shorten the life of the battery. @JHZR2 is our battery expert and may add something.

 

[tyman]

I've had my Iphone 12 Pro Max since last October I think and it's been almost exclusively charged with wireless. It says 99% capacity. )

 

[JHZR2]

I believe you are correct about delaying the 100% charge. From my understanding not charging to 100% until just before wakeup time means the battery spends less time at 100% charge. Being charged to 100% (highest voltage) is chemically hard on the battery and will shorten the life of the battery. @JHZR2 is our battery expert and may add something.

Exactly. Batteries have two challenges relative to this, the stress and strain of the 2D anode materials as Li-ions intercalate in and out, and, the possibility for local or overall overpotentials to cause accelerated oxidation of electrolyte materials.

Especially for batteries that are run to the ragged edges of their performance envelope, these conditions can be more pronounced, and degrading. Something like a charge control is rudimentary code to put in, that can have a beneficial effect, if the use profiles are consistent enough for them to see a pattern.

 

[JHZR2]

Next month will be 2 years that I’ve had my iPhone 11 that I ordered on release day. I ordered my aunt’s at the same time, identical phones.

At the time I did a little research about wireless charging. It didn’t seem like it was too bad for the battery, so I have since almost exclusively wirelessly charged. It’s only plugged in for Apple CarPlay from time to time.

My aunt wirelessly charges from time to time, but primarily just plugs it in at night.

My phone’s battery health is 79% while hers is pretty good at 88%.

Any thoughts? Thinking about what I should do with my next phone. Maybe it’s a coincidence?

Battery chemical ageing is associated with temperature.

I have a few magnetic charging pads, like them, but find that they can make the phone hotter than a plug in. While my USB C high rate wired charger can make my iphone 12 Pro get slightly warm, some of the wireless chargers get warmer for a much slower charge rate, which means warmer longer. Which can affect chemical ageing in time. Remember that whatever normal ageing rates will double for every 8C that the battery is kept warmer.

Since we don’t know how many cycles your or your Aunt’s battery has actually been through, how hard it is used, how many times it has been left in a hot vehicle, etc., etc. which can all have an effect too.

 

[Nick1994]

Depends how you use it. I almost exclusively wireless charge mine while my wife uses a wired charger. My iPhone 11 was at 89%, she was at 82% when we got 12’s back in April. My 12 pro max sits on a wireless charger while I stream music or listen to YouTube videos at work. What does your battery usage look like?View attachment 68274

Here’s the usage:

 

[RhondaHonda]

I’d say it’s tough to compare since you and your aunt likely have different usage of your phones. But, it’s only $69 for a iPhone 11 battery replacement at the Apple store so I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

 

[JHZR2]

I’d say it’s tough to compare since you and your aunt likely have different usage of your phones. But, it’s only $69 for a iPhone 11 battery replacement at the Apple store so I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

Agree. “Usage” as shown above does not indicate the number of deep cycles, shallow cycles, fast charges, slow charges, max temperatures encountered, etc.

 

[gathermewool]

iOS “Optimized battery charging: To reduce battery aging, iPhone learns from your daily charging routine so it can wait to finish charging last 80% until you need to use it.”

Im at 91% on my iPhone XR. Im not sure how accurate their estimate is; it feels like the battery doesn’t last nearly as long as when new. Shorter than 9% difference.

 

[Tomioka]

If you have AppleCare and intend to keep the phone for the next couple years get it checked out at an Apple store. Battery life less than 80% is eligible for a replacement.

And I would do so before the battery becomes a spicy pillow.

 

[PandaBear]

Typically induction charging has less efficiency than wired charging. My guesstimate is somewhere around 80% vs 95%+ or so. Maybe Apple is more efficient? I don't know. To me it is not really a big deal.

 

[john_pifer]

Got my iPhone 11 as a gift on Christmas of 2019.

So, I’ve had it for just over 20 months now.

It’s at 90% batt. capacity.

No games or activities that are pushing the envelope of performance or anything. Just web surfing and texting, for the most part. Average maybe 1 phone call every couple of days.

I haven’t done anything special to attempt to preserve batt. capacity.

It gets charged, typically, at night, only. Always used a cord to charge until Christmas of last year, when I was given a wireless charger.

Occasionally, on a road trip, it stays plugged into Apple Car Play for hours at a time in the windshield, and thats probably the warmest it ever gets.

I’ve always kept Optimized Battery Charging enabled

 

[Quattro Pete]

I'm annoyed at Google that their official Android OS still does not allow setting of custom max charge level.

 

[930.engineering]

I prefer charging via USB at home and office, however I'd love using wireless charging in the car. It doesn' let me though. The GTI comes with wireless charging in the center console from factory but it's almost useless, since when I corner tight or brake my iPhone is moving away from the spot where it charges. It's way too annoying to take care it's kept it in place. Perhaps I should get a bigger phone next.