How to extend the life of your cell phone battery
|Published
There are things you can do to help extend the life of your battery, saving you from having to buy a new one prematurely. Picture: RawPixel. There are things you can do to help extend the life of your battery, saving you from having to buy a new one prematurely. Picture: RawPixel.
Over time, your cell phone’s battery will gradually begin to deteriorate. This will result in your phone dying far more quickly than when it was brand new.
Gone are the days of unclipping the back cover of your phone to access the battery. Today’s smartphones are much more sophisticated than that, making gaining access a real hassle. Battery replacements are costly and risky when not done by a professional. Therefore, we suggest treating your battery right in the first place.
Although some of what happens to a battery’s ability to retain charge is out of your control, there are things you can do to help extend the life of your battery, saving you from having to buy a new one prematurely.
5 things you can do to prolong the lifespan of your cell phone battery:
1. Know what causes batteries to naturally degrade
Let’s get a better understanding of how phone batteries work. Every time you fully charge your phone, the battery degrades slightly and this process of charging is called a charge cycle. According to the website Medium, “Battery manufacturers say that after about 400 cycles a phone battery’s capacity will degrade by 20%. It will only be able to store 80% of the energy it did originally and will continue to degrade with additional charge cycles.” Therefore, by slowing down the number of charge cycles you can also prolong the battery lifespan. Screen brightness, preventing apps from running in the background unnecessarily and turning on WiFi and Bluetooth only when necessary will result in your phone needing less or shorter charges daily ultimately extending your battery’s ability to store energy.
2. Always use the correct charger
It’s very tempting to just use whatever charger you have available to you when you’re in a pinch and need to refresh your phone’s battery percentage. Cheap chargers may lack important safety mechanisms that protect your phone against fluctuation, over charging and may not be equipped to provide your phone with the correct voltage. This can permanently damage your charger port and battery. The best option will always be to use what was made and tested alongside your cell phone.
2. Stop overcharging / charging when battery life is already at 100%
The issue here isn’t so much the overcharging, most phones are built to be able to stop taking a charge once full. The main problem is overheating. During charging, there is a transfer of heat energy from the charger to the phone which causes your phone to feel warm to the touch. To avoid overheating that results in wear and tear on your battery, remove your phone case whilst charging overnight or avoid doing so altogether.
3. Keep away from the heat
Your phone was probably designed to work in a broad range of temperatures. However, extreme cold or heat can be damaging for your phone's internal components, impact battery life and charge time. According to Metro News, “modern lithium ion batteries contain fluids that work through chemical reactions to power the phone’s components. When external heat gets applied to the battery, the fluid inside it starts to evaporate and that can damage the internal structure of the battery.” So, it’s best to not leave your phone in the car on a hot day, leave it near a stove or heating device. If this does happen, your device may switch off to prevent damage from occurring, find a cool, dark place to let it recuperate.
Naturally, it is also not a good idea to charge your device in high ambient temperatures as this can cause your phone to heat up even more causing further damage.
4. Leave it half charged when storing
Many websites and phone companies, including Apple, advise their phone users to store their phones with a 50% charge. On Apple’s website they state: “Do not fully charge or fully discharge your device’s battery — charge it to around 50%. If you store a device when its battery is fully discharged, the battery could fall into a deep discharge state, which renders it incapable of holding a charge. Conversely, if you store it fully charged for an extended period of time, the battery may lose some capacity, leading to shorter battery life.”
5. Stop using your phone while charging
Once again, this circles back to the issue of overheating. Using your smartphone while charging increases the heat generated by your phone which is amplified by your phone case and hands which insulate the heat, trapping it around your phone. Excessive heat causes many problems for your phone’s battery as previously mentioned, including causing batteries to swell in some cases.