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| Smartphone Battery |
Your
smartphone is a minor miracle, a pocket-sized computer that can fulfill
almost every whim. But none of its superpowers matter a bit if it runs
out of juice. With removable batteries becoming more and more rare,
you've got to take good care of the one you got. Fortunately, it's not
to hard keep the lithium-ion powering your everything-machine happy if
you follow a few simple rules.
Obviously,
the first rule for extending your battery life is not using up all your
battery life playing Candy Crush and walking around with Wi-Fi and GPS
enabled when you're not using either and really, really need
your phone to last that extra hour. But aside from that, there are some
basic rules for care and charging, and they're the simplest baseline for
a healthy battery.
Top it off
You may
vaguely recall hearing something about rechargeable batteries and the
"memory effect." You know, that if you don't "teach" your rechargeable
batteries their full potential by taking them from totally full to
totally empty, they'll "forget" part of their capacity. Well forget all
that. Right now. It does not apply to your phone.
Battery memory is a real thing,
but it applies to nickel-based batteries; your trusty sidekick (literal
Sidekick or otherwise) doubtlessly has a lithium-ion battery, and it
needs to be treated a little differently. Specifically, it should be
topped off whenever you get the chance.
To get the
most out of a lithium-ion battery, you should try to keep it north of 50
percent as much as possible. For the most part, going from all the way
full to all the way empty won't help; in fact, it'll do a little damage
if you do it too often. That said, it's smart to do one full discharge about once a month for "calibration,"
but don't do it all the time. Running the whole gamut on a regular
basis won't make your battery explode or anything, but it will shorten
its lifespan.
But! You don't want to have battery charging constantly either; lithium-ion batteries can get overheated. Luckily for you, your charger is smart enough to help with this,
and will cut your phone off for a spell once it's full. And to
complicate matters a even further, your battery doesn't particularly
like being all the way full either. In fact, your battery will
behave the best if you take it off the charge before it hits 100
percent, and leaving it plugged when it's already full is going to cause
a little degradation.
So if
you're really particular about optimizing your battery's life, you
should try to go from around 40 percent to around 80 percent in one go,
and then back down whenever possible. A bunch of tiny charges throughout
the day is your second best bet, and going from zero to 100 and then
100 to zero on a regular basis will put the most strain on your
lithium-ion battery.
Keep it cool
It's easy
to worry about bad charging habits thanks to the training we've had from
old rechargeable batteries, but lithium-ion batteries have a worse
enemy than sub-optimal charging: Heat. Your smartphone's battery will degrade much, much faster when it's hot, regardless of whether it's being used or just sitting around doing nothing.
At an
average temperature of 32 degrees fahrenheit, a lithium-ion battery will
lose six percent of its maximum capacity per year. At 77 degrees, that
number jumps to 20 percent, and at 104 degrees it's a whopping 35. Sure,
it's not exactly practical (or sane) to keep your phone in the fridge,
but it's worth going out of your way to prevent long stays in hot cars
and the like.
Avoid wireless charging
Wireless
charging can be incredibly convenient if your phone can do it, but it's
not without its disadvantages. The inductive, wireless chargers out
there today have this nasty habit of generating a fair bit of waste
heat. And while wasted energy is just a bummer in general, that heat
will also toast your battery in the process. That's no bueno. It's a
little less convenient, but standard plug-in charging is going to keep
your battery in better shape, especially if you're some place warm to
begin with.
Never go to zero
If you're
going to be shelving any lithium-ion battery for a long time, try to
leave it with at least 40 percent battery power to tide it over.
Lithium-ion batteries don't hemorrhage power when their not in use, but they'll lose maybe five to ten percent of their charge each month.
And when
lithium-ion batteries get too low—like, literally zero percent—they get
seriously unstable, and dangerous to charge. To prevent explosion-type
disasters when you go to charge one that's been sitting around for a
month or two, lithium-ion batteries have built-in self-destruct circuits
that will disable (read: destroy) the battery for good, if it
reaches rock bottom. And sure, that'll save you from a face full of
battery-acid, but it'll also leave you short one battery.
Only charge fast when you need to
A lot of
newer phones support some sort of "fast charging" feature. These suckers
will let you juice your phone up from zero to around half-full in just
about a half hour. It's a life-saver for when you've only got a few
minutes to spare, but it's also not great for you battery. Surprise!
Lithium-ion batteries live their longest lives when charged and discharged at low, consistent speeds.
Fast charging is not that. But since fast charging is only for the
beginning of a charge cycle—and phones and their chargers are smart
enough to only apply the extra voltage when it's useful—the damage isn't
too bad. Still, if you're not in a hurry, it's probably better for your
battery to apply a slow and steady charge through a low-voltage
charger.
Don't sweat it too much
It's easy
to get protective of your battery, but it's also easy to get lazy. And
that's fine, because as long as you're not a complete idiot, you'll be
OK. Typically, a lithium-ion battery lasts for three to five years, and
chances are you're going to want to swap out your gadgets sometime in
that window anyway. The slight damage of a technically bad idea—like
leaving your phone plugged in all night every night, or using fast
charging when you need it—is worth the convenience.
Still, it's
pretty easy to keep your battery reasonably healthy just by avoiding
particularly egregious torture like letting your phone discharge from
full to zero every single day, or leaving it in a hot car all the time.
And the next time you make it back home with power to spare, you'll
thank yourself for it.
