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Trickhot3102

macrumors 6502
Dec 21, 2013
312
109
Cool! Yeah I found it, it's 2.99. Not too bad. I'll buy it next time I get a iTunes gift card. (Wish there was a way to get it online!!) I like that it tells you the battery temp! That's pretty cool!


EDIT:

I did find a way to email myself an iTunes gift! I got the app! It's pretty cool!! I'm diggin the temp sensor. I put my iPhone in the fridge to test it :D
 

bandos962

macrumors newbie
Nov 5, 2015
3
0
Portland, OR
EDIT:

I did find a way to email myself an iTunes gift! I got the app! It's pretty cool!! I'm diggin the temp sensor. I put my iPhone in the fridge to test it :D
Great! I wonder if that temperature sensor is real. There's so many fake apps on the app store. Let me know if it works. I'm not too keen on putting mine in the fridge... :)
 

Trickhot3102

macrumors 6502
Dec 21, 2013
312
109
Great! I wonder if that temperature sensor is real. There's so many fake apps on the app store. Let me know if it works. I'm not too keen on putting mine in the fridge... :)

I'm not sure how accurate it is. I left it in the fridge for a few minutes and the temp went down!
 

hy135

macrumors newbie
Nov 10, 2015
1
0
Today I noticed my iPhone 5s battery status has dramatic change in past 3 days when the recharge cycle came close to /across 795. The FullChargeCapacity had been 1100 for several weeks, yesterday it jumped to 1200, today it dropped to 800. How many full charge cycles are allowed for iPhone 5s? Is 795 a magic number? My iPhone 5s is less than 1 year and 10 months old.

Screenshot 2015-11-07 16.15.31.png
Screenshot 2015-11-09 10.07.16.png
Screenshot 2015-11-10 13.20.59.png
 

Retired Cat

macrumors 65816
Jun 12, 2013
1,210
380
My battery capacity fluctuates with temperature. If the phone gets cold, it can go as low as 800 mAh :-(. Under room temperature conditions 68F/20C, the Battery Doc app reports 1100 mAh.
 

echo1877

macrumors member
Nov 10, 2015
82
107
My battery capacity fluctuates with temperature. If the phone gets cold, it can go as low as 800 mAh :-(. Under room temperature conditions 68F/20C, the Battery Doc app reports 1100 mAh.
Today I noticed my iPhone 5s battery status has dramatic change in past 3 days when the recharge cycle came close to /across 795. The FullChargeCapacity had been 1100 for several weeks, yesterday it jumped to 1200, today it dropped to 800. How many full charge cycles are allowed for iPhone 5s? Is 795 a magic number? My iPhone 5s is less than 1 year and 10 months old.

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I'm the developer of the Battery Health app mentioned above, and I've looked at tons of devices at various ages. I can tell you what I know based on looking at a lot of data. First of all, Apple specifies a "Design Cycles" figure of 300 cycles for these batteries.

The number is higher for Macs, but is the same across all iOS devices. Now, what does that number mean? It means that they are demanding (from their battery manufacturers) that the batteries retain at least 80% of their original capacity after going through 300 load cycles. In reality, almost all batteries I've seen tend to beat that number by a wide margin. A typical figure is 90% after 300 cycles. As a side note, the AppleCare plan provides a 2 year window of replacement for batteries that retain less than 80% of their original capacity.

There are two factors I'm seeing that seem to affect battery decline: Usage/charging in extreme temperatures, and depth-of-discharge (DOD). Depth of discharge is basically how deeply you routinely discharge your battery. Deep discharge cycles (going down to 10% or even 20% of your battery capacity) significantly shortens your battery life if you do it frequently. This is a well known fact about Li-Ion batteries and is covered extensively in literature. Apple measures DOD internally and records your typical DOD levels... :)

In other words, if you use your phone by charging to 100%, then using it down to 50%, then charging back to full, you'll experience far longer battery life than someone who, say, charges to 100% then down to 5% every single day. The difference will be VERY significant after a year or so.

One final point: There are several methods to calculate full charge capacity, but all of them can vary quite wildly. The battery controller performs several measurements, and those measurements are affected by temperature, current charge levels, and other factors. Expect to see all of these values vary somewhat, batteries are not an exact science.
 

gilliang3

macrumors newbie
Jan 24, 2016
12
1
My phone acts like it has terrible battery life but everytime I've brought it to the Apple Store they say it's a software issue (resetting the phone to new has never helped though).

Anyways I just used iBackupbot and these are my stats. What can I make of them? I have AppleCare until May. Would my battery be eligible for replacement? It's below 80% of original capacity (if these numbers can be trusted) but I obviously have a very high cycle count.

Battery

CycleCount: 852
DesignCapacity: 1550
FullChargeCapacity: 1200
Status: Success
BatteryCurrentCapacity: 64
BatteryIsCharging: true
ExternalChargeCapable: true
ExternalConnected: true
FullyCharged: false
GasGaugeCapability: true
HasBattery: true
 

XTheLancerX

macrumors 68000
Aug 20, 2014
1,911
782
NY, USA
My phone acts like it has terrible battery life but everytime I've brought it to the Apple Store they say it's a software issue (resetting the phone to new has never helped though).

Anyways I just used iBackupbot and these are my stats. What can I make of them? I have AppleCare until May. Would my battery be eligible for replacement? It's below 80% of original capacity (if these numbers can be trusted) but I obviously have a very high cycle count.

Battery

CycleCount: 852
DesignCapacity: 1550
FullChargeCapacity: 1200
Status: Success
BatteryCurrentCapacity: 64
BatteryIsCharging: true
ExternalChargeCapable: true
ExternalConnected: true
FullyCharged: false
GasGaugeCapability: true
HasBattery: true
Your battery is at about 75% of its original capacity. That's about all you can get from that info. After 850 cycles, the battery is degrading a bit. However I don't think it should be "HORRENDOUS" battery life based on that info.

If you do a lot of social media, games, or the screen is on a lot and at high brightness with a lot of cellular activity or bad signal, the battery life will always be bad. That sort of use even gets me to only 4 hours of use with my iPhone 6. Being on wifi a bit more with about 1/3 screen brightness and more moderate usage scores me about 6 hours of use.
 

Haynzee

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 13, 2012
101
45
My phone acts like it has terrible battery life but everytime I've brought it to the Apple Store they say it's a software issue (resetting the phone to new has never helped though).

Anyways I just used iBackupbot and these are my stats. What can I make of them? I have AppleCare until May. Would my battery be eligible for replacement? It's below 80% of original capacity (if these numbers can be trusted) but I obviously have a very high cycle count.

Battery

CycleCount: 852
DesignCapacity: 1550
FullChargeCapacity: 1200
Status: Success
BatteryCurrentCapacity: 64
BatteryIsCharging: true
ExternalChargeCapable: true
ExternalConnected: true
FullyCharged: false
GasGaugeCapability: true
HasBattery: true
Based on that many cycles really your battery seems in a good state considering and definitely hasn't hit Apples 50% degradation quota. Perhaps check the location services in the settings and the privacy section, some background tasks under system services seem to kill my battery life.
 

gilliang3

macrumors newbie
Jan 24, 2016
12
1
Based on that many cycles really your battery seems in a good state considering and definitely hasn't hit Apples 50% degradation quota. Perhaps check the location services in the settings and the privacy section, some background tasks under system services seem to kill my battery life.

So Apple's policy is still 50% degradation? For some reason I had thought they had updated their policy and that the degradation was now 80%.
 

gilliang3

macrumors newbie
Jan 24, 2016
12
1
Sorry. I meant to mention that. 80%.

Ok great. Thanks.

Just as an aside, I had no idea how I managed to rack up that many cycle counts on my phone.

Does anyone know of any articles or anything with tips about good battery practice to keep cycle counts low/battery life lasting longer?
 

HankHowdy

macrumors 68040
Dec 2, 2012
3,501
392
Victorville CA
Ok great. Thanks.

Just as an aside, I had no idea how I managed to rack up that many cycle counts on my phone.

Does anyone know of any articles or anything with tips about good battery practice to keep cycle counts low/battery life lasting longer?

Battery cycles are just a fact of use.

You can reduce some battery draining features to reduce battery draining. That can reduce charging cycles.
 

XTheLancerX

macrumors 68000
Aug 20, 2014
1,911
782
NY, USA
Ok great. Thanks.

Just as an aside, I had no idea how I managed to rack up that many cycle counts on my phone.

Does anyone know of any articles or anything with tips about good battery practice to keep cycle counts low/battery life lasting longer?
You can't really keep cycle counts low without simply using your phone less. This is because of how they "accumulate" for every 100% the battery is charged I believe. So going down to 50%, then up to 100%, back down to 50% and back up to 100% is considered one cycle.

Just use your phone and try to avoid extreme heat or cold, moisture, and dying completely and going into deep discharge (being dead for a very long time so the plug-in icon doesn't even show anymore). Doesn't matter how often you charge it or how much or how long it is plugged in really.
 

echo1877

macrumors member
Nov 10, 2015
82
107
You can't really keep cycle counts low without simply using your phone less. This is because of how they "accumulate" for every 100% the battery is charged I believe. So going down to 50%, then up to 100%, back down to 50% and back up to 100% is considered one cycle.

Just use your phone and try to avoid extreme heat or cold, moisture, and dying completely and going into deep discharge (being dead for a very long time so the plug-in icon doesn't even show anymore). Doesn't matter how often you charge it or how much or how long it is plugged in really.

That is correct. The easiest way to think about this is that simply using your phone while unplugged wears out the battery. Here are a few tips for improved battery health:

Avoid discharging your battery altogether...

If you really wish to extend your battery life, all you can do is avoid running your phone on battery power as much as possible, and/or use it while plugged whenever you can.

Obviously this is not a very practical strategy and so I wouldn't go to extreme lengths to try and follow it, but if it's easy to do so (for example, if you're sitting at a desk with a charger right in front of you), then that's an easy way to improve battery health.

Avoid deep discharges

A more practical recommendation is to avoid deep discharges as much as possible (where the battery is discharged below 30-40 percent or so). This won't affect the cycle counter, but it will extend the life of the battery.

Do a deep-discharge about once a month to calibrate the battery

Finally, it's important to do a single deep discharge about once a month. This is NOT for the battery itself, but rather to calibrate the gas gauge chip so it knows how much power is actually stored in the battery.

I've seen users of my app with a 3-4 month old phone that haven't ever completed a single deep discharge, and their battery health was estimated at 40%!! Of course that wasn't an accurate reading, it was just the gas gauge having no idea how much power is actually stored in the battery.

This is a common case where the battery indicator starts dropping very rapidly and users complain of "poor battery life". The actual battery life is not necessarily poor, it's just that the device is showing the battery draining very rapidly. If you let it drain all the way you might find that there is more juice left in those bottom 30% than you thought!
 
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SackJabbit

macrumors member
Aug 21, 2011
90
16
I've noticed the past few months, my iPhone 5S has been showing extremely rapid discharges with usage, and often the battery percentage drops from 40 to 30 to 20 to 10 very quickly. Below is a screenshot from coconutBattery.

Does my iPhone 5S battery health look bad? Do you think I should get the battery replaced?
 

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nookster

macrumors regular
Aug 13, 2002
100
49
Considering how few cycles it's had, that's pretty poor. Does the Design capacity remain constant, or does it flip flop between charges? I've had anything from 20 to 80 percent claimed, even mid-charge.

I've been hanging on to my iP5 and it's rubbish battery management for ages now, as I'm not convinced that it's simply a battery issue.

Sometimes it shuts down randomly sub 60%, other times it plummets down to 1% and stays there overnight, which is risky if I let it run until shutdown, as it then behaves like it's dead, needing an hour or so of charge. and if I get it to the charger before complete shut down, coconut reports minus mAh figures.

Basically, power management doesn't have a clue what the battery is doing. The response from the Apple store was the usual script monkey rubbish, throw out your backup, factory reset, or buy a new phone etc. Anything more complicated than what their diagnostic iPad tells them is beyond their skill set.
 

SackJabbit

macrumors member
Aug 21, 2011
90
16
Yeah, I know. 62.1% of its original charge after 520 load cycles only after 2.5 years seem very poor. Yes, the design capacity remains relatively constant around that 62% mark.

So, I just returned from the Apple Store, and their official diagnostics tool did show over 50% of degraded battery life. He looked through my phone, and said 3 things were constantly draining my battery: background app refresh, push emails and over 250 number of apps in my phone. He recommended that I turn off all background app refresh, set emails to manual retrieval and delete unused apps.

I also decided to get my iPhone 5S battery replaced. Their turn-around time is 3 hours, which is pretty fast I think. So I'm hoping when I get it back, it will be just like new. Or if they cannot repair it, I get a new phone. :D
 

nookster

macrumors regular
Aug 13, 2002
100
49
Doesn't explain the erratic percentage though, they always act like a worn battery and a faulty battery is the same thing. And my older iPhones, while losing capacity, never behaved like that, in spite of years of abuse.

Post back on how it performs when you get it done , I'd probably stump up the laughable £59 instore charge if I thought they would give me a similar condition refurb. Although either way, there is still always the risk of ending up with a still faulty phone with a slightly better battery. :-/
 

SackJabbit

macrumors member
Aug 21, 2011
90
16
So my battery has been replaced, and has already started showing slightly fast degradation. I think it's probably due to the way I'm using my phone. Oh well, I'll probably sign up for Apple Care the next time I purchase a new phone. That way, I'll change the battery on a yearly basis, if my usage patterns are the cause of it.
 

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nookster

macrumors regular
Aug 13, 2002
100
49
Bear in mind that it's only had one charge, they usually need a few cycles to reach full capacity. Give it time to bed in a bit, and also to find out if it'll drain reliably without sudden shutdown well before 1% etc.
 
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SackJabbit

macrumors member
Aug 21, 2011
90
16
Bear in mind that it's only had one charge, they usually need a few cycles to reach full capacity. Give it time to bed in a bit, and also to find out if it'll drain reliably without sudden shutdown well before 1% etc.

Thanks for the tip. :) So should I do a full discharge-recharge to do this?
 
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