charging your phone to ensure max battery life.

D

doc shivers

macrumors member
I have been trying to develop a schedule with my phone and have been making sure to wait until it gets down to at least 5% before throwing it on the charger, letting it charge fully to 100%, and absolutely never letting it charge a minute over 100%. Anyone else do the same?
 
I wouldn't let the battery run down to 5% all the time. Basically you are using 1 cycle charge per day if you go with this route and your battery probably won't last a year depending if you do this every day. Also you can continue to keep it on the charger even if it's fully charged. Once it is fully charged, charging stops and relies power on your outlet and does not use battery power when it's still plugged in. Most lithium ion batteries like the iphone uses, has a chip that tells the battery to stop charging it reaches it's capacity to full.

What I would suggest is, just use your phone normally and charge it every night or so, and once a month do a fully drain your battery until your phone doesn't turn on anymore, then fully charge it.
 
Just use the phone and charge it when convenient. I charge pretty much every night no matter how many percent remain, that way I start the day fully charged. As stated the iPhones internal circuitry prevents overcharge so babysitting is unnecessary. Full charge or discharge cycles are not required for lithium-ion polymer batteries.

Forget everything you know about the NiCd/ NiMh chemistries when charging your iPhone.
 
doc shivers said:
I have been trying to develop a schedule with my phone and have been making sure to wait until it gets down to at least 5% before throwing it on the charger, letting it charge fully to 100%, and absolutely never letting it charge a minute over 100%. Anyone else do the same?
Click to expand...

That's bad. Leaving it on the charger extends the life of the battery. Once the lithium ion cell hits full capacity it signals the phone to run off of AC power. When you know that you won't be needing the phone for awhile by all means leave it plugged in!
 
The phone doesn't keep charging or harm the battery if you leave it on the charger. I plug mine in once at night, leave it all night...use during day. Simple enough. My iPhone 4 lasted all day for 2 years that way, and the iPhone 5 is off to a good start this way. Quit over thinking it and just use the phone and charge it whenever
 
It might actually be bad depending on how hot your device gets and how long it stays at that temp. Charging 20% until its full and stopping might result a phone that doesn't get nearly as hot as having to spend a full hour charging as fast as possible because the battery is so empty...
 
Yeah, I run it all the way down maybe once a month to keep the battery calibrated. Otherwise, I just charge whenever it's convenient. I think frequent short charges are better than constant deep discharge cycles for modern smartphone batteries.
 
doc shivers said:
I have been trying to develop a schedule with my phone and have been making sure to wait until it gets down to at least 5% before throwing it on the charger, letting it charge fully to 100%, and absolutely never letting it charge a minute over 100%. Anyone else do the same?
Click to expand...

By doing so, you're harming your battery by causing unnecessary wear.


http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

If you look at the Depth of Discharge chart, Li-ion batteries that get fully discharged go through 400 discharge cycles before reaching 70% of original capacity vs 1350 discharge cycles for batteries that get to 50% discharge.
 
Ok, so say you are buying a new iPhone. Before you use it, should you charge it up completely or should you drain it completely? Or should you just use it normally as if you've had it.
 
Tadros86 said:
Ok, so say you are buying a new iPhone. Before you use it, should you charge it up completely or should you drain it completely? Or should you just use it normally as if you've had it.
Click to expand...

Charge it up completely and always plug it in whenever you can. Avoid deep discharge cycles as much as possible.
 
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