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Hands-On With Apple's New Smart Battery Case for iPhone 11 Pro Max

gsmornot said:
Almost 12 hours into my day I am at 87% so I am not a good candidate for this but I would get one for those few times extra battery is needed. Thing is I bought one last year, used it some, then sold it for a fraction of its original value since I could not use it with the 11 MAX. I wish I knew this could last more than a year and fit next years phone. It would be easier to buy knowing it will last for at least 2 years.
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How are you using your iPhone daily? I have the 11 Pro Max and for the most part mine last about 12-14 hours before having to recharge. Before 13.2 iOS, my iPhone 11 Pro Max battery was like crazy. I seen alot of complaints from other users as well. Idk if it's the batteries or a iOS glitch.

For about 8 hours I have to leave my phone unattended due to work. I have my phone fully charged but I do have emails come through so my home screen lights up through the night. It drops about 10%. I also keep my brightness very low. Is it suppose to last longer than 12-14 hours? It is a bit better than before though I can say since updating the iOS. Thanks in advance!
 
Baymowe335 said:
Dan is somehow annoying. Not sure what it is.

These cases seem largely unnecessary with the insane battery life in iPhone 11.
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Thus it’s an optional accessory. Most people who don’t need it don’t have to buy it. Others who need it (eg. Travelers) will be glad that Apple offers it.
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lostngone said:
I know it isn’t exactly the same thing but I am still surprised how many people still don’t realize the volume up button behaves similarly at least in once the camera app is launched for taking pictures.

I think it it a cool feature for snapping very quick pictures but I wonder how many people are going to end up with pictures of the insides of their pockets.
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Whenever I use my iPhone to take landscape photos, I naturally flip the iPhone where the lens is on the upper right. This means the volume buttons are on the bottom side when I hold the phone, making it inconvenient to use the them. If I do it the other way around, the lens will be at the lower part where it can be covered by my right hand. YMMV.
 
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I've heard a lot of noise about the Amazon Third Party iPhone 11 Pro Max Smart Battery Cases. I tried the Mophie Case for my iPhone 11 Pro Max and sent it back the next day. I only got 15%, which was VERY VERY SLOWLY from a full Mophie Case charge. That's not good smh.

Does anyone have experience with the Amazon Third Party Cases? Are they better than Apple's (faster charging, last longer)?
 
Love this case. I’ll buy every apple
Charging case that’s released, as my business depends on it especially during travel. My camera button on the case doesn’t do anything however. Weird.
 
I had one of these cases for my iPhone 6, and while the functionality was great, the rubberised shell made it such a pain to get in and out of a pocket. It also collected a lot of dust.
 
Baymowe335 said:
I think he's talking about people who scratch up the area because they are careless when plugging in their phones.
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Uh yeah, I've seen that happen to people. That issue (let's say it's an issue) is easily solved without the need of a battery case by:
1. paying attention while connecting the phone
2. wireless charging
All in all, it is impressive what battery life we can achieve with an 11 series iPhone and a battery case. I hope this trend continues!

PS: It is a shame that these battery cases just look awful. I liked the first attempt at it, the case for the 6s with the square battery protruding. That I felt was a more interesting design!
 
velcrovan said:
An underappreciated benefit of a battery case is that it reduces wear on the lightning port and the original battery, increasing the useable life of your phone.
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That's exactly what I was thinking re the phone's battery, didn't even consider the Lightning port, but you're quite right, of course. Since a legit battery replacement costs at least half what the case costs, for heavy users, it could partly pay for itself, over and above extended runtime. Not to mention the hassle of a battery replacement, which I suspect is generally not while-u-wait, most places.
 
Does it really reduce the wear and tear on your iPhone internal battery? I did use the smart battery case on the iPhone Xs Max. The size didn't really bother me that much, but the weight was unsettling at first but I got used to it. I loved the improvement in battery life.

But I never felt it improved on the wear and tear of the internal battery. I would claim it did the opposite. When me and my wife got the iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max her iPhone Xs battery was at 98% battery health, my iPhone Xs Max was at 92%. Considering she is a much more active user of her phone (games, social media etc..) and my Xs Max has longer battery life to begin with so I should be going through less charging cycles compared to her because of this I find it strange that my battery health was worse.

I just figured this was because of the battery case? There isn't much smartness about this "smart" battery case. I love how it integrates with iOS and shows you the battery percentage etc.. And of course it's a huge benefit that iOS understands that you are using the Smart Battery Case so it doesn't start all those tasks it would normally start when connecte to power. Which is a huge downside with other battery cases as your iPhone starts draining a ton of extra battery life because your phone thinks you are connected to power at all times so it will do iCloud uploads and whatnot regardless of whether you are actually connected to a wall-outlet. But there is no way for you to toggle a setting telling iOS to basically never use or charge the internal battery while using the smart battery case. So it keeps trickle charging your internal battery so it stays at 100% at all times until your smart battery case is drained.

Keeping your battery at 100% is better than keep draining it down to 0%. But it's much better to have your battery between 30-80% than to have it constantly trickle charge and stay at 100%. With it's current implementation I can't really see how the smart battery case would improve the health of your internal battery unless you are one that constantly drain your battery to 0% on a regular basis and the case helps you avoid this.


What would improve on this smart battery case immensely would be for Apple to add some setting i iOS allowing you to tell iOS that if the Smart Battery Case is connected, only charge my internal battery to 80% and when reaching 80% stop charging until it's down to 40%. And as you are basically bypassing the internal battery while the case is connected it would take ages to go down from 80% to 40% unless you complete drain the battery case. This would make so much sense and improve on the quality of the smart battery case by a ton. Why having it constantly charge my internal battery even when it's at 100%? Like why?

I understand that manufactures like Mophie have no control over iOS so their cases have to stay dumb. But Apple should be fully capable of making this behave so much smarter.
 
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I may get one for my Xs as battery life isn't great but my wife just got an iPhone 11 and she can charge it every other day, I guess you really need to use the phone a lot to need a battery case on the 11 and 11 pro
 
velcrovan said:
An underappreciated benefit of a battery case is that it reduces wear on the lightning port and the original battery, increasing the useable life of your phone.
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Putting a new battery into your phone also increases the useable life of your phone (for less than half the cost, $69). I'd reformulate your point and say that if you have other reasons to get a battery case, you maximize your benefits by using the battery case often enough such that both the phone and battery case get similar charge cycles.
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cappo3 said:
About the increase of the useable life of the phone... Well, I have my doubts on that as well. No Li-ion battery likes to stay at 100% for longer periods. It's (just about) fine for charging overnight, but I wouldn't want the battery to stay at 100% all day long. Which is an actual possibility this year, since the case gives 50% of the charge on top.
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I think the effect of staying at 100% is highly overblown. My estimate would be that the number one predictor of battery health is the number of charge cycles, then the actual age of the battery and only after that other factors like staying at 100% or fast vs slow charging.

I wonder how many of those people worried about staying at 100% deliberately only charge their phones with the slowest possible charger (ie, the 5-W version).
 
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Not sure if I want this or not. I’m a pretty heavy user. Lots of YouTube, Plex. So having the extra power would be nice.

Of course then I can’t use my awesome saddle brown leather case.
 
RamGuy said:
Does it really reduce the wear and tear on your iPhone internal battery? I did use the smart battery case on the iPhone Xs Max. The size didn't really bother me that much, but the weight was unsettling at first but I got used to it. I loved the improvement in battery life.

But I never felt it improved on the wear and tear of the internal battery. I would claim it did the opposite. When me and my wife got the iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max her iPhone Xs battery was at 98% battery health, my iPhone Xs Max was at 92%. Considering she is a much more active user of her phone (games, social media etc..) and my Xs Max has longer battery life to begin with so I should be going through less charging cycles compared to her because of this I find it strange that my battery health was worse.

I just figured this was because of the battery case? There isn't much smartness about this "smart" battery case. I love how it integrates with iOS and shows you the battery percentage etc.. And of course it's a huge benefit that iOS understands that you are using the Smart Battery Case so it doesn't start all those tasks it would normally start when connecte to power. Which is a huge downside with other battery cases as your iPhone starts draining a ton of extra battery life because your phone thinks you are connected to power at all times so it will do iCloud uploads and whatnot regardless of whether you are actually connected to a wall-outlet. But there is no way for you to toggle a setting telling iOS to basically never use or charge the internal battery while using the smart battery case. So it keeps trickle charging your internal battery so it stays at 100% at all times until your smart battery case is drained.
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Mac laptops haven't been trickle charging for as long as I can remember. When you keep your laptop plugged in, it stops charging once it has reached 100% and then waits for self-discharge (or power demand peaks that surpass what the mains connection can supply) to bring down the battery charge level to 95% before it starts charging again. I'd be surprised if at least a little bit like this weren't also happening with iOS device batteries (and is simply just hidden from the user).

Keeping your phone charged at (or very close to) 100% is worse than keeping it charged at 80% while powered down. But is keeping it at 100% worse than cycling it between, eg, 20% and 80%? The answer to that question will naturally be a function of how frequently that cycling happens. If we were to cycle every five hours between 80% and 20%, that is probably worse than keeping the battery at 100%. If that cycling happens over a full week, than the cycling is probably better.

I actually unintentionally ran a little experiment on this maybe 15 years ago. I travelled to work every day with my laptop and started off with only one charger. Not wanting to carry both the laptop and the charger I left the charger at work since I spend significantly more time on my laptop at work and the battery life of the laptop was long enough to carry me through the evening at home. After doing this for a while I noticed the battery life going down which motivated me to get a second charger (that I kept at home). From thereon, my laptop would stay the vast majority of time connected to a charger (mostly just being discharged from whatever power consumption sleep mode had during my commute). That slowed down the decline of the battery life significantly.
 
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The wife had one for her 10 Max, and it lasted about 6 months. Took it back to the Apple Store, and they 'ran tests', said it was fine. Hopefully the new ones last longer.
 
The camera button just seems pointless to me. It’s ok that it was included, but I cant see why this would make someone in the fence decide to buy it
 
bronksy said:
Interesting to read lots saying that how good the battery is on the 11. I have the 11pro and after a full day I’m usually down to 20%. This is with music, perhaps some games. A LOT of WhatsApp etc and an hours commute each way.
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Exactly what ive said in other threads, and have been saying for years. Its like nobody here actually USES their phone, they just like to upgrade every year to show it off. My battery is almost always dead, or close to it, by the time i go to sleep if i dont have access to a charger during the day (11pro, which admittedly is way better than previous models).

Received my battery case on thursday, and love it.
 
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Hey I have an idea, how about produce iPhone devices without a battery and then you would purchase a battery case with the battery life you desire. That way the devices never need to be serviced for battery replacement and they would be even thinner.
 
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JosephAW said:
Hey I have an idea, how about produce iPhone devices without a battery and then you would purchase a battery case with the battery life you desire. That way the devices never need to be serviced for battery replacement and they would be even thinner.
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To paraphrase Oscar Levant: "There is a fine line between genius and insanity. You have erased this line."

Seriously, that's a pretty darn good idea, since most people buy a case for their iPhone anyway.
 
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techguy500 said:
How are you using your iPhone daily? I have the 11 Pro Max and for the most part mine last about 12-14 hours before having to recharge. Before 13.2 iOS, my iPhone 11 Pro Max battery was like crazy. I seen alot of complaints from other users as well. Idk if it's the batteries or a iOS glitch.

For about 8 hours I have to leave my phone unattended due to work. I have my phone fully charged but I do have emails come through so my home screen lights up through the night. It drops about 10%. I also keep my brightness very low. Is it suppose to last longer than 12-14 hours? It is a bit better than before though I can say since updating the iOS. Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
I have several other devices that are used during a typical day. My watch removes a lot of needing to look at the phone since it supplies the time, weather, messages, etc. I did in the past need to look at my phone a lot more. One big help is no social media. I visit forums but do not subscribe to any services that are sending me things throughout the day. Well, sport scores on the weekends but that is about it.
 
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