Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Torlen

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 5, 2019
28
7
Hey,
I’m gonna get a new battery for my iPhone X.

Two questions:
1. How can I keep my battery healthy?
2. Why does my iPhone get hot sometimes?

Thanks.

C0EF1295-9EA8-4E90-807A-1A2E2906D7D8.png

3FB5D4AE-5CB2-4CBC-ABF5-A3E54231DF2E.png
 
Battery health is most affected negatively by heat. If you're interested in longevity I would say avoid using anything other than a lightning cable with the 5W charging brick. Charging (and using, if possible) with no case will also reduce heat impact on the battery. After that, you're going to want to avoid letting the battery drop below 20%. If you're really wanting to go extreme on the battery coddling, keep it from going above 80% as well.

Outside of that, I would say use it normally. I've had my 12 Pro since early February, charge using a MagSafe puck while I sleep and still have 100% health. The same has been the case with my previous phones since battery health was introduced. I don't baby it whatsoever and have had days (more recently with 15 betas) where I've needed to top up to get through the day.

As someone who upgrades every year that's about all the advice I can give on this.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Torlen
Depending upon your usage, there could be a ton of things you can do to extend battery runtime and service life, such as: turning-off settings for features/apps you don’t use or care about; using more efficient apps; tracing rogue batt-burning apps (eg. Reddit); and using a smart plug custom optimization (Apple’s optimization is not very good).

As an off-grid ultralight camper, I got into batteries/runtime a long time ago, have used my 3 previous iOS devices over 5yrs, and my current 2yo/96% XR battery is still going strong.

That said, it’s an awfully deep rabbit hole that most won’t bother with so plugging-in more, using a battery bank, replacing the battery, and upgrading phones more frequently, all work fine too.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Torlen
Its not the battery you have to worry about on the iPhone X its the mainboard shorting that's the issue. Renders the phone dead. Only seems to affect the X, the XS and later phones are fine.
 
Your usage will greatly affect your battery health. If you do a lot of facetime calls, it will hit your battery. I don’t play games on my almost 3yr old XR and the battery is now at 87%.
 
I'd certainly think very hard about taking the money you'd spend on a battery and put it towards a newer much better phone with a bigger/better battery. The battery wasn't great in the X when new and degraded pretty quickly, its pretty small. That was the worst thing about the X. If you look into doing that, wait until after the 13 hits the streets, prices will drop quite a bit from where they are now.

Heat is teh biggest thing, use your phone on battery saver mode, that helps, try to not charge above 80 especially 90%, certainly dont leave it on the charger long/use the smart charging feature. Try not to charge it fast unless you specifically want it charged faster, but if you're only charging to 80% or so it may not be that big of a deal. It may be nothing, but I feel like I've noticed the people with the best battery % after a year or two were people that charged wirelessly. No idea why.

I had read someone who talked to a apple battery engineer and said when you plug in it starts a chemical reaction in the battery that wears the battery down/only has so many of those in the life of the battery, so dont be constantly plugging in for short little amounts, leave it on longer. I havent seen anyone say this other than that, and that was several years ago. I know batteries are rated for a certain number of cycles (0-100%) so idk if this is something or not.

Dont let it get too low either. Ideally you want to stay between 20-80% probably. Dont let it sit below or above these for too long. The smaller the battery, the harder that is to do.

Hope this helps.
 
Divide the cost of a new battery by three years and the cost per day is something like 7 cents/day
 
Battery cycles and heat is "wears out" your battery. So....don't use it and keep it in a cool dry place? Try to maintain 40-70% charge. Might as well not even buy it at that point....

That said I highly advice using your iPhone and charging to suit your lifestyle. The alternative is altering your lifestyle to suit a smartphone battery....?

Resistance to the flow of electricity will cause electronics to get hot when referenced to time and their mass. More current more heat. Your iPhone will get hot when its doing a normal task for a long time, or a big task for a short amount of time. The heat can be generated from the SoC however usually you are feeling the battery warm up.

I wouldn't avoid doing those task I'm just stating what is happening. An iPhone is meant to be used...

Technically never charging past 70-75% is beneficial due to 100% being right at a lithium ions "overcharged" point. But exercising that practice is dumb because now you are artificially limiting how long the device last between charges which is no different then its having a lower health. This is what the "optimized battery charging" tries to do for you. Which charges to around 80-85% and finishes closer to the time you are going to take it off the charger based on what its learned from your usage.

Don't be nervous to see the battery health drop to 85% fairly quickly, once its there its degradation slows quite a bit.
 
…Battery cycles and heat is "wears out" your battery…

Li-ion battery cycle life and capacity loss are highly dependent upon peak SoC, avg SoC, and DoD - details discussed HERE. You can greatly extend cycle life beyond Apple’s ‘500 full cycles’ with lower voltage cycling.

Technically never charging past 70-75% is beneficial due to 100% being right at a lithium ions "overcharged" point. But exercising that practice is dumb because now you are artificially limiting how long the device last between charges which is no different then its having a lower health.

Agree assuming you use of 100% battery every day, and/or you upgrade every 2yrs. However, plenty of folks that use 70% or less/day, and/or want to keep the phone for >3yrs, and/or are not so conveniently located near an Apple store (for batt replacement), could greatly extend their battery service life, # of cycles, etc. by using a lower voltage custom optimization (which can be automated - no additional effort required after initial set-up).
 
My strategy is not to worry about the battery. Just use your device without worry and deal with any issue with the battery when and if it becomes necessary. After three years of use or so, you will probably want a replacement battery no matter how much you decide to baby your device.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Spudlicious
Batteries always wear down, trying to coddle them will lead you to be over careful which can become infuriating eventually. Me personally, I just stick with Apple’s battery optimization strategy when charging.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.