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iPhone 15 Pro How charge 15Pro at 5W to avoid degrading battery like 14Pro?

johannnn

johannnn

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Nov 20, 2009
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I'm sure you have read plenty of posts here and clips on Youtube with 14 Pro with ****** battery. The 14 Pro battery definitely seems to be a dud. So many people with less than 90% after just a year.

So except for using my phone less and avoiding to go from 0% to 100% and back to 0%, I also have control over how I charge. From personal experience, the iPhone gets much hotter when using Apple's 15W wireless magsafe charger, and Apple's wired 20W charger, compared to Apple's wired 5W charger which never heats up my iPhone.

But how is this possible with the 15Pro? Does Apple sell an USB-A to USB-C cable which I can plug into Apple's own 5W charger?
 
I’m sure you can find an adapter. I’ve been using a standard old charger for my 14PM since it came out — battery is at 100% — not sure if the slow charging is the reason for this.
 
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JPack said:
Optimized doesn’t do enough to save the battery. It’s the heat from wireless and high powered charging along with sitting at 100% charge for extended periods.
Click to expand...
Agree, it must be heat. I mostly use MagSafe.

I wonder if I can plug the MagSafe disc into a 5w usb-c brick… does anyone sell a 5w usb-c brick? lol.
 
iPhone 15 batteries are pretty big - like the 14s. The 5 watt charger was designed for iPhone 4 & 5 with their dinky batteries.
You won’t degrade the ip15 battery if you limit max charge value to about 80%. Easy to do by using a Shortcut and HomeKit compatible smart plug.
Doing that with the 20 watt charger is a lot easier on the battery than using a 5 watt charger to take it up to 100%.
It’s the 100% charge voltage that’s killing the batteries.
 
now i see it said:
iPhone 15 batteries are pretty big - like the 14s. The 5 watt charger was designed for iPhone 4 & 5 with their dinky batteries.
You won’t degrade the ip15 battery if you limit max charge value to about 80%. Easy to do by using a Shortcut and HomeKit compatible smart plug.
Doing that with the 20 watt charger is a lot easier on the battery than using a 5 watt charger to take it up to 100%.
It’s the 100% charge voltage that’s killing the batteries.
Click to expand...
But the optimized charging already limits how long it’s at 100%
 
ifrit05 said:
No, it just stops it from topping off UNTIL it thinks you are about to wake up/use it. It will not prevent it from sitting at 100% indefinitely.
Click to expand...
Of course, but for me it’s 100% accurate. I wake up at the exact same time every day, and it only charges to 100% right before that… every day. And I only charge at night.
 
johannnn said:
I'm sure you have read plenty of posts here and clips on Youtube with 14 Pro with ****** battery. The 14 Pro battery definitely seems to be a dud. So many people with less than 90% after just a year.

So except for using my phone less and avoiding to go from 0% to 100% and back to 0%, I also have control over how I charge. From personal experience, the iPhone gets much hotter when using Apple's 15W wireless magsafe charger, and Apple's wired 20W charger, compared to Apple's wired 5W charger which never heats up my iPhone.

But how is this possible with the 15Pro? Does Apple sell an USB-A to USB-C cable which I can plug into Apple's own 5W charger?
Click to expand...
You realize that changing speed is only one factor. Charging cycles are likely more responsible for wear. The smaller iPhone Pro battery is likely to be ran down very low and charged all the way up more than the larger Max size. I rarely run my 14 PM below 40% but if I had the smaller Pro I would be running it down close to zero.
 
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JPack said:
Optimized doesn’t do enough to save the battery. It’s the heat from wireless and high powered charging along with sitting at 100% charge for extended periods.
Click to expand...
I have only ever charged my iPhone 14 Pro using wireless charging and my phone rarely drops below 90% as I keep it charged between 90-100% the majority of the time and my battery health is still at 100% eight months later.

I don’t game on it and I have never installed any beta firmware. Battery optimisation is enabled.
 
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Fast charging is only one factor that might reduce battery health. Others causes that are just as detrimental are charging to 100% or close to, discharging to 0% or close to, low temperatures and high temperatures. Even going above 30/35˚C will shorten life.

I'm not sure just limiting the charging to 5w will have any noticeable benefit. The standard 'fast charging' on iPhones is not particularly fast in the first case.

Some info here https://batteryuniversity.com/artic...tery works,decrease the performance over time.
 
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russell_314 said:
You realize that changing speed is only one factor. Charging cycles are likely more responsible for wear. The smaller iPhone Pro battery is likely to be ran down very low and charged all the way up more than the larger Max size. I rarely run my 14 PM below 40% but if I had the smaller Pro I would be running it down close to zero.
Click to expand...
Speed/heat appears to be more to blame in the 14 case.

I have 120 cycles @ 80% battery health. But I ONLY charge on 15w MagSafe. And it does get quite hot.

I do have optimized battery on, tho, so it stays at 80 til right before I get up
 
And would it be funny if some future study showed it was just the luck of the draw that determined if your battery degraded faster than others, and that the method of
charging was less important. Just saying cause some treat their batteries like crap and still have 100%?
 
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Fat_Guy said:
And would it be funny if some future study showed it was just the luck of the draw that determined if your battery degraded faster than others, and that the method of
charging was less important. Just saying cause some treat their batteries like crap and still have 100%?
Click to expand...

There are always outliers.

www.sciencedaily.com

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Not all smokers experience early mortality, and a small proportion manage to survive to extreme ages, research shows. Using long-lived smokers as their phenotype, the authors of a study identified a network of SNPs (a DNA sequence variation occurring commonly within a population) that allow...
www.sciencedaily.com
 
Steve686 said:
Just use optimized battery charging in battery health & charging settings.
Click to expand...
It doesn't really work, at least for me. My pro laptop gets to 80%, sits there for maybe 5 minutes, and then continues to charge to 100%. The same with my 13 Pro Max.

It seems it would be simple for Apple to add a feature to have the 80/20 option, but we don't know why some obvious features take years to implement...multiple times, no switch for languages in the translation app, etc.
 
ifrit05 said:
Mine's still at 100% using a 30w charger. Got it on release date last year. (14 Pro Max), idk how people's batteries degrade so fast.
Click to expand...
Battery lottery. As much as people try to identify a pattern, depends a lot on the individual battery you got
 
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ifrit05 said:
Mine's still at 100% using a 30w charger. Got it on release date last year. (14 Pro Max), idk how people's batteries degrade so fast.
Click to expand...
We don't know what is really going on. Maybe some batteries are not up to par. It could be a combination of some batteries being better than others, optimized charging not really working, etc.

What I do know is that the battery on my 13 Pro Max has been great, until the 16.5.1 update. After that, it started to really heat up during charging, which had never happened before. It also started randomly heat up during the day for no apparent reason. I wiped everything clean and did a clean install. It seems the issue went away for the most part, but sometimes it still heats up during the day for no apparent reason and the battery can quickly drop by about 5%.

I have never charged my phone overnight, always early in the morning and I have automation shortcuts to alert me when it gets to 80%. My battery health is at 99%, but it was at 100% before the 16.5.1 update.
 
I got my 13 Pro Max about a month a half before the 14 Pro Max launched and it is sitting at 95% battery health now over a year later.

- I use a 18W charger daily and charge whenever I want, sometimes I even plug in at 90% and leave it overnight
- Have not cared much about the 80/20 crap
- I keep it on charge in my car when using GPS
Etc…

Battery degradation is going to happen regardless, if a phone has poor heat dissipation or other factors are at play (including miscalculation of battery health) it’s going to go down no matter what you do.
 
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NotApplicable said:
Agree, it must be heat. I mostly use MagSafe.

I wonder if I can plug the MagSafe disc into a 5w usb-c brick… does anyone sell a 5w usb-c brick? lol.
Click to expand...
I charge my 14 PM exclusively via MagSafe (via desk, battery pack, and car charger) and my battery health is at 100% since launch last year.

My 13 PM after a year, was also at 100%. The key I’ve found was only rarely charging it past 80%, or rarely letting it drop below 20%.
 
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I do a full 7.5w qi charge every night from near empty and I’m at 97% on my 14 pro after a year. I think the high heat from 15w MagSafe is what degrades them rapidly.
 
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