Other How well did your iPhone battery hold up?

[Jsee]

Hello
I used to have an obsession over battery health and with my old phone I practised cycling which is where you keep your percentages between 20-80% to avoid stresses on the battery. Meaning with my previous phone I never really charged to 100%.

Fast forward to four years later and I've broken my screen, so I had to get a new phone. But the battery capacity reported was 86%. I was quite proud of it at the time since my phone was quite old and I credited it to my cycling practises. But then my friend who also had an iPhone used it like a normal person would. So she would charge it to 100% overnight and drain to about 20% before charging again. She had 1200 cycle with 85% capacity remaining (according to coconut battery).

This kinda of shook me and made me rethink my own habits. I've put extra effort throughout the lifespan of the phone only to end with the same result. In fact her phone is actually a year older than mine (iPhone 7) and is only a percent lower. Technically speaking her phone held up longer than mine. I have an android.

The only plausible explanation I could think of is that cycling and state of charge isn't as big of a degradation factor as I once thought it was to be. Heat is a larger factor when it comes to degradation of the devices which is unavoidable, hence similar percentages. The other one is that apple uses batteries that are more durable than other manufactures.

Anyways, since I only have a sample size of one person, I need a larger sample size to say anything definitive. If possible could you state

• Your battery health (Percentage)
• How long you owned your device for
• Usage (Heavy user? Moderate? Light?)
• Charging habits (ie When do you charge it? 0%? 20%? Overnight?)
• Wattage of charger (5W, 10W, 15W, 20W)
• If possible via coconut battery how many cycles are you rocking? (You need a Mac and to download the app)

Inputs would be greatly appreciated. If people seem to be getting reasonable percentages several years down the line, I may drop my cycling habit entirely with my new iPhone and just not worry about battery health at all. If you have a Mac or iPad it would also be nice to see if there is any difference with that too. For my friend it seemed on average both her Mac and iPhone lost 3% a year.

 

[JBGoode]

A

426 Charge Cycles/Battery health 100%
Owned for about 33 months
Light usage
A few top-ups throughout the day. Mostly kept at around 60-80%
5W charger

 

[Jsee]

View attachment 1906435A

426 Charge Cycles/Battery health 100%
Owned for about 33 months
Light usage
A few top-ups throughout the day. Mostly kept at around 60-80%
5W charger

Gee that's great! Super impressive for close to 3 years of use.
Perhaps iPhones do tend to last longer than their android counterparts, although I have no mechanism to explain why.
I have learnt that iPhone's do tend to overprovison their batteries a little by a few percent so it can take a bit of degradation before 100 goes to 99. But 100 for three years that's definitely something else. Thanks for the data!

 

[Shirasaki]

3 year-old iPhone XS Max. Can’t even last half a day with moderate usage. Battery has gone pretty bad imo.

 

[eyoungren]

• Your battery health (Percentage)

iPhone 6s+, used as a primary phone from September 2015 to May 2019. Secondary phone since then.

77%

• How long you owned your device for

Since late September 2015

• Usage (Heavy user? Moderate? Light?)

From 2015 to 2019, moderate. Used for calls, texting, some email. I do not use my phones for games or streaming media. That's what I have computers with large monitors and a large TV at home for.

Since 2019, very light. Mostly it sits.

• Charging habits (ie When do you charge it? 0%? 20%? Overnight?)

2015 to 2019 - On charger around 10-11pm. Screen on all night as a bedside clock. Removed from charger around 4-6am and not plugged back in until 10-11pm.

2019 to now, sits on charger.

• Wattage of charger (5W, 10W, 15W, 20W)

Bedside charger is the 10W I believe. Same I've been using I think since I got my iPhone 5.

• If possible via coconut battery how many cycles are you rocking? (You need a Mac and to download the app)

No idea., but it's the original battery.

PS, phone did two summers in Phoenix, Arizona heat riding around in a car with no A/C and windows that would not roll down. You say heat effects things, but with 90mins a day in 100º+ heat (inside the car) that probably had some impact. Still, I'm at 77% battery health. I think I had thermal overheat maybe once or twice in all that time.

 

[now i see it]

The reason your battery health after 4 years of keeping it at 20%-80% equals your friend’s who kept it at 20%-100% is that discharging all the way down to 20% is hard on the battery.
20% SOC as being “good” has become a meme. There really isn’t any data to support it. It’s certainly better than 0% or 10% but it’s still hard on the battery. If you had kept the battery between 40%-80% it would have lasted 3X longer.

The fundamental problem is- iPhone batteries are too small. In order to get all day battery life we’ve got to fully charge them and fully discharge them to make it at least most of the way through the day.
Pampering an iPhone battery for years is both tedious and wastes a lot of time.
I think a better way to go about it is to just plan on getting a new battery every two years and forget about pampering the battery entirely. Then you can just leave it plugged in over night and discharge it till it dies (if necessary) - and it’ll make it until 2 years easily.

 

[chanerz]

Just use the phone as intended. Change the battery as needed. Enjoy your phone!

 

[BugeyeSTI]

The battery in my X was almost 4 years old and I charged it on a wireless charger at 7.5w almost exclusively before I had Apple replace it around a month ago. Capacity was showing 81% but I could tell the battery was worn. Replacing the battery made a big difference in the way it performs so to me it was well worth the cost

 

[joeblow7777]

Hello
I used to have an obsession over battery health and with my old phone I practised cycling which is where you keep your percentages between 20-80% to avoid stresses on the battery. Meaning with my previous phone I never really charged to 100%.

Fast forward to four years later and I've broken my screen, so I had to get a new phone. But the battery capacity reported was 86%. I was quite proud of it at the time since my phone was quite old and I credited it to my cycling practises. But then my friend who also had an iPhone used it like a normal person would. So she would charge it to 100% overnight and drain to about 20% before charging again. She had 1200 cycle with 85% capacity remaining (according to coconut battery).

This kinda of shook me and made me rethink my own habits. I've put extra effort throughout the lifespan of the phone only to end with the same result. In fact her phone is actually a year older than mine (iPhone 7) and is only a percent lower. Technically speaking her phone held up longer than mine. I have an android.

The only plausible explanation I could think of is that cycling and state of charge isn't as big of a degradation factor as I once thought it was to be. Heat is a larger factor when it comes to degradation of the devices which is unavoidable, hence similar percentages. The other one is that apple uses batteries that are more durable than other manufactures.

Anyways, since I only have a sample size of one person, I need a larger sample size to say anything definitive. If possible could you state

• Your battery health (Percentage)
• How long you owned your device for
• Usage (Heavy user? Moderate? Light?)
• Charging habits (ie When do you charge it? 0%? 20%? Overnight?)
• Wattage of charger (5W, 10W, 15W, 20W)
• If possible via coconut battery how many cycles are you rocking? (You need a Mac and to download the app)

Inputs would be greatly appreciated. If people seem to be getting reasonable percentages several years down the line, I may drop my cycling habit entirely with my new iPhone and just not worry about battery health at all. If you have a Mac or iPad it would also be nice to see if there is any difference with that too. For my friend it seemed on average both her Mac and iPhone lost 3% a year.

- 100%
- About 10 months
- light - moderate use
- I charge it pretty much whenever I need to or feel like it. Will usually plug in if I'm below 30% or so, and I typically charge it all the way to 100% unless I need to unplug before then for some reason. I never charge overnight.
- I usually use the 5W charger. I typically charge when I'm at my desk or it's on the table beside me at home, so there's not usually any hurry for it to finish.
- Sorry, I don't have a Mac.

Additional notes:
To be honest, I'm not sure I believe the 100% health reading. After 10 months it seems to good to be true. (My phone is a 12 Pro Max, by the way). Most days I use about 40% of it's charge or so, I can get up to 2 whole days out of it most of the time. That being said, my last phone (an 8 Plus) only lost about 4% per year, I think, and I did nothing special to preserve the battery, just used it normally.

 

[meson]

Original 2016 iPhone SE

• Your battery health (Percentage) 70% Coconut Battery 77% Phone Settings
• How long you owned your device for 5.5 years
• Usage (Heavy user? Moderate? Light?) Moderate (although, the way people complain about less than 10h per day SOT, I may be light)
• Charging habits (ie When do you charge it? 0%? 20%? Overnight?) Charge when needed, may be overnight, may be at the office, may be initiated at any percentage and removed at any percentage
• Wattage of charger (5W, 10W, 15W, 20W) 5W - 10W
• If possible via coconut battery how many cycles are you rocking? (You need a Mac and to download the app) 2095 (pretty much 1 cycle per day until the battery tanked over the summer)

 

[itsclevelandbrown]

my iphone 12 pro max is like 92%, pretty good.
I use the 20W pd charger from Apple all the time

 

[azhava]

I don't have my XS anymore, but I owned it for almost exactly 3 years and battery health was at 79% when I traded it in. I charged it to 100% every night on a Qi wireless charger (while in a case), often topped it off during the day (either by cable or wireless charger), left it on chargers after it had reached 100%, ran it into single digit percentages fairly often before recharging (even had it go to 0% and shut down a few times), used it outdoors and in vehicles in 100+°F heat, had it shut down due to overheating many times from being left in the heat/sun....basically did everything that are considered nightmares for batteries.

If it stood up to all that abuse and still had 79% after three years, I'm not going to worry about my battery. I treat my 13 Pro pretty much the same as above, except I now use a MagSafe charger every night instead of a Qi charger. To me it's not worth being obsessive over - if the battery wears out I'll have it replaced. If it lasts 3 years like my XS did, I'll probably be trading it in at that point anyway.

 

[Ruggy]

The 6S+ had its battery changed a while back and it was holding up well until about a week ago then it fell off a cliff.
This tends to be typical of Liion: they perform really well up to the end then they die. It needsd replacing now but trade in is only €40 and it isn't really worth it
I just use them as I like and replace the battery when needed.
I personally have no problem paying Apple €49 to replace the battery.
I mentioned this before probably but I had to replace the battery on my Mother in law's LG and buying a new one was a real pain. There are so many old batteries taken out of phones and they look like new. It's a minefield finding a reliable company to supply a good one. I eventually bought one for about €35 so not a big difference in price even though I could just slot it in.
I realise not everyone feels the same but how often do you dig around inside your TV set or your washing machine?
And we all want them to be waterproof, dust proof and safe from having any sort of spyware installed.
Phones these days are little gems of technology and I personally don't want just anyone digging around inside them so I just use them, don't worry about it and pay when necessary.

 

[Al Rukh]

iPhone 11 Pro Max, Oct 2019
90% battery capacity
Fast charge with 18W adapter
Charge daily at around 10pm (50-60% remaining to 100%)

 

[Jsee]

- 100%
- About 10 months
- light - moderate use
- I charge it pretty much whenever I need to or feel like it. Will usually plug in if I'm below 30% or so, and I typically charge it all the way to 100% unless I need to unplug before then for some reason. I never charge overnight.
- I usually use the 5W charger. I typically charge when I'm at my desk or it's on the table beside me at home, so there's not usually any hurry for it to finish.
- Sorry, I don't have a Mac.

Additional notes:
To be honest, I'm not sure I believe the 100% health reading. After 10 months it seems to good to be true. (My phone is a 12 Pro Max, by the way). Most days I use about 40% of it's charge or so, I can get up to 2 whole days out of it most of the time. That being said, my last phone (an 8 Plus) only lost about 4% per year, I think, and I did nothing special to preserve the battery, just used it normally.

Sounds about right, iPhone actually typically ship with slightly higher percentages with them. (maybe 100 - 105%) so it is likely that within the first year your gonna sit at 100% since the battery is slightly larger than the specified capacity.

 

[Jsee]

Original 2016 iPhone SE

• Your battery health (Percentage) 70% Coconut Battery 77% Phone Settings
• How long you owned your device for 5.5 years
• Usage (Heavy user? Moderate? Light?) Moderate (although, the way people complain about less than 10h per day SOT, I may be light)
• Charging habits (ie When do you charge it? 0%? 20%? Overnight?) Charge when needed, may be overnight, may be at the office, may be initiated at any percentage and removed at any percentage
• Wattage of charger (5W, 10W, 15W, 20W) 5W - 10W
• If possible via coconut battery how many cycles are you rocking? (You need a Mac and to download the app) 2095 (pretty much 1 cycle per day until the battery tanked over the summer)

That's quite reassuring, sounds like a similar situation to my friend except you used yours a little more heavily (she was a pretty light user). So numbers seem to add up.

 

[Jsee]

I don't have my XS anymore, but I owned it for almost exactly 3 years and battery health was at 79% when I traded it in. I charged it to 100% every night on a Qi wireless charger (while in a case), often topped it off during the day (either by cable or wireless charger), left it on chargers after it had reached 100%, ran it into single digit percentages fairly often before recharging (even had it go to 0% and shut down a few times), used it outdoors and in vehicles in 100+°F heat, had it shut down due to overheating many times from being left in the heat/sun....basically did everything that are considered nightmares for batteries.

If it stood up to all that abuse and still had 79% after three years, I'm not going to worry about my battery. I treat my 13 Pro pretty much the same as above, except I now use a MagSafe charger every night instead of a Qi charger. To me it's not worth being obsessive over - if the battery wears out I'll have it replaced. If it lasts 3 years like my XS did, I'll probably be trading it in at that point anyway.

That's quite reassuring. I'd say that's still a reasonable percentage given what you described. Perhaps iPhone's are more durable than there android counterparts! That is what the conclusion is pointing too based on the people in this thread. People using their phones regularly (possibly abusing it), but either getting similar percentages to my old phone (which I've take great care of) or 5 - 10% less (which isn't that significant given the effort you save over 4 years)

I tend to like to hold onto my devices until they break so that means I hold onto device for a long time, but since I'm a light user, it sounds like I should be able to comfortably hold onto my device for 3 - 4 years (possibly even 5) without the battery dying on me (reaching 70%). I think by then I'd just get the battery replaced if I decide to hold onto it for longer.

Thanks guys!

 

[max2]

Interesting thread!

Right now had a iPhone 11 for about 2 years with 98% battery health.

 

[Al Rukh]

Interesting thread!

Right now had a iPhone 11 for about 2 years with 98% battery health.

How did you keep it at 98%? You never fast-charged your phone?

 

[Jsee]

How did you keep it at 98%? You never fast-charged your phone?

It is possible that iPhones ship with more capacity than designed. Most of the time they have room to degrade for the first year. It is possible to retain 100 for the first year if for example the phone came with 105%. Based on this thread people typically lose between 3-10% a year depending on how heavily they use it.