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Is it bad for the battery if I use Gravity Clock as night clock all night?

F

felixen

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 13, 2009
884
113
I have this app gravity clock that I use as my alarm since someone at apple had the great idea of leaving the clock.app out. So normally I set the alarm and turn off the screen, but I am really loving the clock itself. So I wanna put in the charger cable, open the app and have the gravity clock showing all night long, every single night. Will this drastically mess up the ipad's battery, or should I be fine having it on during night 365 days a year (well, that's only for one year since I'm buying the new iPad next summer hehe).

Hope someone with some good knowledge on batteries can help me out.. :)
 
It is never a good idea to keep anything plugged in when it's at 100% charge, if you keep it plugged in overnight and it becomes fully charged and you leave it like that, it will drastically shorten the life of your battery. I bet now your thinking, "well I just won't leave it plugged in then". Just know that the more you use it the faster you will go through charge cycles. All batteries have a certain amount of times they can be charged before they start to lose they're capacity.
 
Lotso said:
It is never a good idea to keep anything plugged in when it's at 100% charge, if you keep it plugged in overnight and it becomes fully charged and you leave it like that, it will drastically shorten the life of your battery. I bet now your thinking, "well I just won't leave it plugged in then". Just know that the more you use it the faster you will go through charge cycles. All batteries have a certain amount of times they can be charged before they start to lose they're capacity.
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Untrue!!!

The power management in the OS will stop charging the batteries as soon as it is topped off. Once chrage is at %100, the OS will switch the iPad from battery power to line power.

To the OP, leaving your iPad plugged in and running that app all night is okay. Once the charge is up to 100% your iPad will switch from battery power to line power. No harm done other than normal wear and tear from normal use.
 
Really? I always wondered why it didn't do that. Why have I always heard from Apple Geniuses to unplug if its reached 100%?
 
If the iPad et al are anything like their Macbook counterparts and old PowerBooks the batteries will not keep entering a charge cycle until it drops beneath 95%. With the ipad's charger providing 10w I even wonder if it can bypass the battery altogether. I know the laptops utilize both power sources to achieve maximum output but the iPad isn't that power hungry.
 
xraytech said:
Untrue!!!

The power management in the OS will stop charging the batteries as soon as it is topped off. Once chrage is at %100, the OS will switch the iPad from battery power to line power.

To the OP, leaving your iPad plugged in and running that app all night is okay. Once the charge is up to 100% your iPad will switch from battery power to line power. No harm done other than normal wear and tear from normal use.
Click to expand...

Is this also true for the iPhone 4?
 
felixen said:
I have this app gravity clock that I use as my alarm since someone at apple had the great idea of leaving the clock.app out. So normally I set the alarm and turn off the screen, but I am really loving the clock itself. So I wanna put in the charger cable, open the app and have the gravity clock showing all night long, every single night. Will this drastically mess up the ipad's battery, or should I be fine having it on during night 365 days a year (well, that's only for one year since I'm buying the new iPad next summer hehe).

Hope someone with some good knowledge on batteries can help me out.. :)
Click to expand...

If you want visual proof, look at the battery icon in the upper right corner. If you see a lightning bolt, then it's charging. If you see a power plug, then the charge is done and your iPad is drawing line power. As simple as that.
 
Pretty much everything with a rechargeable battery these days does fine being plugged in constantly. The old days of battery loss due to plugging something in all the time don't really exist anymore.
 
Lotso said:
Really? I always wondered why it didn't do that. Why have I always heard from Apple Geniuses to unplug if its reached 100%?
Click to expand...

Geniuses are mostly dumb. Several times couldn't answer a simple question. They just follow a "procedure" for everything they do. Only a few of them really know the stuff.
 
Basically, From what I believe the major factor that you should know is every chargeable battery has its useful life. Usually in term of hours.

So, the frequency of the battery usage will affect its useful life.

Regarding the charging factor, it my have slight influence towards the battery as the battery can get pretty hot when it is fully charged. Due to this fact, it may indirectly affect the battery.:cool:
 
hullabaloobard said:
Basically, From what I believe the major factor that you should know is every chargeable battery has its useful life. Usually in term of hours.

So, the frequency of the battery usage will affect its useful life.

Regarding the charging factor, it my have slight influence towards the battery as the battery can get pretty hot when it is fully charged. Due to this fact, it may indirectly affect the battery.:cool:
Click to expand...

I don't notice any temperature difference when my device is charging or not.
 
The "charger" is built into the iPad just as it's been for every major electronic device for the last 20 years or so. The cord you plug into the wall just provides power to the built in battery charger which turns itself off when no longer needed.
 
well this is good news to me. Is it also true that it is better to often recharge your device - like when it´s at 70-80% - than to wait until it´s at a low 5-10%? Actually I even read that the worst thing you could do was to fully drain the battery and charge it as the battery loses power each time it gets drained. I read this in an iPhone 3GS article but I guess the same goes for all other devices... if its true, that is
 
felixen said:
well this is good news to me. Is it also true that it is better to often recharge your device - like when it´s at 70-80% - than to wait until it´s at a low 5-10%? Actually I even read that the worst thing you could do was to fully drain the battery and charge it as the battery loses power each time it gets drained. I read this in an iPhone 3GS article but I guess the same goes for all other devices... if its true, that is
Click to expand...

It definitely kills the battery's life faster if you only wait to charge it when it's completely drained.

Basically just plug it in when you want, or at night, etc, and don't worry about it. By the time the battery's life starts being affected there's going to be a new iPad out anyway and you'll be tempted to buy it. :p
 
xraytech said:
Untrue!!!

The power management in the OS will stop charging the batteries as soon as it is topped off. Once chrage is at %100, the OS will switch the iPad from battery power to line power.

To the OP, leaving your iPad plugged in and running that app all night is okay. Once the charge is up to 100% your iPad will switch from battery power to line power. No harm done other than normal wear and tear from normal use.
Click to expand...

You are correct SIR! Finally, the battery genius has come!:cool:
 
Amazing Iceman said:
Geniuses are mostly dumb.
Click to expand...
There is no IQ requirement to get hired as an Apple "genius". Matter of fact, I suspect that anyone who is a real genius would avoid getting hired at a job that gives you that title.

Looking at the group at my local Apple store, you couldn't even classify them or nerds or geeks, which is unfortunate if you want someone who can do more them just randomly flip through apples manual or FAQ page when you have a question.
 
mixvio said:
It definitely kills the battery's life faster if you only wait to charge it when it's completely drained.

Basically just plug it in when you want, or at night, etc, and don't worry about it. By the time the battery's life starts being affected there's going to be a new iPad out anyway and you'll be tempted to buy it. :p
Click to expand...

Exactly. However, you should let it drain fully about once a month and power cycle it, this can help the battery, but in general you're right, constantly doing this will only a crew your battery up op, your good.
 
Hyakku said:
Exactly. However, you should let it drain fully about once a month and power cycle it, this can help the battery, but in general you're right, constantly doing this will only a crew your battery up op, your good.
Click to expand...

This isn't 1982. Doing this will not help your battery. Lithium batteries have nothing to do with the old Ni-Cd and Ni-MH batteries.

Theoretically if you take a lithium battery to zero volts it's not coming back. Thankfully the device will shut down at a preset voltage to keep internet rumors from harming batteries.
 
felixen said:
I have this app gravity clock that I use as my alarm since someone at apple had the great idea of leaving the clock.app out. So normally I set the alarm and turn off the screen, but I am really loving the clock itself. So I wanna put in the charger cable, open the app and have the gravity clock showing all night long, every single night. Will this drastically mess up the ipad's battery, or should I be fine having it on during night 365 days a year (well, that's only for one year since I'm buying the new iPad next summer hehe).

Hope someone with some good knowledge on batteries can help me out.. :)
Click to expand...

The only was yo get the alarm to sound is to have the app running and the iPad on right? So do you have to set the auto lock to none to use this app or does it stay on when connected to the charger?
 
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