Personal Hotspot + battery question

[Dreamer2go]

Hey all,

Just want to quickly ask if constantly using Personal Hotspot on my 5s will damage the battery life significantly?
(I'm using USB mode, so the phone is plugged in to my work computer, Lenovo X220 with the yellow-colored USB port)

The battery of the 5s is amazing so far, and I wanna keep this up for a long time.

Thanks for your replies!

 

[dictoresno]

you are asking this in terms of which exactly?

1.) the immediate effects of battery life (drain) as a result of using hotspot

or

2.) the long term effects of the battery life as a whole (deterioration) over time

ill try to answer both. the immediate effects, while NOT plugged in, will be pretty severe. the phone will feel warmer to the touch and the device will lose battery level quicker than when hotspot is off...just like with any other intense data or processing feature. if its plugged into a USB charging source, it will not drain and if anything, charge higher. li-ion batteries take well to trickle charging and partial charging as opposed to full drain and recharge. leaving it plugged in when you hotspot shouldnt be an issue.

as for the long term effects, i think just like any other li-ion battery, i think the phone will be able to hold up quite well. i dont think there would be any long term effects.

 

[Kemonsterr]

Yes.

 

[Gav2k]

It'll suck the life out of your battery always best to plug your cable in and run that way.

Will it kill the battery over its life. You'll upgrade before you find out. In theory yes the extra drain causes heat. Heat is bad

 

[JoshGlzBrk]

If you get enough open connections and bandwidth going in/out, a wall charger won't even be able to keep up with the discharge.

 

[Dreamer2go]

Thanks guys
sorry if I was being unclear, but my question was skewered towards the battery life overall, like its deterioration. (I had a writers block just now lol)

I'm currently working in a client's office with no wifi, and personal hotspot is the only solution for me to go online. This will last 4 months...

I guess I'll have to test regularly to see the deterioration level during these 4 months or so.

 

[JoshGlzBrk]

Thanks guys
sorry if I was being unclear, but my question was skewered towards the battery life overall, like its deterioration. (I had a writers block just now lol)

I'm currently working in a client's office with no wifi, and personal hotspot is the only solution for me to go online. This will last 4 months...

I guess I'll have to test regularly to see the deterioration level during these 4 months or so.

If you're talking overall battery health in general. There really isn't any need to worry imo.

 

[Col Ronson]

Thanks guys
sorry if I was being unclear, but my question was skewered towards the battery life overall, like its deterioration. (I had a writers block just now lol)

I'm currently working in a client's office with no wifi, and personal hotspot is the only solution for me to go online. This will last 4 months...

I guess I'll have to test regularly to see the deterioration level during these 4 months or so.

Technically you have nothing to worry about. Apple generally uses high quality Li-ion batteries you can expect at least 80% health after 2 years.

Now if youre going from 100-10% 4 times a day, that's a different story. But ive found even with mobile hotspot, i have at least 4-5 hours of usage. (non-LTE)

 

[rdy0329]

Just leave it plugged in when using the hotspot feature. I'm sure Apple designed the phone in a way that there won't be any problem using hotspot feature. Battery quality will hold better versus charge, hotspot, charge, hotspot.

 

[legioxi]

If you get enough open connections and bandwidth going in/out, a wall charger won't even be able to keep up with the discharge.

I use mine as a hotspot all the time when traveling, 40-80GB/mo, and I haven't had any issue with the charger keeping the phone charged. I've a very heavy data user.

 

[gCloud]

If you get enough open connections and bandwidth going in/out, a wall charger won't even be able to keep up with the discharge.

Not true