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I’ve, in all Windows Mobile forums, very often posted on the fact that Lithium-Ion / Polymer batteries should always be recharged whenever possible. That is, you should put your handheld / handset on the charger whenever possible. NEVER EVER wait before the handheld shuts down because even after only 4 months, your battery will only hold about a third (!) of its original charge holding capacity and, as opposed to what several people say, putting the device on the charger only once a day (or two-three days with devices with better battery life – mostly, TI OMAP-based handsets) on a regular basis (not waiting for the battery to completely deplete) will also have an adverse effect on the battery life.
Now, Groucho's pretty cool Nokia N95 blog has published a remarkable article, which is of extreme interest to anyone having a device with a Lithium Ion or Polymer-based rechargeable battery (not only Nokia N95 users – again, this info applies to ALL current Windows Mobile handsets, and a lot more other gadgets like digital cameras etc.). The figures he shows certainly prove I’ve been right when I recommended recharging your device whenever possible.
Groucho has purchased three N95’s (again and again, don’t think this discussion only applies to the N95 – it does apply to ANY device out there!) at the same time and used them in a pretty similar way. He, however, made absolutely sure he charged the device in three consistent (not mixing up the devices) and radically different ways: the first was charged only once a day (every night), not during the day; the second was charged when it has completely shut down because of the battery’s going flat and the third was almost always on charger whenever possible. The difference in the battery capacity, based on the different ways of recharging, turned out to be astonishing: the second battery (which was always let go flat, and only after that was it put on a charger) could only hold slightly more than a third of the battery that was always on charger whenever possible. The latter battery, in addition, fared considerably (about 16%) better than the battery only regularly (every night) recharged.
Note that the blog post has a mistake (which has no effect on the credibility of the results): it states they will have exactly the same charge holding capabilities throughout their life, and, suddenly, they die (“They have a finite shelf life which starts from the day they are manufactured and their condition from then degrades to the point where they fail! This is not to be confused with their charge holding abilities which are very good for their full life! When they go they just go!”). This is, of course, incorrect: their capacity will degrade over time. Just an example: my HP iPAQ 2210, which I bought right after it was released in Europe, at first, shut down at 2-3% battery level. After about two years, this raised to about 20% and, after three years, this was already around 35-38%. This also shows – along with a multitude of other examples – that these batteries do lose capacity over time. Also note that, as I’ve also recommended several times, Battery University has a decent article on all these questions – except for, of course, real-world results like the above.
Verdict: ignore if somebody says the opposite. Recharge your handheld whenever possible.
Menneisyys said:
I’ve, in all Windows Mobile forums, very often posted on the fact that Lithium-Ion / Polymer batteries should always be recharged whenever possible. That is, you should put your handheld / handset on the charger whenever possible. NEVER EVER wait before the handheld shuts down because even after only 4 months, your battery will only hold about a third (!) of its original charge holding capacity and, as opposed to what several people say, putting the device on the charger only once a day (or two-three days with devices with better battery life – mostly, TI OMAP-based handsets) on a regular basis (not waiting for the battery to completely deplete) will also have an adverse effect on the battery life.
Now, Groucho's pretty cool Nokia N95 blog has published a remarkable article, which is of extreme interest to anyone having a device with a Lithium Ion or Polymer-based rechargeable battery (not only Nokia N95 users – again, this info applies to ALL current Windows Mobile handsets, and a lot more other gadgets like digital cameras etc.). The figures he shows certainly prove I’ve been right when I recommended recharging your device whenever possible.
Groucho has purchased three N95’s (again and again, don’t think this discussion only applies to the N95 – it does apply to ANY device out there!) at the same time and used them in a pretty similar way. He, however, made absolutely sure he charged the device in three consistent (not mixing up the devices) and radically different ways: the first was charged only once a day (every night), not during the day; the second was charged when it has completely shut down because of the battery’s going flat and the third was almost always on charger whenever possible. The difference in the battery capacity, based on the different ways of recharging, turned out to be astonishing: the second battery (which was always let go flat, and only after that was it put on a charger) could only hold slightly more than a third of the battery that was always on charger whenever possible. The latter battery, in addition, fared considerably (about 16%) better than the battery only regularly (every night) recharged.
Note that the blog post has a mistake (which has no effect on the credibility of the results): it states they will have exactly the same charge holding capabilities throughout their life, and, suddenly, they die (“They have a finite shelf life which starts from the day they are manufactured and their condition from then degrades to the point where they fail! This is not to be confused with their charge holding abilities which are very good for their full life! When they go they just go!”). This is, of course, incorrect: their capacity will degrade over time. Just an example: my HP iPAQ 2210, which I bought right after it was released in Europe, at first, shut down at 2-3% battery level. After about two years, this raised to about 20% and, after three years, this was already around 35-38%. This also shows – along with a multitude of other examples – that these batteries do lose capacity over time. Also note that, as I’ve also recommended several times, Battery University has a decent article on all these questions – except for, of course, real-world results like the above.
Verdict: ignore if somebody says the opposite. Recharge your handheld whenever possible.
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An excellent post and very valuable info.It'll certainly help out many,who believe that the batteries shud only be charged once a day or when it's almost finished or going flat,by this the life of the batteries is saved and prolonged as against to charging whenever possible or more than once in a day,this concept is believed as charging more than one time will create a new charging point every time and will not fully charge the battery,thus,will impact the charge retaining capabilities of the battery and ultimately die out soon.
You are absolutely correct in saying that "This is, of course, incorrect: their capacity will degrade over time."and "that these batteries do lose capacity over time",Of course,they have a finite life cycle from the day they are manufactured,infact every gadget,machinery,electric appliances,PCs,Tvs and all everyday utilities have a life cycle and will die out with passage of time and longer use.
It has been observed in this and many other forums,people posting that their devices have gone dead due to battery going flat as they forgot to charge it. Than it becomes a pain in the A** to get it recharged again and get the phone alive again, Therefore,to avoid this dreadful scenario,it is always better to get the battery charged whenever possible,CUZ IT'S GONNA DIE OUT SOMEDAY,for sure,whether you charge it once a day or when it's gone flat or charge it whenever possible,but definitely save yourself from the horrible situation of getting a dead phone,due to a flat battery and frustrating ways to get it charged again.
Just to mention here,it's my personal experience, as I myself got into this situation once,while in a hurry and urgency,I forgot to get the battery charged and didn't realize it was almost going flat,after a couple of hours,suddenly the phone went dead,I wanted to make some very important calls,but there was no way I cud get the phone Power On,frantically started to look for ways to get it charged as I didn't have the charger with me,I tried to get it charged through usb connection with the Pc,but NO GO,it never started charging and there were no lights on the phone,In short I tried in many ways to get it charged and phone started.
Even,when I got back home,tried it with the Wall charger,it refused to charge,I got horrified.took it to a service shop.They said that while my trying to get it charge through various methods and again n again trying to wake the phone,the Pulse of the battery has gone down from the level,which it requires to communicate with the phone and start charging,Ultimately,it has to be Jump Started to get it working,therefore,I made a rule of my everyday working to get it charged a couple of times during the day,Now I have never to fear and face that dreadful situation again,And let me point out here that I have not seen any degration in the charging or performance of the battery so far as I'm doing this since last six months or so.
Thank you for confirming my believes in charging for more than once is advisable and will not effect much on the battery charge retention and life cycle
Cheer
Good writing ! I didn't know that it affected the battery that much! Thanks!
You are correct in saying that only charging a device when it has run down to 0% (or close) is bad for Lithium Ion batteries. That incorrect advice is left over from the Nickel Cadmium (Ni-Cd) era, when it worked on batteries with that chemistry to prolong their life due to the "memory effect".
But I don't think saying that Li-Ion batteries should be charged "as often as possible" is quite right, because keeping them at or near 100% charge WILL shorten their life, just like keeping them at or near 0% will (but not as much admittedly).
If you want to maximize the life of your Li-Ion batteries, you should make sure that they don't get any hotter than 25 degrees celcius (77F), and you should try to keep them in a state of 40% to 60% charge as much as possible (that means take it out of the charger without letting it get to 100%!).
Of course keeping it between 40% and 60% only lets you use 20% of the battery's full capacity, which is not convenient at all! So the next best thing is to charge it to 100%, then recharge it when it gets down to 40%.
Letting it get below 40% is the most damaging, but constantly keeping it above 60% charge is also damaging in the long term.
One last tip: Li-Ion batteries last longer the slower you charge them. So charge them with USB from the computer rather than an AC mains adapter, as this is usually the slower method (USB from a computer contains 0.5 Amps of current, whereas many AC chargers supply 1.0 to 1.5 Amps, even though they may have a "USB" connector).
Everything above can be backed up by various sources, here is a very good one: http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm
Interesting you mention charging at different amperes. There are quite a few quick-charge standard battery charges around the place that always state they will boost the battery up to 80% quite fast then the remainder takes a further few hours. This also usually causes the batteries to become excessively hot.
The 110/230 Volt mains charger that came with my Trinity charges really fast but definitely heats it to over 25°C. However the mains to miniUSB charger that came with my cradle, and the one that came with my BT headset both charge at a much slower (and cooler) rate, likely to be 0.5 Amps. I checked out the labels and they all indicate the same ratings. I know, I should chuck the multimeter on them to test…
Maybe I’ll go back to using the cradle mains charger when I’m at home and my PC isn’t on (as if that ever happens)
sl9 said:
But I don't think saying that Li-Ion batteries should be charged "as often as possible" is quite right, because keeping them at or near 100% charge WILL shorten their life, just like keeping them at or near 0% will (but not as much admittedly).
If you want to maximize the life of your Li-Ion batteries, you should make sure that they don't get any hotter than 25 degrees celcius (77F), and you should try to keep them in a state of 40% to 60% charge as much as possible (that means take it out of the charger without letting it get to 100%!).
Of course keeping it between 40% and 60% only lets you use 20% of the battery's full capacity, which is not convenient at all! So the next best thing is to charge it to 100%, then recharge it when it gets down to 40%.
Letting it get below 40% is the most damaging, but constantly keeping it above 60% charge is also damaging in the long term.
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Yup, 60% is the best usage scenario. However,
1. it does have a severe problem: the reduced battery life (60% vs. 100%), which may render its usage problematic in some cases (when you do need the remaining 40%). That is, it's only really usable when you are absolutely sure you can recharge your device when it's still, say, abouve 30%, leaving you an about 30% usability area.
2. the advantage of keeping teh battery around 60% (as opposed to 100%), battery capacity saving-wise, isn't so prevalent than recharging the battery whenever possible. That is, while keeping the battery at around 60% does result in better charge holding after X time, it's net effect is still much lower than, say, letting the battery go flat. As can be seen in the linked report, you can almost completely kill (leaving about 40% of the original charge holding capability) a Li-Ion battery in no more than four months. The 60% rule (as opposed to the 100% one) has far less (albeit, of course, considerable) advantages - on the long run.
BTW, I do the following: I keep my spare batteries I requently (say, in general, once a week or two weeks) use at around 70-80% (it's, being halfway between 60% and 100%, a tradeoff) and batteries I don't use at all (for example, my old Casio Cassiopeia batteries) at 40%.
There is some really interesting discussion of this article at MoDaCo, HowardForums, FirstLoox, PPCT, XDA-Developers - well worth checking out for more info / discussion.
sl9 said:
One last tip: Li-Ion batteries last longer the slower you charge them. So charge them with USB from the computer rather than an AC mains adapter, as this is usually the slower method (USB from a computer contains 0.5 Amps of current, whereas many AC chargers supply 1.0 to 1.5 Amps, even though they may have a "USB" connector).
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A quick note: if you know your power source is only capable of providing, say, 0.5A's, you might want to make absolutely sure its voltage doesn't drop under, say, 4.5 Volts at 0.5A. A lot of power sources (this is perfectly natural with all kinds of power transformators) do this; then, the batteries / the phone's electronics starts to struggle with providing the necessay charging voltage (IIRC, 4.2 Volts).
Also, the permanent damage of (or caused by) these chargers can also be a problem - I don't think a cheapo notebook has decent voltage stabilizators. An expensive IBM / Lenovo Thinkpad will never cause any problem to a USB device (they have VERY good USB protection - I've myself found this out with my a31p once, when I, accidentally, made a short circuit on the USB). A cheapo notebook is likely to use the cheapest (read: parts that not necessarily can stand even 0.5 Ampers) parts.
I have a laptop and a phone, both using original batteries and both around 4 years old now. The laptop is a dell with a 7 aH Li-Ion battery and the phone is a Nokia 6310i with a factory Li-Polymer battery. As I said, original standard batteries that came in the original package. Both have only been used with company standard chargers - no quick force-feed cradles here.
If I start with the phone, it is one of the best I ever had. I don't make many calls on this phone, mainly text messages, and it spends the most of it's time just idling. At night I usually turn it off, sometimes I use the temporary profile option with tone/vibration off, as I sleep better knowing the phone will not wake me up. I had a collegue who bought the same type of phone as me, and we treated it way different. First of all, he used it a lot more. Second of all, the charger went in and out quite often, and he often used the phone while it was charging. I have consistently only charged this phone to 100%, usually overnight. Sometimes charging it when it was quite low, but most of the time after about a week. This phone last two weeks on standby (if used during daytime only), and after 4 years ... it still does! It was the first triband Nokia made (to my knowledge), and I got one of the first ones in stead of getting the third Ericsson T39m in the same year (kept failing!). My collegues phone did not even last a day on a full charge, in LESS THAN HALF A YEAR. Now, four years after, my phone still last me two weeks with the minor use I demand of it.
Most notable habits for handling the phone/battery:
Very seldom used during recharging
Almost always charged uninterrupted to 100% - in off position or without using it
Not so heavy use
My collegue on the other hand interrupted the charge before reaching 100%, used it while on the charger and his battery died down to almost no capacity sooooo fast.
As for my Laptop, it is a Dell Inspiron 8600, and after 4 years, it still runs almost two hours on the original battery, using internet, wireless and bluetooth simultaneously and not going into any kind of power save.
Below is the way I have generally used it:
I have seldom removed the battery while on mains, as I find it difficult and also enjoy the safety of the battery being there if I pull the chord, power outtage etc. Contrary to my phone, I use my laptop A LOT, like, daily, for many hours usually, sometimes all day. It is mainly work related, reading/writing documents, some graphic work and so on. Not so much watching movies, but sometimes certain programs like OCR or other runs keep the CPU to 100% for a while. I mainly keep the battery in and charged, and unless the ambient temperature is high or I sit with the laptop on top of my lap where my body heat heats the battery, I have not found the battery to heat up much. Even when the fan is going 100% on a heavy load, the battery temp seems OK. For various practical reasons, I have more often recently used my laptop on battery until just before it cuts out by itself. I must say I did not check if that makes the battery hot, but after 4 years, I still get almost two hours of use with wireless and bluetooth enabled. I have friends and collegues who replace the battery after one or two years, because it is down to almost nothing in capacity.
Any battery powered device I have had in the last 5 years or so I have been treating with these golden rules, and none of them have had to have batteries changed so far ...
Do not interrupt battery until it is done charging (unless on trickle charge, obviously)
Charge any time you like, as long as you obey the rule above
Do not place a heavy load on the device while it is charging after having been run on batteries (again, trickle charge is OK while on mains)
A good way to accomplish these rules is to have a habit of charging devices before you sleep, even before being worn down (charging not so likely to be interupted by sudden change of plans).
Having run my laptop for thousands of hours with battery inside and connected to mains, for me after 4 years it has not killed my battery.
This is not scientific research, but for me, it has worked for all my devices - for whatever reason. Those who complain their batteries die quickly seem to be the ones who pulls the charger whenever they want.
Although lithium batteries are somewhat different than the way humans store and use their energy, it seems to me there are some similarities:
Does not like it too hot or too cold
If not allowed to eat/charge fully on a regular basis, charging more often is necessary.
Can get annoyed if suddenly disrupted during feeding/charging.
If force fed, less energy can be taken up compared to a slow and easy feed.
This is not meant as proof, as in "because humans are like this, so are batteries", but to me, it just seems coincidental that there are some similarities. Me, personally, I eat one to three times a day. Yes, I can do with one meal a day, but two meals a day I think are optimum for me. Consistently eating 3 or more times a day makes my weight go up, I have been over 200 pounds for my 6'3" after being in a job for a year where I "was fed" too often. Now, I am fit and healthy at around 170 lbs, I seldom have headaches or fatigue, and I have an endurance like not many others! Without "charging" I can last a long time. Give me a good evening meal, and the next morning I can run a half marathon with no breakfast, just water.
Conclusion: Let the facts of real life be your proof instead of going after experts opinion. Let's have more experiments to find the real truth!
1, you're pretty fortunate your notebook battery is still going strong. I've never seen a notebook battery SO good - the situation you've described doesn't even seem to adhere to the laws of chemistry (that is, after two years, a Li-Ion battery kept consistently at 100% charging level is bound to lose at least 20% of its original capacity, independent of the usage).
2, the human vs. battery comparison, IMHO, isn't the best. Most feeding / intake specalists state one should prefer the way of "eat many times a day, but little each time" - that is, say, some 4-5 apples, tomatoes, cucumbers etc. a day, say, one (or two) every hour - at least this is what I do at work. I also refrain from eating a lot at lunchtime - I, generally, eat a quarter portion, and take the rest with me, continuously eating it later say, a bit every hours. This surely won't result in getting fat - on the contrary. If, of course, you don't keep your stomach at 100% load level
nice tip on eating...
I wrote specifically that it was not proof or anything, it just seems that some things are similar. My laptop batter has probably lost a little, but the way I have treated it, it still works after 4 years, where collegues/friends a long time ago would have had to get new batteries. I did not make specific measurements, but maybe a new battery would last me around 2.5 hours instead of two, but I have seen batteries that last 5 minutes, and they are less than 2 years old.
So what is a "good way" to kill a battery fast? I thought that stopping charging before 100% is one of the ways to kill a battery, but as soon as I see a test where it is proved that it is the other way around, I'd be happy not to have to wait for 100% before pulling the plug. But the mentioned Nokia test is only varying on when to start the recharging, not when to end it.
As for the comparison to humans ... I know they say you should eat many small meals a day, and that is great if you measure your meals precisely in calories and content. But for a normal, daily unscientific diet, many of those people I hear reiterate the "eat many but small meals to loose weight" have them selves ... weight problems. I have proven that it works (for me), I can see my weight increase when I get into periods of eating 3 or more meals a day. Same with my batteries. I can see they last a long time, where other peoples batteries die - so ... why does it work then?
I know this is kind of an old post (hah) but just an update about Li-Ion batteries:
The final 5-10% of charging is the part that does the most "wear and tear" of the whole charge process, this is the reason IBM (now Lenovo) Thinkpads don't charge the final bit all the time. So avoid *topping off* when charging. If done within the normal charging it shouldn't be a problem.
Simple Guidelines (taken from: http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm)
* Avoid frequent full discharges because this puts additional strain on the battery. Several partial discharges with frequent recharges are better for lithium-ion than one deep one. Recharging a partially charged lithium-ion does not cause harm because there is no memory. (In this respect, lithium-ion differs from nickel-based batteries.) Short battery life in a laptop is mainly cause by heat rather than charge / discharge patterns.
* Batteries with fuel gauge (laptops) should be calibrated by applying a deliberate full discharge once every 30 charges. Running the pack down in the equipment does this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate and in some cases cut off the device prematurely.
* Keep the lithium-ion battery cool. Avoid a hot car. For prolonged storage, keep the battery at a 40% charge level.
* Consider removing the battery from a laptop when running on fixed power. (Some laptop manufacturers are concerned about dust and moisture accumulating inside the battery casing.)
* Avoid purchasing spare lithium-ion batteries for later use. Observe manufacturing dates. Do not buy old stock, even if sold at clearance prices.
* If you have a spare lithium-ion battery, use one to the fullest and keep the other cool by placing it in the refrigerator. Do not freeze the battery. For best results, store the battery at 40% state-of-charge.
does that mean if you have two batteries, you should only use one most of the time and keep the other one in storage?
I would have thought it would be better to alternate between the two every week or something. Nothing worse than having the battery in storage for a few months and then when you actually need it on a trip you find that it only has 50% capacity
Actually the article says that you should "store" batteries at 40% if you're keeping one as a backup, I think the best option would be to alternate them. Keeping one stored at 100% actually causes it to lose its charge FASTER than one stored at 40%
FYI : as you are charging/discharging your battery, the hysteresis threshold (this is called like this in electronic) is decreasing, when it's new it still at 100% then 99%,98%,97% etc
This is the reason why sometimes when you think your battery is fully loaded, his load stops at the hysteresis threshold.
In some case it's possible to raise this hysteresis threshold (when the battery is recent). and to retrieve the full charge.
Here is a tips that I use since some years (my ipaq 3660)
When your device show your battery 100% loaded (of course it's not) the LED light should go off. if you unplug your power AC, and plug it back, and if you notice that your device is loading a few seconds (3-5 sec) then you are raising the hysteresis threshold. of course not to 100%, but a little.
now, put a dvd movie, sit down, and repeat the tips as much as the light doesn't show the device is charging a few seconds. I mean is your battery is full loaded then when you plug back the power ac it should not charge again. so your hysteresis threshold is probably at 100% and your battery should work has a new one.
sorry if my english isn't good enough for this contrib.
Here is some information that should be useful to everyone in one way or another if not then you should have told us your secret months ago. lol
A Li-ion batteries life is on a time clock from the day it's produced and how it is used, maintained and the number of cycles it goes through reduces it's life. Even when not being used at all the clock is ticking and life is shortening.
So if any of you are like me I know many of you are far worse than me when it comes to the amount of stress put through it with flashing and extreme general use. Hopefully this will shed some light for us as to what we can do to try and prolong the life of our batteries.
The majority of the following information is from the book “Batteries in a Portable World – A Handbook on Rechargeable Batteries for Non-Engineers” (2nd edition) and Battery University™
Special thanks to the books author and sponsor of Battery University™,
Isidor Buchmann
CEO and Founder, Cadex Electronics Inc.
How to Prolong the Life of Li-ion Batteries
Battery wear-down on lithium-based batteries is caused by two activities: actual usage or cycling, and aging. The wear-down effects by usage and aging apply to all batteries but this is more pronounced on lithium-based systems.
The Li-ion batteries prefer a shallow discharge. Partial discharges produce less wear than a full discharge and the capacity loss per cycle is reduced. A periodic full discharge is not required because the lithium-based battery has no memory. A full cycle constitutes a discharge to 3V/cell. When specifying the number of cycles a lithium-based battery can endure, manufacturers commonly use an 80 percent depth of discharge. This method resembles a reasonably accurate field simulation. It also achieves a higher cycle count than doing full discharges.
Simple Guidelines
Charge the Li-ion often, except before a long storage. Avoid repeated deep discharges.
Keep the Li-ion battery cool. Prevent storage in a hot car. Never freeze a battery.
Avoid purchasing spare Li-ion batteries for later use. Observe manufacturing date when purchasing. Do not buy old stock, even if sold at clearance prices.
Hints to long battery life
3.92V/cell is the best upper voltage threshold for cobalt-based lithium-ion. Charging batteries to this voltage level has been shown to double cycle life. Lithium-ion systems for defense applications make use of the lower voltage threshold. The negative is reduced capacity.
The charge current of Li-ion should be moderate (0.5C for cobalt-based lithium-ion).The lower charge current reduces the time in which the cell resides at 4.20V. It should be noted that a 0.5C charge only adds marginally to the charge time over 1C because the topping charge will be shorter. A high current charge tends to push the voltage up and forces it into the voltage limit prematurely.
Memory Myth or Fact?
Lithium batteries are not affected by memory, but the chemistry has its own peculiarities. Current inhibiting pacifier layers affect them through plate oxidation. This degenerative effect is non-correctable on a lithium-based system
Calibration
A more serious issue is maintenance requirements, better known as capacity re-learning. This procedure is needed on a regular basis to calibrate the battery.
Why is calibration needed?
The answer is in correcting the tracking errors that occur between the battery and the digital sensing circuit during use. The most ideal battery use, as far as fuel-gauge accuracy is concerned, is a full charge followed by a full discharge at a constant 1C rate. This ensures that the tracking error is less than one percent per cycle. However, a battery may be discharged for only a few minutes at a time and commonly at a lower C-rate than 1C. Worst of all, the load may be uneven and vary drastically. Eventually, the true capacity of the battery no longer synchronizes with the fuel gauge and "a full charge and discharge are needed to ‘re-learn’ or calibrate the battery."
How often is calibration needed?
The answer lies in the type of battery application. For practical purposes, a calibration is recommended once every three months or after every 40 short cycles.
What happens if the battery is not calibrated regularly? Can such a battery be used in confidence?
Such a battery is able to function normally, but the digital readout will be inaccurate. If not corrected, the fuel gauge information simply becomes a nuisance.
Just Tell Me WTF I Should Do!
Charge your battery as often as possible, partial discharges are actually better for your battery
Once your battery is charged to 100% avoid leaving it plugged in any longer if you are not using a OEM charger.
Your battery should never get hot from charging if it does this is a sign it may be damaged.
If fuel gauge starts acting up calibrate your battery.
Yeah but how the f^$% do I calibrate my battery?
Charge phone up and then delete your battery stats.
Unplug your phone from your wall charger and let your battery drain all the way down until phone shuts off.
While still off charge phone to 100% and then boot up as normal.
There is so much more that it's mind boggling but I think this covers the main parts and beyond for everyone. So far it appears that the bump method is not necessary nor are the numerous other steps.
I can only laugh when I think that the reason the method of calibration I was using was actually working is due to the fact that the "wipe batt stats, drain battery completely and charge to 100%" is basically the last step and all that is essentially needed.
3 hours? That's it? I thought whenever I charged from empty to full when it's off it's longer.. I should time it.. hmm
darkamikaze said:
3 hours? That's it? I thought whenever I charged from empty to full when it's off it's longer.. I should time it.. hmm
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I removed the time completely since some may vary. But the 3 hours is how long it should take to charge on a standalone battery charger. So rather than confuse or have questions it's better without it.
Nice work!
Charging a 1500mAh battery at 500mAh for example will take 3 hours. The Captivate charges at 2 levels though depending on if it's USB (500mAh max for charge + phone use) or a charger (whatever it says on the charger up to ~1200mAh) so it can probably get done in under 2 hours.
The phone charges to 4.23V and stops charging when full but continues to run on external power, and shuts down at 3.500V where it only consumes current to monitor the power button.
Just for reference.
Battery Stats
Since this is the first time i had a really good battery life. I would like to share it with everyone. Please see the attached screen shots.
I am using Darky's 9.1 with SuckerPunch's 1280/500 Kernel and TLJL3 modem.
I hope this will help anyone trying to get more battery life out of their Captivate.
Thanks,
CuriousTech said:
Nice work!
Charging a 1500mAh battery at 500mAh for example will take 3 hours. The Captivate charges at 2 levels though depending on if it's USB (500mAh max for charge + phone use) or a charger (whatever it says on the charger up to ~1200mAh) so it can probably get done in under 2 hours.
The phone charges to 4.23V and stops charging when full but continues to run on external power, and shuts down at 3.500V where it only consumes current to monitor the power button.
Just for reference.
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Thanks Curious appreciate it and thanks for the additional info.
I had some other random thoughts about the calibration because I keep seeing so many posts daily.
For example "I installed a new kernel 15 minutes ago, recalibrated and the battery drain is horrible." or "After a few charges it lasted longer."
I don't think people get the idea of calibration. Recalibrating determines the capacity of the battery to convert to a % full gauge. To do that you need to fully charge until the "Battery full. Unplug charger." notification, and not rely on the display and unplugging as soon as it hits 100%. That's the inaccurate display that you're trying to calibrate.
Think of it like having an opaque container and a teaspoon. You think the container can hold 100 teaspoons, so you stop filling at 100. All you can get out of it is 100 until you try to fill until it tops off and then count how many come back out.
The phone works the same way. It has an ammeter that monitors the charge current and drain current from the battery from the time you unplug it until it shuts off and remembers that total as the capacity. Unless it's recharged in the middle which voids the data.
After that full discharge, it should stay pretty accurate even with partial discharges. At least until the next rom/kernel flash which wipes it out. At that point (I assume) it uses a simple voltage level and some relative amps drawn to display the gauge, instead of the smarter method of keeping a constant value of mAh by adding when charging and subtracting when draining to know exaclty how full the battery is.
CuriousTech said:
Nice work!
Charging a 1500mAh battery at 500mAh for example will take 3 hours. The Captivate charges at 2 levels though depending on if it's USB (500mAh max for charge + phone use) or a charger (whatever it says on the charger up to ~1200mAh) so it can probably get done in under 2 hours.
The phone charges to 4.23V and stops charging when full but continues to run on external power, and shuts down at 3.500V where it only consumes current to monitor the power button.
Just for reference.
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hm. so if the phone switches to external power when the charge is full, is it okay to leave my phone plugged in once it's done charging? or is it just the fact that the battery is holding a full (4.2V) charge for a long time that's bad for its health?
in any case, useful post! i knew there were ways to preserve the life of li-ion batteries, but was never well-versed on the details.
Yes to both. Once the battery is fully charged, the charge circuit stops completely. It doesn't even need to trickle charge, so leaving it plugged in doesn't hurt anything.
Once the charge is complete the voltage isn't being held at 4.20V so it can come back down a little. I think BatteryUniversity generalizes becuase there have been many different designs over the years that weren't as good as what we have now, and some may have trickle charged their Li-Ions which shortens the life.
Which is it that wipes the battery stats, ROM or kernel? or is it both?
CuriousTech said:
Yes to both. Once the battery is fully charged, the charge circuit stops completely. It doesn't even need to trickle charge, so leaving it plugged in doesn't hurt anything.
Once the charge is complete the voltage isn't being held at 4.20V so it can come back down a little. I think BatteryUniversity generalizes becuase there have been many different designs over the years that weren't as good as what we have now, and some may have trickle charged their Li-Ions which shortens the life.
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One word of caution though is to ensure that you are using an OEM charger. Battery University recommends that you unplug once capacity is reached but perhaps this is a general statement for Li-ion batteries as you state.
zerkai said:
Which is it that wipes the battery stats, ROM or kernel? or is it both?
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Both. The first thing in a ROM flash script is to format all the partitions, so that means the batterstats.bin file is erased. When flashing a new kernel the file gets reset by some other means. No idea what. It could be CWM.
Yeah but how the f^$% do I calibrate my battery?
Charge phone up and then delete your battery stats.
Unplug your phone from your wall charger and let your battery drain all the way down until phone shuts off.
While still off charge phone to 100% and then boot up as normal.
My noob question is, how do you delete the battery stats?
iNFRiNGE said:
One word of caution though is to ensure that you are using an OEM charger. Battery University recommends that you unplug once capacity is reached but perhaps this is a general statement for Li-ion batteries as you state.
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What happens when you introduce the variable of occasional car charger use?
Sanctus Peregrinus said:
Yeah but how the f^$% do I calibrate my battery?
Charge phone up and then delete your battery stats.
Unplug your phone from your wall charger and let your battery drain all the way down until phone shuts off.
While still off charge phone to 100% and then boot up as normal.
My noob question is, how do you delete the battery stats?
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the file is located at /data/system/batterystats.bin . you'll need a file browser with root access (i use root explorer, a paid app). make sure you mount the storage as read/write or you won't be able to delete the file.
after that, reboot your phone and it will rebuild the batterystats file.
***disclaimer: be careful doing this. if you delete a crucial file, you risk messing up or bricking your phone. such is life.
Nice write up with alot of interesting information. I have never calibrated my battery but will have to try it out. Thanks for posting.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
I'm not positive of this, but I don't think batterystats.bin holds any battery capacity or health info. I was looking at BatteryManager and it looks like a database of processes and what they use only. But there is info somewhere that gets lost easily, which is the capacity and current amount consumed.
I've been skipping the delete of that file (using CWM) and have noticed that it recalibrates fine anyway. This coming from the point of dropping just after unplugging, which is a good indication that the info is gone.
It doesn't matter if you use a car charger, USB, or AC. The phone has the actual smart charger in it, the external connection is just the power supply. The chip inside regulates and monitors the charge.
So think of it this way. The charger knows when the battery is empty or full, and measures what goes in and comes out. So to know the capacity, it has to go from full to empty. That's really all there is to it. Just wait for the real "Battery full" before unplugging.
Anyone know where to get an extended battery? Thanks.
I can't even find a place to buy a regular battery for the phone. I'm not sure if I would need one, but it would be nice to have. I'm in the habit of charging it the last hour I am at work so no matter what, I'll never run out of battery even if I go somewhere straight from work, but a spare battery is always a good thing to have.
I have a wild guess as to why not.
I noticed this phone battery has the "near field communication" labeling on the BATTERY. The other phone that I'm aware of having NFC, (the galaxy s2) does NOT have this wording on the battery.
Why did I notice this? I randomly read that there is an SD card manufacturer that is putting NFC chip's into their microSD cards, and even some ipod cases are getting NFC chips built into them as well.
I don't know too much about NFC, but with the labeling being on our battery, and not the S2, I kinda think our NFC chip is actually in the battery, and not the phone itself. If an NFC chip can be put into an SD card or case on a phone that never had NFC to begin with, I don't see why it couldn't be put into a battery, especially since one of the terminals might not even be for power, but just for an NFC connection.
That's my theory, I could be wrong!
you're probably right. This is how it is with the Galaxy Nexus, also built by Samsung. I hadn't noticed the label, but I also wasn't looking for it.
I'd be curious to find out what an "extended battery" for this phone would look like. I'd be all for it so long as it kept NFC and didn't bulge out of the back
I'd be interested to find one. Being on a stock rom and standard battery, my battery drops about 5% in five mins just checking Facebook. GPS drains it another percent per min it is in use. Half way thru the day my battery is dead. It really sucks having to carry around a charger. I'm also using juice defender and other tweaks I know to save battery
I'd bet you a waffle cone your screen brightness is set too high.
Forget most of those "battery defender" apps, especially if they are those stupid task killing applications.....a program being in active memory is not necessarily actually doing anything, which means it is not using your battery, and if it gets killed, if the OS needs it open for any reason, it having to be re-opened will just use cpu cycles anyway
I'd agree with most people that using the automatic brightness option is very annoying, it's really sensitive and it also tends to make the screen not be bright enough. Having said that, using any of the many available brightness widgets can be a very good thing.
The stock one is not so bad, personally I've been enjoying powerful control, http://goo.gl/2vZXl but I've had great battery life and easy readability if I use the brightness setting where it looks like a half moon.
If you're outdoors in the bright sun, you'll need the screen to be as bright as possible if you want to read it, but otherwise it's fine. The screen brightness is always the single biggest battery usage factor.
Personally I've always disabled the haptic feedback as I think it's annoying and I'm sure that using vibrating alerts is also a huge battery drain.
Cirkustanz said:
I'd bet you a waffle cone your screen brightness is set too high.
Forget most of those "battery defender" apps, especially if they are those stupid task killing applications.....a program being in active memory is not necessarily actually doing anything, which means it is not using your battery, and if it gets killed, if the OS needs it open for any reason, it having to be re-opened will just use cpu cycles anyway
I'd agree with most people that using the automatic brightness option is very annoying, it's really sensitive and it also tends to make the screen not be bright enough. Having said that, using any of the many available brightness widgets can be a very good thing.
The stock one is not so bad, personally I've been enjoying powerful control, http://goo.gl/2vZXl but I've had great battery life and easy readability if I use the brightness setting where it looks like a half moon.
If you're outdoors in the bright sun, you'll need the screen to be as bright as possible if you want to read it, but otherwise it's fine. The screen brightness is always the single biggest battery usage factor.
Personally I've always disabled the haptic feedback as I think it's annoying and I'm sure that using vibrating alerts is also a huge battery drain.
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My screen brightness is at zero without automatic brightness on, and im not using haptic feedback. The phone battery is fine if its just sitting over night, but as soon as I turn on GPS to use maps for 5 mins or to check facebook the battery just drops a % every min. So i guess the phone is fine if Im not using it, but then whats the point?
You're exaggerating.
I've never had a phone battery drop 1% per minute.
Look man, I just spent 5 minutes playing music at max volume, while getting directions to 8 different places in google maps, sent two emails, downloaded a new app from the market, and received one text message.
Battery level after all this? Still at 100%. Does that mean I can do this an unlimited number of times? No, it does not.
Frankly, I don't believe you. I've used this phone, and my previous phone for playing movies at full screen brightness with the audio being played through bluetooth to my stereo headsets. Does it effect the battery status? You bet it does.
Two weeks ago when I last played a snes game on my phone I did so at full screen brightness over bluetooth to a ps3 controller. When I wasn't playing the game I was sending or receiving text messages and had vibrate on. I played super metroid from the very beginning to almost through the end of the game. When I play snes games on my phone I tend to use quick save and quick load and frame skipping very commonly, effectively letting me do things "perfectly" but this is a lot of saving and loading and running the game even faster than how it normally is. I started at 2, and the next thing I knew it was 6:00 and I was supposed to meet a friend for dinner at 6:30.
But for crying out loud you are saying you can drain your battery from 100% to zero in less than 2 hours.
I'm calling shenanigans. I don't think you could even do that intentionally, unless you sat there and forced the phone to vibrate the entire time.
Phone batteries don't last for days like they used to. Batteries have not changed too much in the last few years, but the things phones do, and the screens they do them on certainly has. Stop expecting your phone to last over the entire weekend even when you actually use it.
itsLYNDZ said:
I'd be interested to find one. Being on a stock rom and standard battery, my battery drops about 5% in five mins just checking Facebook. GPS drains it another percent per min it is in use. Half way thru the day my battery is dead. It really sucks having to carry around a charger. I'm also using juice defender and other tweaks I know to save battery
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Something to keep in mind:
When this phone hits 100%, it STOPS CHARGING. Even plugged in, it will no longer be drawing power into your battery, yet it'll still be running on battery.
If you plug it in when you go to sleep, it finishes charging within 2 hours, then it goes 6 hours idling on battery power but it still says 100% until you disconnect it. Then, while you're using the phone it'll adjust as you use it until it gets to the right level. This is likely what you're seeing.
If I use my phone from the moment it finishes upping to 100%, I get great battery life. I get great battery life in general and have been happy with the phone.
Of course, this might be a totally different issue where you just got a bum battery. But it's something worth considering.
dr4stic said:
Something to keep in mind:
When this phone hits 100%, it STOPS CHARGING. Even plugged in, it will no longer be drawing power into your battery, yet it'll still be running on battery.
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I don't believe this is true. I hate to constantly be a naysayer in this thread, but this didn't seem logical to me so when my battery went to full, (when the battery is full, unplug charger text showed in the notification bar) I kept it plugged in and set it to play a couple tv episodes on full brightness while I did laundry and made dinner.
Two hours later, I first looked at the battery status while the phone was still plugged in. As expected, it was at 100%.
I unplugged the charger, waited a couple minutes, and checked again.
Still at 100%, which completely makes sense because I've never had a phone that behaved as you've described.
I also would have noticed the battery dying very early, *every single day* because my habit for the last week or so has been to plug the phone in when I go to sleep. I have an app called syncme that pulls files off my computer such as music and video while I'm sleeping, and on average it transfers about 6 gigs of data this way, every single day.
I don't know if you've ever transferred 6 gigs of data on a phone via wifi, but yes, it's not exactly battery power friendly.
My phone's always been 100% battery when I leave for work, just like my last phone was where I also plugged it in at night.
Just saying!
So you guys know.. I have galaxy nexus and the blaze and the batteries are the same so you can order a battery fro the nexus and it will work with the blaze
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA
radiohead7778580 said:
So you guys know.. I have galaxy nexus and the blaze and the batteries are the same so you can order a battery fro the nexus and it will work with the blaze
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA
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Just did an ebay search for Galaxy nexus.. You might need to clarify which model number as there are various Galaxy Nexus batteries listed per Nexus model on ebay...
Galaxy Nexus GSM I9250
Cirkustanz said:
I don't believe this is true. I hate to constantly be a naysayer in this thread, but this didn't seem logical to me so when my battery went to full, (when the battery is full, unplug charger text showed in the notification bar) I kept it plugged in and set it to play a couple tv episodes on full brightness while I did laundry and made dinner.
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Actually he is pretty close to the way it operates. The way your phone gauges battery life is similar to your car with gas. When the meter reads 100%, it is really more like 98%. When the battery reaches true 100%, the phone will stop charging the battery (but will run off of USB power, not the battery). They do this to account for small variations in the many variables that affect a battery's performance (like temperature). Likewise, your phone will read 0% before the battery is truly completely drained (this is also to protect the battery - they don't like being charged to 100%, nor drained to 0%).
This could also greatly affect your previous test on battery performance. To get a more accurate result, let the phone drain to about 60%, then test the time to drop a percentage point.
What you are talking about is a suggestion that the battery meter doesn't necessarily update it's strength meter all of the time, and you even say that the phone runs off the plugged in power at this point.....
mdneilson said:
Actually he is pretty close to the way it operates. The way your phone gauges battery life is similar to your car with gas. When the meter reads 100%, it is really more like 98%. When the battery reaches true 100%, the phone will stop charging the battery (but will run off of USB power, not the battery). They do this to account for small variations in the many variables that affect a battery's performance (like temperature). Likewise, your phone will read 0% before the battery is truly completely drained (this is also to protect the battery - they don't like being charged to 100%, nor drained to 0%).
This could also greatly affect your previous test on battery performance. To get a more accurate result, let the phone drain to about 60%, then test the time to drop a percentage point.
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This is what the person said.
When this phone hits 100%, it STOPS CHARGING. Even plugged in, it will no longer be drawing power into your battery, yet it'll still be running on battery.
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His entire post is incorrect, and has nothing to do with what you are talking about either.
Cirkustanz said:
What you are talking about is a suggestion that the battery meter doesn't necessarily update it's strength meter all of the time, and you even say that the phone runs off the plugged in power at this point.....
This is what the person said.
His entire post is incorrect, and has nothing to do with what you are talking about either.
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Before you discredit anyones post, you should understand how many battery chargers work, and the importance of them shutting off following a complete charge. Here is a quote regarding Li-ion battery maintenance :
Li-ion cannot absorb overcharge, and when fully charged the charge current must be cut off. A continuous trickle charge would cause plating of metallic lithium, and this could compromise safety. To minimize stress, keep the lithium-ion battery at the 4.20V/cell peak voltage as short a time as possible."
Many chargers have this feature built in to avoid any overheating and/or damage to the cell. I'm not saying this is the case because I have not tested whether the battery charging circuit in this particular phone, or it's charger operate, but I will say that this has been the case in MANY of it predecessors.
That being said, I think an extended battery would be a welcome addition to the options of this phone. Mine too only lasts a day at it's best. Perhaps not 1% a minute...but then again who knows?
I'm on CM10 8/31 and I've been noticing that my battery life has been really poor lately, so I wanted to find out what the problem was. I thought about draining my battery fully and then charging it again. Once I drained the battery, I charged it, and restarted the phone after the charging began. Once the phone booted, it reported a 50% or so charge. I'm wondering if my phone is stuck at reporting battery at half capacity, and that when it charges to 100%, it's actually 50%. Anything I can do?
EDIT: Also, I should note that the battery has sometimes spiked up/down by about 20% after a reboot (including today before the drain).
This phone has a fuel gauge chip, fully discharging and recharging will not calibrate it. False readings after reboot are common, you may even notice it will climb back up as it begins to accurately reflect level.
There are apps to let you know what is causing drain. BetterBatteryStats and CPUSpy are recommended a lot.
ALBGunner04 said:
I'm on CM10 8/31 and I've been noticing that my battery life has been really poor lately, so I wanted to find out what the problem was. I thought about draining my battery fully and then charging it again. Once I drained the battery, I charged it, and restarted the phone after the charging began. Once the phone booted, it reported a 50% or so charge. I'm wondering if my phone is stuck at reporting battery at half capacity, and that when it charges to 100%, it's actually 50%. Anything I can do?
EDIT: Also, I should note that the battery has sometimes spiked up/down by about 20% after a reboot (including today before the drain).
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Entropy doesn't frequent our forum much anymore, but he left some nuggets of wisdom behind.
As you have probably seen, he mentioned several times that generally our fuel gage doesn't need much attention. It may get a little out of whack if you have heavy usage followed by reboot, but generally the error is short-lived and goes away quickly (within an hour or so).
But apparently sometimes the fuel gage gets really confused, and in that case you can reset it (to un-confuse it) by powering down and pulling battery for 20-30 seconds. It certainly can't hurt to try.. that's what you try for any computer that was acting weird. That was discussed by Entropy here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1209087&highlight=+gingerbread+fuel+gauge+
By the way, here is a link to the fuel gage chip (MAX17040) used in Infuse
http://datasheets.maximintegrated.com/en/ds/MAX17040-MAX17041.pdf
It has a heuristic model of the battery. The only input is the battery voltage. So it looks at time history of voltage and provides an output signal. Exactly what the output is I’m not sure. You’d think it would be an estimate of %. But according to the circuit diagram there is no inputs to the MAX17040 other than battery voltage.
And yet our phone also knows when it’s charging. And our Infuse phone also has a sensor that enables it to measure current while charging (but not to measure current while discharging). This according to the developer of Battery Monitor Widget:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=31295223&highlight=infuse#post31295223
Why the heck would we not use sensed charging current and charging status as an input to calculating our % battery (since the signal does not go to the Max17040)? Beats me, doesn't make sense. Maybe the output of he fuel gage chip goes to the integrated power chip MAX8998 which looks at these other inputs (charging status and charging current) and develops the % estimate... I’m not sure.
This is intended to be generic - Moto G3 with any ROM - stock or custom, and any apps on it.
I had drained my battery to 40% chasing a supposed weak signal problem, and noticed that it seemed to take many hours to recharge. Probably didn't help that I left it on while charging. I have always recharged this only letting it get down to maybe 80%. Some folks say that is bad.
I ordered a replacement battery on ebay. Currently undecided whether to install it.
Searched around for determining battery health and yes there is the usual very extensive test that will probably kill your battery by the time you are done.
One app said my battery was "good". Another wanted to calibrate it "Advanced battery calibrator" which wanted to install "battery life repair" which wanted to check my battery, supposedly found some bad cells, and when told to fix them, supposedly fixed them (NASA should be alerted about this for things like Mars Rovers!!!)( ), and of course a bunch of reviewers saying it's fake, and etc.
BUT... All that aside, I thought I would post that to see if anyone has found any great pearl of wisdom as to determining when to replace a battery. Or how to extend it's life. Or anything else pertaining to MG3 phone batteries..
EDIT: found this at http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a15731/best-way-to-keep-li-ion-batteries-charged/
One cycle is just one bout of discharging, but how much energy you discharge in one go—a measure referred to as depth of discharge (DoD)—matters bigtime. Lithium-ions really hate a deep depth of discharge. According to Battery University, a staggeringly exhaustive resource on the topic, a li-ion that goes through 100 percent DoD (the user runs it down all the way to zero before recharging) can degrade to 70 percent of its original capacity in 300-500 cycles. With a DoD of 25 percent, where the user plugs it in as soon as it gets to 75 percent remain, that same battery could be charged up to 2,500 times before it starts to seriously degrade.
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Oddly that's what I've been doing. Maybe battery's fine...? Figure 2 years at 1/day = 720. But what would leaving it plugged in all night be considered?
Then there's this which says don't leave it plugged in when it's fully charged (which I do overnight)
https://www.sciencealert.com/here-is-the-best-way-to-charge-your-phone
Yes, we know. Our smartphone batteries are bad because they barely last a day.
But it's partially our fault because we've been charging them wrong this whole time.
Many of us have an ingrained notion that charging our smartphones in small bursts will cause long-term damage to their batteries and that it's better to charge them when they're close to dead.
But we couldn't be more wrong.
In fact, a site from battery company Cadex called Battery University details how the lithium-ion batteries in our smartphones are sensitive to their own versions of 'stress'. And, like for humans, extended stress could be damaging your smartphone battery's long-term lifespan.
If you want to keep your smartphone battery in top condition and go about your day without worrying about battery life, you need to change a few things.
Don't keep it plugged in when it's fully charged
According to Battery University, leaving your phone plugged in when it's fully charged, like you might overnight, is bad for the battery in the long run.
Once your smartphone has reached 100 percent charge, it gets 'trickle charges' to keep it at 100 percent while plugged in. It keeps the battery in a high-stress, high-tension state, which wears down the chemistry within.
Battery University goes into a bunch of scientific detail explaining why, but it also sums it up nicely: "When fully charged, remove the battery" from its charging device. "This is like relaxing the muscles after strenuous exercise." You too would be pretty miserable if you worked out nonstop for hours and hours.
In fact, try not to charge it to 100 percent
At least when you don't have to.
According to Battery University, "Li-ion does not need to be fully charged, nor is it desirable to do so. In fact, it is better not to fully charge, because a high voltage stresses the battery" and wears it away in the long run.
That might seem counterintuitive if you're trying to keep your smartphone charged all day, but just plug it in whenever you can during the day, and you'll be fine.
Plug in your phone whenever you can
It turns out that the batteries in our smartphones are much happier if you charge them occasionally throughout the day instead of plugging them in for a big charging session when they're empty.
Charging your phone when it loses 10 percent of its charge would be the best-case scenario, according to Battery University. Obviously, that's not practical for most people, so just plug in your smartphone whenever you can. It's fine to plug and unplug it multiple times a day.
Not only does this keep your smartphone's battery performing optimally for longer, but it also keeps it topped up throughout the day.
Plus, periodic top-ups also let you use features you might not normally use because they hog your battery life, like location-based features that use your smartphone's GPS antenna.
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