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[Q] Qi Wireless Charging and Overheating [TYLT VU Specific]

I purchased the Tylt Vu wireless charger for my N5 and N7. Last night, before I went to bed, I charged the N7. In the middle of the night, I switched out the N7 and charged the N5. When I woke up this morning, the phone was too hot to touch, and had been powered down (as designed, based on the heat). It took about 5 minutes before the phone was cool enough to power on.
A couple questions: Can such extreme (??) heat do permanent damage to the phone? Has anyone else had this problem with the Tylt Vu wireless charger? The phone wasn't off-center, and nothing appeared abnormal when I set it on the charger. I wonder if transitioning from the N7 to the N5 so quickly caused an abnormality?
[UPDATE (2/17):]
I haven't been following this thread, as I decided after my overheating incident to no longer use the Tylt Vu with my Nexus 5. I was also a bit turned off by the response I received from Tylt.
I take no credit for the following information, I am only summarizing this thread to save you time.
The Tylt Vu is defective. It contains three charging coils that help it to charge any device without having to be finicky about positioning. However, unless you set the Nexus 5 onto the Tylt Vu in a specific manner, the third (top) coil will remain activated, resulting in overheating due to the magnets present in the Nexus 5. (Oversimplified explanation... read the chain for specifics.)
The "right way" is to set the Nexus 5 down in the crevice of the Vu, perpendicular to the earth, and then pivot it down to rest on the back of the Vu. The wrong way is to slide it down the back, or otherwise set it on the Vu in a way where it is not touching the short base first. (See post #118.) You can also permanently disable the third coil by opening up the Tylt. All of this applies to charging the N5 in portrait mode.
A big thanks to NCguy for his persistence throughout the thread, to Mr. Sprinkles for his theory and relentless testing, to jelledgeu2 for the "solution", and every other poster who has shed some light on this. And a big 'no thanks' to Tylt for their response to the issue.
tl;dr: Always be vigilant on how you set the N5 on the Tylt Vu, or charge the N5 on the Tylt Vu at your own risk.

I have a Vu shipping now, I will report my experiences. Both of my boys have nexus 7's and will watch those too. Tyvm for the heads up...
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

I haven't seen this behavior on any of my qi chargers including my tylt vu.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Were you able to successfully charge it before and this just happened the night when you switched from N7 to N5 ?. I don't think overheating damages any electronics because it is designed to shut off.

diasro said:
Were you able to successfully charge it before and this just happened the night when you switched from N7 to N5 ?. I don't think overheating damages any electronics because it is designed to shut off.
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I can confirm that I have experienced this with the same set up (n5+TYLT VU), although I also have the Spiegen Slim Armour. This happened though only once, when I was at work and the phone was baked like a hot potato!
Since then I have been coy about leaving it on the charger unattended - I have checked the phone regularly since,. both after and during long charges - the problem has not happened again.

PearcePowers said:
I purchased the Tylt Vu wireless charger for my N5 and N7. Last night, before I went to bed, I charged the N7. In the middle of the night, I switched out the N7 and charged the N5. When I woke up this morning, the phone was too hot to touch, and had been powered down (as designed, based on the heat). It took about 5 minutes before the phone was cool enough to power on.
A couple questions: Can such extreme (??) heat do permanent damage to the phone? Has anyone else had this problem with the Tylt Vu wireless charger? The phone wasn't off-center, and nothing appeared abnormal when I set it on the charger. I wonder if transitioning from the N7 to the N5 so quickly caused an abnormality?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
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Thanks for the heads up, as I am looking at purchasign the Tylt Vu.
The only thing I can say is that heat can definitely cause degredation of the battery. Besides that, there should be no signicant damage to the phone.

Thanks, everyone. I was able to charge both the N5 and N7 twice before without any troubles. I'm a little skeptical about leaving anything on it to charge unattended now -- my N5 was untouchably hot this morning. I've emailed Tylt to ask if they have any background/information on what could cause this to happen. I'll let you know if I hear back.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

i use the nexus orb charger at work and the LG 700 charger at home. While the phone can get a little warm, I certainly wouldn't consider it hot.
I'm not sure why your charger didn't turn off when reaching 100%

Nordendorf said:
i use the nexus orb charger at work and the LG 700 charger at home. While the phone can get a little warm, I certainly wouldn't consider it hot.
I'm not sure why your charger didn't turn off when reaching 100%
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It never charged. The phone was at 70% when I put it on the charger. When I woke up, once I was finally able to boot it up, it was at 73%. It was scary hot.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

PearcePowers said:
It never charged. The phone was at 70% when I put it on the charger. When I woke up, once I was finally able to boot it up, it was at 73%. It was scary hot.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
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yes! I bought 2 tylt vu's from kickstarter and experienced exactly the same overheating problem. It was overnight and there was no charge on the battery in the morning with it still at 54% and very hot. It's possible that that the phone may have become mis-aligned on the charger but its unlikely. I just didn't happen to notice before I grabbed it off the charger. I can't explain how it happened and its only happened once....... so far.
In general the phone is alarming warm even when its working. The battery temp is usually around 110+ F even after it finishes charging. This compares with a battery temp of around 80F with the USB charger.
I'm not an expert but I'm thinking that the battery heat is not being generated by the battery itself internally but possibly by a heat transfer as a result of the induction. If that is in fact the case then maybe the warmer battery isn't as bad as it would be if it were in fact generated internally in the battery as is typically the result of a high charge/discharge rate.
So my concerns are two fold, the one-time completely unacceptable high overheating and the ongoing situation where it is always 20-40 degrees higher while on the tylt than it would be plugged into the USB charger.
I wouldn't be too concerned except that replacing a battery in an N5 is not like replacing a battery in a phone with a removable battery.

Wow... I wasn't expecting two people to have had identical experiences. Slightly concerning, however, it sounds like it's only happened once for each of you (NCguy, Drizwaldo1). I hesitantly charged my N5 again on it tonight. I watched it closely and pulled it off when it hit 100%. No problems, and only moderately warm (as is typical for wireless charging). I would chalk this morning's incident up to a fluke and forget about it if the phone hadn't been so insanely (explosively!?!) hot this morning...

I have a tylt but I have not tried it yet on the N5. I use a Nokia qi charger primarily and have not had an issue. Only have the phone since the 8th. I just got a spigen case. Let's see how that works out.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

Are you guys at all concerned about premature battery wear with the battery temp 20-30 degrees higher than the usb charger? That's when its working "normally" and with a tylt.

NCguy said:
Are you guys at all concerned about premature battery wear with the battery temp 20-30 degrees higher than the usb charger? That's when its working "normally" and with a tylt.
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I'm not overly concerned about it, primarily because I get a new phone almost every year and expect the stock battery to be sufficient for at least that amount of time even with degradation. Worst case scenario, it doesn't sound like it would be hard to swap it out (based on iFixit's assessment). I'm more worried about doing irreversible damage to the internal components if it overheats again like it did on the Tylt.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

NCguy said:
Are you guys at all concerned about premature battery wear with the battery temp 20-30 degrees higher than the usb charger? That's when its working "normally" and with a tylt.
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My Nexus 4 got a lot warmer on the Qi charger than my N5 does, and it's battery showed no ill effects. So no, I'm not worried about my N5.

I just purchases the Vu charger as well to pair with my Nexus 5 and 7. I hope the overheating thing isn't common... I'm a bit worried.
Please continue reporting. I'll do the same once I receive my Vu.

Wow, thanks for the Headsup!
I was quite close to buying the Tylt vu despite the very high price tag.
Hope not all qi chargers have this issue.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Rusty! said:
My Nexus 4 got a lot warmer on the Qi charger than my N5 does, and it's battery showed no ill effects. So no, I'm not worried about my N5.
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I hope you're right. I'll probably go for it also. Hopefully I won't have to do an ifixit battery replacement but it doesn't look too awfully bad if it comes to that. I keep them a year but then usually pass on to my wife who would rather not be leading edge. I probably should give it to her with a decent battery. Unfortunately non-removable batteries s##k.

Found a post on another forum about the N4 doing the same thing (got so hot it shut off, never charged), he said resetting the phone cured it. Sounds like a software glitch to me.

any new updates or issues that has occurred? I have my tylt coming in a few days and wondering if I should just return it for the DT-900.

What are normal charging temperatures for Nexus 5?

I recently bought a choe qi wireless charger for the Nexus 5 not seeing that Google made a new one. I decided to log the temperature of the device over night and it had it a maximum temperature of 112.8 (~43C) degrees Fahrenheit and then dropped to 104.1F for the remainder of the night when it trickle charged.
Is this ok for the battery or is it to warm?
-Thanks

I've seen my battery go to 42c just from normal usage.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

iOSecure said:
I recently bought a choe qi wireless charger for the Nexus 5 not seeing that Google made a new one. I decided to log the temperature of the device over night and it had it a maximum temperature of 112.8 (~43C) degrees Fahrenheit and then dropped to 104.1F for the remainder of the night when it trickle charged.
Is this ok for the battery or is it to warm?
-Thanks
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your body temp is 98.6F, 112.8F is not far from that. you think 113F is hot? 113F water is considered warm water, no where near hot. your phone is plugged into a charger, with electricity flowing, 113F is normal.

simms22 said:
your body temp is 98.6F, 112.8F is not far from that. you think 113F is hot? 113F water is considered warm water, no where near hot. your phone is plugged into a charger, with electricity flowing, 113F is normal.
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Also Li-On batterys have build in chips that regulate the charge going to the battery and from the battery and temp sensors to shut off the phone/kill power when overheating occurs. its like a safety mechanism/feature in the device that will shut it down so it can cool off to prevent the battery from being wasted/killed

S5 gets very much heated while charging

My Sprint S5 gets a lot heated when switched on and charging, and its not only with the battery, its with the screen too, it gets equally heated up... any1 else? any solution

Mine does this when QI charging but thats expected, have you checked your battery stats to see whats running during this time.
My company had a problem with the exchange server recently and the exchange process was constantly trying to sync and caused it to eat up 30% of the battery in 5 hours. An also caused it to be hot to the touch when charging.

Yeah it gets very hot
Atm I think it's because it charges faster with the usb 3.0 port
Sent from my SM-G900P using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

I have even tried with usb2.O too..still the same..burns like hell..
And thers nthn runnin in the bg..it occurs when I use the fone nrmlly for msgng or doin sumodr nrml task

Mine gets a bit warm when charging as well. According to Samsung support, it's normal.

A bit warm, normal... hot as hell, not so much

USB 3.0 doesn't make thinks charge faster it's only for transferring data it's the actual charger block that has a higher amperage and wattage to charge fast
Sent from my SM-G900P using XDA Free mobile app

My S7 startet a small fire at the charging port. Did anyone else experience that?

It was not the battery but at least the charging port burned during fast charge.
I was using the officially supplied Fast Charger which came with the phone.
Seems the phone got so hot that it switched off. The phone was lying on the carpet while it happend. Luckily it didn't lit the carpet next tpo my bed while I was sleeping...
I've put detailed info into this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxeYSV8toXA
Samsung picked up the phone today, waiting for their reply.
As far as I know there was no damage on the phone prior to the event. Even the Liquid Damage Indicator is ok.
The Phone was 6 month old.
Should I better use wireless charging overnight in the future? Any experience?

AirHH said:
It was not the battery but at least the charging port burned during fast charge.
I was using the officially supplied Fast Charger which came with the phone.
Seems the phone got so hot that it switched off. The phone was lying on the carpet while it happend. Luckily it didn't lit the carpet next tpo my bed while I was sleeping...
I've put detailed info into this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxeYSV8toXA
Samsung picked up the phone today, waiting for their reply.
As far as I know there was no damage on the phone prior to the event. Even the Liquid Damage Indicator is ok.
The Phone was 6 month old.
Should I better use wireless charging overnight in the future? Any experience?
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Scary
I would not charge that phone in any possible way...just in case
Let us know what they tell you when you get the phone back

yea i would use a wireless charger because i think the rubber protection near the charging port gets weaker after months of use with the normal charger. You can buy a fake wireless charger for 12 bucks on aliexpress.

Wow, things are not good with Samsung and their exploding / catching fire phones, this is slightly worrying that it's happened with an S7
Lucky that it did not go any further than the charging port, especially if it was on the carpet
Perhaps it overheated because the back of the phone was on the carpet and not a solid surface where heat could escape, but they should not catch fire, just overheat and shut off charging and power
Keep us updated with what Samsung tell you, I don't fancy this happening to mine

*Detection* said:
Perhaps it overheated because the back of the phone was on the carpet and not a solid surface where heat could escape, but they should not catch fire, just overheat and shut off charging and power
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It lay down with the display-side to the carpet. It was the same way as every night. Floor-Heating is still off at this time of the year. Room temperature in our sleeping room is around 18°-19°C (~ 65°F)
So this should not create a heatspot. And I never noticed that the phone was so hot that I was afraid it might catch fire.

AirHH said:
It lay down with the display-side to the carpet. It was the same way as every night. Floor-Heating is still off at this time of the year. Room temperature in our sleeping room is around 18°-19°C (~ 65°F)
So this should not create a heatspot. And I never noticed that the phone was so hot that I was afraid it might catch fire.
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Click to collapse
No, that definitely should not have caused it to overheat
I hope Samsung are honest with you about the reason for the fault
And tbh, it doesn't seem like an overheating problem, it sounds more like whatever the fault was, caused the battery to overcharge and overheat
I think you are very lucky this didn't cause another battery fire

Are you using the "fast-charging" option? I would recommend disabling that,

This was my main concern since I bought my s7 in july. I noticed that when it's charging with regular 2A/5V option, the plastic on the port which goes into phone gets warm. On fast charging it doesn't get warm, because the voltage is higher, but amperage is 1.60A.
Does anyone else have this "problem", or should I replace my cable? I don't want to end up with a fried port too.

since the spot of where it burned is at the contacts it was probably just a short because moisture between the contacts or maybe conductive debris got in there.
also its normal for the battery to warm up during peak charge.

How to charge the phone without harming the battery

Hello XDA,
I've bought s8 recently and I have a question about how should I charge the phone. Before s8 I had z3 and one m7 and I was charging them arbitrary like %45 to %75 etc. Their battery died pretty easyly and closing once it hits under %20 - %25. So I thought I was doing it wrong but when I searched the internet I saw that charging phone arbitrary give no harm at all. Is it true? How should I charge my phone?

You should plug it in and charge it when needed. Either using the original charger and cable that shipped with the phone, or a high quality replacement. Alternately, you can use a wireless charging pad to charge it.

Turning off fast charging may also extend the life of your battery. (It will obviously mean it will take longer to charge the battery).
Extra note:
You don't need to do anything extra, modern devices are well suited to be charged whenever you feel like it.

Plug it in when it needs charging, unplug it when it's done and/or you need to leave. You don't need to overthink it and monitor the finer details. It's a phone.

You are over thinking this. Just like a lot of people who obsess about battery e-peen. I got the S8 to save myself. I was in that rabbit hole, I went from enjoying smartphones to worrying about why my phone cannot perform as well as the ohers.
You plug it when it needs a charge. You take it off when it's done. It's a battery, it's gonna suffer wear and tear whether or not you baby it. It's gonna run its course and you will probably buy a new phone even before that happens.
My phones have a 2 year life cycle and Ben then they are still great as hand me downs to the family who don't care to buy their own.
Sent from my SM-G950F using XDA Labs

Only charge between 20-80%
Don't quick charge
Don't wireless charge
Angle the phone at a 45 degree angle when charging, this will allow the new electrons to slide naturally to the bottom of the battery so it fills up properly
Submerge the phone in cold water to keep the temperature of the phone cool while charging
With these 5 simple steps your phones battery will last 1% longer!

peachpuff said:
Only charge between 20-80%
Don't quick charge
Don't wireless charge
Angle the phone at a 45 degree angle when charging, this will allow the new electrons to slide naturally to the bottom of the battery so it fills up properly
Submerge the phone in cold water to keep the temperature of the phone cool while charging
With these 5 simple steps your phones battery will last 1% longer!
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Click to collapse
Or not at all lol.