Getting the most out of your phone battery shouldn’t be complicated. With all of the recent news around iPhone and Samsung batteries, we got to wondering, what other myths and misunderstandings are floating around about smartphone batteries?
Why batteries lose power over time
In any battery, energy and power will play against each other: Increasing one will lead to the loss of the other. Energy is the total amount of the battery; power is how fast you can pull it out of the battery.
Any battery that is widely commercialized will operate at a voltage higher than its thermodynamic stability window. The higher the voltage, the higher the energy is, but every electrolyte has a voltage limit after which you’ll destroy it.
Of the four metrics batteries are graded on for a given application (i.e., performance, cost, life, and safety), typically, only two can be simultaneously achieved. If the battery is designed to also perform satisfactorily on a third metric, it will fail spectacularly on the fourth.
Myths about phone battery
Myth 1: I shouldn’t keep my phone plugged in overnight.
Truth: Smart technology stops your phone battery from charging after it’s full, if the battery drops back down to a certain point when it’s still plugged in.
Myth 2: I need to charge my new phone fully before I use it.
Truth: Your phone already has some “juice,” and skipping that first charge won’t affect its life long-term. The only reason some manufacturers suggest charging it first is to make a good first impression. By the time that new phone reaches your hand, testing and manufacturing have already drained up to half the battery.
Myth 3: I shouldn’t charge my phone until it dies.
Truth: It’s better to juice up the lithium-ion battery on your phone before it reaches zero. These kinds of batteries tend to ‘forget’ what their full capacity level is, and so when recharged, they do not recharge to the same level as they were at the beginning.
Myth 4: One app can’t take up that much energy.
Truth: Just one app could be sucking up a ton of your phone’s battery. Sadly, one common culprit is the Facebook app. Keep from running to your charger as often by deleting the app and checking Facebook through a web browser on your phone instead.
Myth 5: I shouldn’t touch my phone while it’s plugged in.
Truth: You can feel free to open apps or take calls while your phone is charging. Although when you are charging your phone the power is different from the one you usually use (the battery), the results and performance of the circuitry are always the same.
How to ensure your batteries last long
Here, we are going to explore some of the tips to increase the lifetime of your battery. From keeping your battery at a certain percent level for most of the time to leaving your phone charging all night, and to sticking with your charger. Watch the video below.
The performance of any battery will fall (just) short of our expectations irrespective of the complexity of the device it is powering. Pull the plug, your battery will thank you.
