Hello there, are you reading this article on your smartphone? Great, is it plugged in? Not so great! We are here to tell you about a very particular charging behavior that is considered detrimental to your smartphone’s battery life. Are you among those who keep the phone plugged in even after it has been charged fully or let I charge overnight?
If yes, then you are actually expediting the aging process of the battery of your smartphone. Dominik Schulte, the managing director of the German battery-technology consultancy firm BatteriIngenieure, said, ‘If you’re going to charge your phone to 100% and keep it at 100% — just keep on charging and charging overnight — this will have a negative influence on aging.’ As the lithium-ion battery ages, the chemistry within it undergoes change, and the battery becomes less efficient in terms of storing and delivering power.
We have asked a variety of smartphone companies about their thoughts on charging phones overnight or keeping them plugged in even after they have been charged to 100%. The companies really don’t seem bothered. In fact, Ronald Ho, a product manager at Google, said, ‘In general, this mentality that ‘overcharging is bad’ or ‘charging too often is bad’ is pretty outdated given the current battery and charging optimizing technologies companies can build into their devices. When the phone’s battery reaches 100%, the phone’s internal battery charger will actually stop charging to prevent overcharging.’
However, Schulte and majority of the smartphone manufacturers agree on one particular point; when you are storing a smartphone that you don’t intend to use; it is better to keep the battery charge within a certain range rather than keeping it at 100%. Samsung says to keep the battery charge at ‘at least 50%’, and Apple says to keep the iPhone ‘half-charged when it is stored for the long term’ to ‘help extend battery lifespan’.
The importance of not charging your phone overnight varies because not everyone keeps a smartphone long enough to be able to register the differences. If you buy a new phone every year or two years, you might not even note any difference. However, if you switch to a new smartphone when it begins to die quickly, then you must reevaluate your charging habits. If you wish to keep your phone for several years, then we strongly suggest that you stop charging it overnight and keeping it plugged even after it has been charged to a full 100%.
Other preventive measures that you can take include not completely discharging your phone and avoiding its use in extreme temperatures. However, ultimately the battery will die out on you; always remember that!
