Android charging all the time

Charging habits to maximize battery life

Smartphone users — casual and enthusiasts alike — are forever in search of longer battery life. While fast charging keeps us topped up every day, the absence of replaceable batteries means eventually the lithium-ion cells enclosed in our phones are going to age and deteriorate, making it harder to maximize battery life.

If you’ve held onto a phone a couple of years, you’ve probably noticed the battery doesn’t seem to last as long as it did when your handset was brand new. Three years down the line and many phones struggle to make it through the day on a single charge. Holding onto a phone even longer can even spell trouble for system stability.

Unfortunately, battery capacity inevitably declines with age. However, there are things you can do to prolong the life of your battery and smartphone. If you’ve ever wondered what the best way to charge your battery is, here are some scientifically proven tips to maximize battery life.

Partial charging is a healthy habit

One particularly persistent battery myth is that you need to occasionally fully discharge and recharge to erase “battery memory.” This couldn’t be more wrong for lithium-ion batteries. It’s a leftover myth from lead-acid cells and it’s actually quite undesirable to charge your modern smartphone in this way.

Partial charging is just fine for lithium-ion batteries and can actually have some positive benefits for cell longevity. To understand why it’s important to appreciate how a battery charges. When closer to empty, Li-ion batteries draw constant current and operate at a lower voltage. This voltage gradually increases as the cell charges up, leveling off at around a 70% charge before the current begins to fall until the capacity is full.

Importantly, operating at a low voltage is good for a battery’s lifespan, increasing the number of available charging cycles before you’ll start to see a major reduction in capacity. Roughly speaking, every 0.1V decrease in cell voltage doubles the cycle life, according to Battery University. Therefore, charging up your phone in that 30% to 80% range keeps the voltage lower and might slightly prolong the battery’s lifespan.

Using up just 20% of your battery between charges isn’t practical, but topping up when you’ve used about half will see an improvement in your battery life over the long term. Especially if you avoid charging up to full each time too. The bottom line is that smaller, regular top-ups are better for Li-ion batteries than long full charge cycles.

Avoid idle charging

Charging overnight or in a cradle during the day is a very common habit, but it’s not recommended for several reasons (the old “overcharging” myth isn’t one of them). First, continuous trickle charging of a full battery can cause plating of the metallic lithium, which reduces stability in the long term and can, in rare cases, lead to system-wide malfunctions and reboots. Secondly, it leaves the battery at a higher stress voltage when at 100%, as we just mentioned above. Third, and most important, it creates excess heat caused by wasted power dissipation.

Ideally, a device should stop charging when it reaches 100% battery capacity, only turning the charging circuit back on to top up the battery every now and again — or at the very least reducing the charging current to very small amounts.

While some phones disable charging once full, many continue to pull up to half an amp and sometimes more from the wall outlet. Turning the smartphones off doesn’t make a difference in many cases either. While this isn’t a huge amount of power, it’s going to stop your phone from cooling down as quickly and will continue to cycle through a small part of the battery, resulting in a mini-cycle.

At 100 percent charge, this phone still draws 200mA to keep the battery topped up.

Using the phone increases the current draw, inducing a mini cycle in the battery.

A final point worth mentioning is parasitic load. This occurs when the battery is being drained significantly at the same time as being charged, such as watching a video or gaming while charging.

Parasitic loads are bad for batteries because they distort the charging cycle and can induce mini-cycles – where part of the battery continually cycles and deteriorates at a faster rate than the rest of the cell. Worse still, parasitic loads occurring when a device is fully charged also induce higher voltage stress and heat on the battery.

The best way to avoid parasitic loads it to turn your device off while charging. But that’s not really realistic. Instead, it’s best to keep the workload light while the device is plugged in, leaving it idle most of the time. Browsing the web is probably fine. Also, remember to unplug it once the battery is topped up enough.

Heat is the enemy of long battery life

Along with all of the above, temperature is an equally key contributor to longevity and helping to maximize battery life. In fact, it’s arguably the biggest killer of long-term battery health. Just like high voltages, high temperatures stress the battery and make it lose capacity far more quickly than when kept at lower temperatures.

A cell kept between 25 – 40 degrees Celsius (77 – 86 degrees Fahrenheit) should retain around 85% to 96% of its capacity after the first year with sensible charging cycles. Raising the temperature regularly above 40°C (104°F) and charging to 100% sees this fall to just 65% capacity after the first year, and a 60°C (140°F) battery temperature will hit this marker in as little as three months.

A battery dwelling in a full state-of-charge exposed to a high temperature is the worst of all worlds and the number one thing to avoid when charging your phone. So no leaving your phone under your pillow to charge at night or plugged in on the dashboard of your car on a hot day.

Fast charging technologies are a contentious issue here, as the higher current and voltages lead to a hotter device. With capabilities exceeding 60W and pushing to 100W even in smartphones, this is quickly becoming an issue for device longevity. Fast charging is fine for a small top-up, but numerous standards we’ve tested regularly exceed 40°C when charging for more than a few minutes. As you can see in the graph below.

Leaving your phone to fast charge up for 5 to 15 minutes won’t lead to major overheating problems, but I certainly don’t recommend using them for a full charge. Instead, you’d be better off using a temperature-aware fast charging solution or switching to a slower charger, especially if you plan to plug your phone in overnight.

How to maximize battery life long-term

Lithium-ion battery technology is well understood these days and smartphones are built around our use cases, but bad habits and myths still permeate the public consciousness. While most of these habits won’t severely negatively impact your phone’s battery life in the medium term, the decline in removable phone batteries means we should take extra precautions to maximize battery life and thus our smartphone’s longevity.

Broadly speaking, smaller regular charge cycles and keeping your phone cool are the key things to remember. Although I should point out that different phone batteries will always age slightly differently depending on how we treat them.

Here’s a TL;DR summary of the battery tips above:

What’s the best way to charge your smartphone?

• Avoid full cycle (0-100%) and overnight charging. Instead, top up your phone more regularly with partial charges.
• Ending a charge at 80-90% is better for the battery than topping all the way up to completely full.
• Use fast charging technologies sparingly and when your device is cool.
• Heat is the battery killer. Don’t cover your phone when charging and keep it out of hot places.
• Don’t play intensive games, stream videos, or run other intensive workloads while charging to avoid heat and mini-cycles.

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10 reasons why your Android battery is charging slowly and how to fix them

Is your phone battery suddenly taking significantly longer to charge? A brand new phone will usually charge much faster. Or maybe your phone has always taken ages to reach 100%! Whatever the case may be, there may be some things you can do to make your handset charge faster. Try some of these solutions to see if one of them can help your situation.

Is your cable in good condition?

A faulty cable is often the reason why your smartphone battery might be charging slowly. Especially if it’s a charging cable you’ve owned for a long time. These accessories go through plenty of torture during their lifetime. You take them on trips, step on them, tangle them up, throw them in bags, and so on. Inspect your charging cable carefully and see if there are any signs of significant wear and tear. Any rips, bends, scratches, or damage may be the culprits. Sadly, the only solution to this issue is simply buying a new cable!

How about the adapter?

The same goes with the adapter, otherwise known as a charging brick. This is the accessory that plugs into the wall. Check that there isn’t any significant damage. Any bent plugs or cracked sections may be a sure sign that something’s wrong with it.

Don’t forget the charging port

Maybe your phone is the issue, and one of the most common reasons for a slow charging battery is something as simple as a dirty smartphone charging port. Look in there and see if you can spot any debris. Try to clean it out with compressed air or a small brush. Also, have you noticed the port or charger feeling looser than before? Sometimes these ports get worn out, and contacts may not be as solid, causing the battery to charge slower. Don’t forget to look for any signs of corrosion.

You might have a weak power source

This is likely not an issue if you’re using the stock charger and cable, but it could be if you’ve decided to charge your battery with something other than an outlet. Sometimes people like charging their phones using USB ports on laptops, portable batteries, cars, and power strips. These can often be weak sources of power, and don’t have the necessary juice to charge up your device in a timely fashion. Try switching to a wall outlet and use a charger that’s fast enough for your phone’s standards.

Use the right charging accessories

Have you switched chargers or cables since you got your phone? This could be the reason why your phone’s battery is taking ages to charge. There are different types of fast charging in the market. You can learn all about them in our dedicated fast charging post, but some include USB Power Delivery, Qualcomm Quick Charge, Motorola Turbo Charge, MediaTek Pump Express, OnePlus Warp Charge, Huawei SuperCharge, and Oppo’s SuperVooc, among others.

More often than not, these are incompatible with each other. In addition, your phone might not even be able to handle fast charging! And if it does, there’s also a slight chance that your manufacturer didn’t include a fast-charging cable/adapter. Look into your phone’s specs and get the right charging accessories for it! And keep in mind not all wireless charging is made the same, either. Some wireless chargers are faster than others!

Keep an eye on your apps

The screen is known for being the #1 battery-sucker, but rogue apps can do much more to kill your battery and keep it from charging quickly. Android apps often boot themselves up or run in the background after only being opened for a moment. Although this used to be a bigger problem than it currently is — Android is getting better at efficiently managing resources — having a rogue app or two can give your phone’s performance a nasty hit.

Your best bet is to either close the app, limit its background activity, or uninstall it.

Heavy usage

If you’re a heavy user and don’t stop using your phone all day, chances are you aren’t letting it rest while charging either. Using your handset while plugged in may take too many resources and cause your battery to charge slower. Give it a break! Maybe use a tablet or any other device in the meantime.

The battery could be dying

If you’ve had your phone for a long time and given it hell, this has probably taken a toll on your battery. Batteries, inevitably, degrade over time. And they do so faster if you go through many cycles, use them heavily, and let them run hot. Check out the post linked in the previous section to learn some tips on how to keep your battery healthy as long as possible.

Factory data reset

One last thing to try before letting go of your old phone could be a factory data reset. This process deletes everything on your device and gives it a clean start. It will essentially leave your handset the same way it was when you first turned it on (at least software-wise).

But why would this improve slow charging? Sometimes apps and phone processes take a toll on your phone’s resources, and it may be hard to pinpoint what’s going on, exactly. Is the GPS going nuts? Maybe the problem is a system app. Whatever the case, a factory data reset will get it all back to stock. Try it. And if the phone is still charging slowly after a full wipe, then the issue is probably hardware-based.

Is it time to upgrade your phone?

As sad as this may sound, every device comes to its end of life. If your phone is really struggling to charge (and hold a charge), and you’ve tried all the methods above with no success, maybe it’s time to finally let it go. Look at the options in the link below if you want to see some true battery beasts.

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