General > General Technical Chat
Phone battery night terrors
Halcyon:
--- Quote from: PerranOak on February 23, 2022, 07:43:20 pm ---The basic point is that I’m trying to delay the time until battery replacement.
--- End quote ---
* Charge it when it needs charging (or when you think you might need to use it).
* Leaving it plugged in for long periods will have no impact on battery longevity.
* Turn it off only if you want it turned off. It has no impact on battery longevity.
* Don't leave or store your phone in hot places (like in a car on a sunny day)
* If storing your phone for extended periods, don't store the battery discharged.
SiliconWizard:
While I agree with most of your points, I'm less convinced by this one:
--- Quote from: Halcyon on February 24, 2022, 02:06:55 am ---
* Leaving it plugged in for long periods will have no impact on battery longevity.
--- End quote ---
If you do that, unless there is some software provision to limit the SoC to a certain level way below 100% (80% is considered a safe bet) - which actually many laptops have, but for mobile devices, it's less common - then you're basically keeping your battery at 100% SoC for long periods of time, even if the charge itself stops, of course, when it reaches that. Just "storing" a battery at 100% SoC for long periods of time is known to reduce lifetime - which is why they are commonly charged at around 80% for storage, and sold at this level.
Now of course it's all in defining what "long periods" mean. If it's a few hours, it's probably not a big deal whatsoever. If it's weeks, OTOH...
Halcyon:
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on February 24, 2022, 02:51:03 am ---While I agree with most of your points, I'm less convinced by this one:
--- Quote from: Halcyon on February 24, 2022, 02:06:55 am ---
* Leaving it plugged in for long periods will have no impact on battery longevity.
--- End quote ---
If you do that, unless there is some software provision to limit the SoC to a certain level way below 100% (80% is considered a safe bet) - which actually many laptops have, but for mobile devices, it's less common - then you're basically keeping your battery at 100% SoC for long periods of time, even if the charge itself stops, of course, when it reaches that. Just "storing" a battery at 100% SoC for long periods of time is known to reduce lifetime - which is why they are commonly charged at around 80% for storage, and sold at this level.
Now of course it's all in defining what "long periods" mean. If it's a few hours, it's probably not a big deal whatsoever. If it's weeks, OTOH...
--- End quote ---
Battery management is extremely well developed. What a consumer device reports as "100%" might actually be less than the native cell capacity. It all depends on the chemistry, device, how it's been designed, etc... Mobile phones are specifically designed to be plugged in by the consumer in the evening and stay that way until the following day. Even abnormal use has been well tested and is tolerated by these types of products.
One good real-life example is my department's on-call phone. For 95% of the time, it stays switched on, plugged into mains power (we just divert it to our work phones). The phone itself is about 5 years old (Samsung Galaxy A5), yet the battery still holds a good 2.5 days of charge.
Unless you have some extreme edge-case, there is no point in over-thinking things. Just use the product as it was designed.
Ed.Kloonk:
Halcyon's advice is very solid here. There's simply too much inertia from previous battery technology restraints that bleeds into areas long since left in the dust.
Just watch the ambient heat. Try and keep the phone cool. Any variance to that policy you can expect the battery life to take a hit.
Yes, there is a concern with lithium reaching very low capacities (<5%), but all you need to do is plug it in before it gets to that stage and keep it cool. Or consider turning it off! ;)
Psi:
--- Quote from: IanB on February 23, 2022, 08:27:28 pm ---If it really mattered very much, then the phone itself would have an 80%/20% mode to do this automatically. But most phones don't have such a mode (do any?). The absence of such a mode suggests you are worrying too much about it.
--- End quote ---
Some phones do, but it's pretty rare.
I guess they would rather sell you a new phone than make your current one last longer. :--
At one point I heard a new version of android was going to have that feature, but I didn't hear any more after that.
You could totally build a DIY system to do it. Use an ESP8266 mains relay module and a quick and dirty android app to turn the relay on or off depending on current battery level.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version