Why is information technology that your phone'southward bombardment seems to get worse over fourth dimension? At first information technology might have ability to spare as you snuggle into bed at the end of the day, but as fourth dimension goes on you observe your battery is just half-total by lunchtime.

Partly information technology's how you use your phone - the apps you install, the junk you lot collect, the customisations yous make, and the more and more notifications y'all receive - puts more than strain on the bombardment. (Read our tips on how to extend battery life.)

Until we have new-fangled technologies such every bit smart clothes that optimise wireless functioning, we must acquire how to charge a bombardment that keeps information technology salubrious for as long every bit possible.

Phone batteries, like all batteries, do degrade over time, which ways they are increasingly incapable of holding the same amount of ability. While they should accept a lifespan of between three and five years, or between 500 and ane,000 charging cycles, a iii-year-old phone battery is never going to continue going every bit long as a make-new battery.

Iii things wear out lithium-ion batteries: number of charging cycles, temperature, and age.

However, armed with our tips for best battery care do, y'all can maintain your smartphone bombardment health much longer.

When should I charge my telephone?

The golden rule is to go on your battery topped up somewhere between 30% and 90% most of the time. Top it up when information technology drops below l%, but unplug it before information technology hits 100%. For this reason, yous might want to reconsider leaving information technology plugged in overnight.

Pushing in the terminal charge from 80-100% causes a lithium-ion battery to age faster.

Maybe it's better to recharge in the morning instead, at the breakfast table or on your office desk-bound. That way, it is easier to keep an eye on the battery percent during charging.

iOS users can utilise the Shortcuts app to set a notification when the battery level reaches a certain percentage. This is done under the tab "Automation" so "Battery Level".

Giving your phone a total recharge is not fatal for a phone bombardment, and it seems virtually counter-intuitive non to do and so, but giving it a total recharge every time you lot charge it will shorten its lifespan.

Besides, at the other end of the scale, avoid allowing your phone battery to get below 20%.

Lithium-ion batteries don't feel good virtually going besides far beneath the 20% marker. Instead, run across the extra 20% "at the lesser" as a buffer for demanding days, but on weekdays kickoff charging when the alert for Low Bombardment level appears.

In curt, lithium-ion batteries thrive best in the middle. Don't get a low battery percentage, but also non too loftier.

Should I charge my phone bombardment to 100%?

No, or at to the lowest degree not every time you lot charge it. Some people recommend that you practise a full zilch to 100% bombardment recharge (a "charge wheel") once a month - equally this re-calibrates the battery, which is a scrap similar restarting your computer.

But others disregard this as a myth for current lithium-ion batteries in phones.

To keep your long-term battery life in good health, frequent, pocket-sized charges are better than full recharging.

With iOS xiii and afterward, Optimised Battery Charging (Settings>Bombardment> Bombardment Health) is designed to reduce the article of clothing on your battery and meliorate its lifespan by reducing the fourth dimension your iPhone spends fully charged. When the feature is enabled, your iPhone should delay charging past 80% in certain situations, depending on Location Services that tell the phone when it is at dwelling house or work (when you are less probable to need a full charge) compared to when you are travelling.

The deeper you lot discharge a lithium battery, the more stress is inflicted on the battery. Then, topping up frequently extends battery life.

Also see: Best ability banks

Should I charge my phone overnight?

As a rule, it'southward best to avoid, despite the convenience of waking upward with a full battery in the morning. Each full charge counts as a 'cycle', and your phone is only built to last for a ready number.

If you lot charge overnight, you are guaranteed to miss when the phone exceeds the magic 80% mark that is best for extended long-term life.

While most modern smartphones take built-in sensors to shut off charging when they striking 100%, if still turned on they will lose a pocket-size amount of battery while idle.

What you lot may become is a "trickle charge" as the charger attempts to keep the phone at 100% as your phone naturally loses on its own accuse during the dark. This ways that your phone is constantly bouncing betwixt a total charge and a little bit below that full charge - 99% to 100% and back over again during a longer-than-required charge. It can also rut the phone up, which is also bad for the battery.

So, charging during the day is better than charging overnight.

Your best policy is to have Practise Not Disturb and Airplane Mode switched on. Improve still, you could completely switch off your phone, just that may not be possible if y'all rely on it as an alert or wish to be ready to take calls at all hours.

Some devices are also ready to power up once the cable is connected past default. Even during waking hours, information technology's best to catch your phone before it hits 100%, or at least not get out the charger supplying charge to an already full battery for also long.

If you lot are leaving it plugged in for a long period of time, removing the example tin can prevent information technology over-heating.

Will fast-charging damage my phone?

The majority of modern smartphones support some form of fast-charging. Yet, this often requires y'all to purchase an additional accessory. The industry standard is Qualcomm's Quick Charge, which delivers 18W of power.

However, many phone makers accept their ain fast charge standard, many of which can deliver even faster speeds by adjusting power management lawmaking to request a higher voltage accuse is sent. Samsung is now fifty-fifty selling a 45W charger!

While fast-charging itself will not harm your phone's battery, which is congenital to support it, the heat generated will potentially affect its lifespan. So it's on you to balance the advantages of faster charging with the convenience of quickly topping up your phone before y'all dash out the door.

In the same way that phone batteries don't like farthermost heat, they also don't like the cold. So it goes without saying that you should avoid leaving your phone in a hot automobile, on the beach, next to the oven, out in the snow. Typically, batteries perform at their optimum somewhere betwixt 20 and xxx°C, but brusk periods outside of this should be fine.

Can I use any phone charger?

Where possible use the charger that came with your telephone, equally information technology is sure to accept the correct rating. Or make sure that a 3rd-party charger is approved past your phone's manufacturer. Cheap alternatives from Amazon or eBay may damage your phone, and in that location have been several reported cases of cheap chargers really catching on burn.

That said, your phone should depict only the ability that it needs from a USB charger.

Also see: Best USB Chargers for your phone and Best Wireless Chargers.

Battery memory effect: Fact or fiction?

The bombardment retentiveness effect concerns batteries that are regularly charged between 20% and 80% and suggests that the phone might somehow 'forget' that actress xl% you routinely ignore.

Lithium batteries, which are in the majority of modern smartphones, practice not suffer the battery memory effect, though older nickel-based (NiMH and NiCd) batteries practise.

Nickel-based forget their total chapters if they aren't discharged and charged from 0 to 100%. But, habitually cycling your lithium-ion battery from 0 to 100% will adversely affect its battery life.

Avoid Parasite Loads

If y'all charge your telephone while using information technology - for example, while watching a video - you can "misfile" the battery by creating mini-cycles, during which parts of the battery continually cycle and deteriorate at a faster rate than the residuum of the cell.

Ideally, you lot should turn your device off while charging. But, more realistically, just go out information technology idle while charging.

Battery Settings iPhone

Bombardment protection settings past phone maker

OnePlus has a battery monitor called "Optimized Charging" from its OxygenOS ten.0. This is activated nether "Settings / Bombardment". The smartphone then remembers what time y'all commonly climb out of bed in the morning and only completes the critical concluding stride of charging from 80 to 100% shortly earlier y'all get up - that is, equally late equally possible.

Google likewise offers integrated battery protection for its devices from Pixel 4 onwards. Yous volition notice the "Adaptive Charging" function under "Settings / Battery / Smart battery". If you use information technology to charge your device subsequently 9pm and at the same time set an warning clock between 5am and 10am, you lot volition have a freshly charged smartphone in your hand when yous get up, only the total charge is but completed before long before the alarm clock rings.

Samsung has a battery charge function in selected tablets, such as the Galaxy Tab S6 or Galaxy Tab S7. "Protect Battery" tin be institute under "Settings / Device maintenance / Battery". When the function is activated, the device simply defines the maximum capacity of the battery to 85%.

Apple'southward "Optimized Battery Charging" function is primarily intended to reduce the time window in which the battery is heavily charged. Fully charging over 80 percent is delayed or not even carried out in sure situations. It also depends on your own location, so energy gaps should be avoided when travelling or on holiday, for example.

Huawei's battery assistant is called "Smart Charge" and is bachelor from EMUI 9.1 or Magic UI 2.one. The function can be switched on nether "Settings / Battery / Boosted Settings", which means that charging of the device is stopped at 80% at night and only completed before you lot get up. Here, likewise, usage behaviour and, if necessary, an alarm clock setting is included in the planning.

Sony'southward "Battery Care" function is found in the Battery settings for many models. The device learns when and for how long users connect the charging cablevision and adjusts the end of charging and then that it coincides with the disconnection of the power supply. Sony devices tin can also be charged with a maximum charge of 80 or 90%.

Keep the phone battery cool

Equally yous might expect, heat is a battery's enemy. Don't permit it get as well hot or likewise cold - particularly when charging. If a telephone gets likewise hot, you will be damaging its battery, then endeavor to proceed it cool where possible.

Charging the phone from a power bank on the beach in a deckchair is a worst-case scenario for battery health. Attempt keeping your phone in the shade if you lot need to charge on a hot summertime day. Charging past a window can also lead to excess heat. Read how to absurd downward a hot iPhone.

The cold is also non good for batteries either. If you come in from a long walk in the winter cold, allow the phone reach room temperature before yous plug in the cablevision.

Heat and batteries practise non belong together. Batteries are a bit like humans, at least in the narrow sense that they thrive best around xx-25 degrees.

Storing battery tips

Don't exit a lithium battery lying effectually too long at 0% - if you're non using it for a while, go out it with effectually 50% charge.

If y'all are going to put the telephone away for a long fourth dimension, first charge information technology to somewhere between 40-80% and then turn off the phone.

Yous'll find the battery will bleed between v% and ten% each month, and if you lot let it discharge completely it might go incapable of holding a charge at all. That's probably why an old phone'southward battery life is so much worse afterwards a few months in a drawer, fifty-fifty when it hasn't been used.

More tips for longer phone battery life

• Apply the ability save mode more than often. It reduces power consumption and thus reduces the number of cycles.

• Endeavor your screen'southward Nighttime Mode, equally the phone turns off the pixels displaying blackness, This means you relieve battery life when the white panels go dark. Or merely plow your phone's effulgence downward!

• Plough off groundwork updates for apps yous retrieve don't need them - information technology also reduces power consumption.

• Plow off or put the phone in Plane Mode when you don't need it, such as overnight - preferably with a reasonable bombardment level left.

• Don't force quit the apps. Your telephone'due south operating system is best at pausing the apps that aren't needed - it uses lower power consumption than a "cold start" for each app again and again.

• Avoid cheap chargers and cables. When ownership charging cables and plugs, it's a fake economy to buy cheap products. Hardware should have a charge command rather than an junior, cheap circuit - otherwise there is a adventure of overcharging. Encounter all-time phone chargers, best charging cables for iPhone, best USB-C cables, and best MicroUSB charging cables.

Additional reporting by Samuel Nyberg and Steffen Zellfelder.