You’ve Been Charging Your Smartphone Wrong

August 30, 2016 5:00 am
Close up of Asian woman connecting cell phone to battery
(Getty)

You try so hard to accommodate your smartphone’s battery, making sure it gets a long, uninterrupted refueling on its charger to restore it all the way back to 100 and beyond.

Yet it seems like you just burn through the battery faster and faster as time goes on.

Turns out most of us have been doing the exact wrong thing. The battery company Cadex notes that once your battery has reached 100 percent, it needs to be unplugged ASAP. Why? To maintain that level while plugged in, the battery is given “trickle charges.” These in turn keep the battery in a high-stress, high-tension state, wearing it down. (They compare leaving a charged phone plugged in to exercising yourself to the point of exhaustion but denying your body the chance to cool down.)

Indeed, they suggest unplugging before you reach 100% when possible, since it wears away the battery longterm. (They also advise being very careful of your phone overheating while charging: it may be necessary to remove it from its case or shift it out of the sun.)

In short, it turns out that plugging in your phone as needed throughout the day is just fine, proving yet again it pays to avoid longterm planning.

To read more about smartphone battery life, click here.

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