When charging a phone wirelessly, there is sometimes significant heat generated. That combined with higher charging rates that are now coming out with the Qi 2 standard make me wonder what the ideal charge for the battery would be.
Most of the time I just toss my phone onto a wireless charger before bed, and don’t really care how quickly it charges. Would it be better to use a 5W brick with a charging pad? Should wireless be avoided and usb used instead?
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The very healthiest way? But maybe you won’t like it :)
Don’t charge above 80%, don’t discharge below 20%, charging current at 1/10 of the capacity, and always keep the thing at average room temperature.
My A52s has a built-in function to not let it charge above 80. I keep it on unless I need the extra 20% for instance when I’m away for a while.
I was actually thinking of using the battery charge limit feature to prevent charging above 90%. Not sure I could do 80 without an charge during the day, lol
Given qi2 uses magnets to properly align the coils in the phone and the charger, it should result in generating less heat and overall greater efficiency, so it very well may generate less or the same amount of heat [edit: despite the higher amount of energy transmitted ]… That is, if your phone supports it. But all things considered, it’ll unlikely ever be as efficient, and, hence, warmer than a regular wired charger. I mean, you’re pretty much going ac → dc in the power supply, then dc → ac in the inductive charger, then again ac → dc in the phone itself for no particular reason. That being said, pd also runs quite hot at times, so, IMO, smth like plain old 5v 1amp charger would be more preferable given the use-case
Check ifixit before you buy a phone, to make sure diy battery replacement is not too difficult. Then you don’t have to worry as much. Just figure on a swap or two during the phone’s lifetime.
Other than that, keep charge level between 20% and 80% as someone said. But I think in that range, it’s ok to fast charge within reason.
Supposedly starting in 2027, all phones sold in EU will have user replaceable batteries.
Supposedly starting in 2027, all phones sold in EU will have user replaceable batteries.
Unfortunately, while the law is certainly an improvement, it’s not as good as the headlines have misled people to believe.
Anybody who thinks they’ll be popping the back off their phone and changing the battery like it’s 2006 will be disappointed.
The law stops the most egregious stuff (like glueing the battery down excessively in a way that requires specialised tooling to remove), but that’s about as far as it goes.
A confident tinkerer shouldn’t have an issue. But it’s a far cry from what many seem to think the law is.
There are also exceptions. If you guarantee the capacity being over X (I can’t remember what the law stipulates) after 3 years, the battery doesn’t have to be removable. And IIRC, it’s not a particularly ambitious amount. Like 74% or something.
I think everyone likes to glue down batteries now because that helps the phone’s drop protection. The adhesive strips aren’t so bad since you can heat them a little / use a spudger to get the battery out. It’s worse when they make it very hard to get to the battery, or make you unglue delicate parts like the screen. You are probably right to be pessimistic though.
Trickle charging to 80 is going to help protect the battery for longer. Also, never charge it frozen.
Plenty of good answers here already. Just want to add a funny anecdote.
I’ve had the same USB charging brick for years, using it for different phones throughout that time. When I check the battery settings when it’s plugged in it “warns” me that I could be charging at a higher rate if I plug into a higher amperage charger. Yeah… I know. I WANT to charge slowly. It’s gonna be plugged in all night, what do I care?
I’ve had my phone for a year, 165 charging cycles, and it says it’s still at 100% health. I do cap charging to 80% and that hasn’t been an issue for my day-to-day usage.
Exactly this. Everyone focuses on how fast you can charge a phone, but 99% of the time I’m charging over night and would prefer a slower charge.
I just capped mine to 90%, if that goes well I might go down to 80.
Wireless charging always generates more heat than wired charging but it’s not always a significant amount.
Wired charging ports get dirty, wear out
Batteries last longer with slower charges.
Batteries last longer with less charges
Batteries last longer If they never leave a moderate temperature.
Batteries last longer if they never drop below 20% and never go above 80%
Batteries last longer when stored if they are stored at 50% charge.
Putting that all in check you can take a couple year old phone to a fix it place and have the battery replaced. And they can also replace your wired charging port if necessary.
My pixel 7 has adaptive charging. If there’s an alarm set and I charge it at night, it paces the charging to be full near the time I’m getting up.
So it’s doing what it can to preserve battery health.
Wish we could set the time ourselves, mine works sparaticly.
Going wireless will always add a layer of energy loss, in this case heat, during charging, no matter if it is properly aligned with magnets or not. So first step to reducing heat is to charge wired only.
Fast charging is also a way of generating more heat while charging, so limiting the charge speed is also a way to reduce that. If you’re going to charge your phone through the night, it’s probably a good idea to use a 5W brick to manually limit the charge speed. A quick way to enforce that is to use the USB-A port on the brick instead of the C port, that way the PD standard won’t be activated and will charge at a slower rate. (Though if your phone fast charges through USB-A like Quick Charge or SuperVOOC, it will not default to 5W. Use a cheapo brick or a computer USB-A port instead.)
Last would be to limit the charge level to 80%. Batteries are the most stable at half charge and stressed at both extremes, but that’s not practical for anyone to limit their devices between 40~60% charge, so 20~80% is a better compromise. iPhones now have the ability to limit their charge to 80% or 90% in iOS 18, so set that if you can. On Android, you’ll need to see if your phone and OS supports it.
