5 Mistakes People Make While Charging Their Mobile Phone

Whether you are a casual smartphone user or a technology enthusiast, you would love your smartphone’s battery to last a little longer, isn’t it? Well, most smartphones use Li-Ion (Lithium Ion) batteries that can hold up charge well for 300 to 500 charge/discharge cycles, which should be good enough for 1-2 years worth of charging. Once you cross that limit, the battery starts to degrade, which means that its capacity starts to drop. Even if you fully charge the battery, it won’t offer 100% of its capacity.

Typically, once a Li-Ion battery crosses 300 cycles, its capacity drops to just 80% of its original capacity. If you’ve held on to your smartphone for 2 years or more, you might have noticed that its battery life isn’t as good as it was earlier, and that’s mostly because its health has been degraded. Your mobile phone’s battery is ultimately going to degrade. Most smartphones these days have sealed batteries, which means that if you want to replace the degraded battery with a new one, you’ll have to visit a service centre. But what if we tell you that you can prolong your mobile phone battery’s health by changing a few charging habits?

In this article, we will explain how you can maintain your mobile phone’s battery health for a longer duration and enjoy good battery life by avoiding charging mistakes that most people make.

Five Mistakes You Should Avoid While Charging Your Mobile Phone

Excessive heat and infrequent charging habits are a battery’s biggest enemies. Unfortunately, not many of us can do anything about heat, especially in hot countries like India. However, we can still follow some rules to extend the battery’s health. Here are five mistakes that you should avoid while charging your mobile phone.

1. Avoid Charging Your Phone Overnight

Most of us end up doing this. We plug in our mobile phones for charge before going to bed, leave it plugged in all night, and the device continues to charge for hours at a stretch. That’s called overcharging, and ideally you should unplug the charger as soon as the phone’s battery reaches 100% charge level. However, overcharging isn’t as big an issue in modern smartphones as it used to be in older devices.

Most modern smartphones use technologies that monitor when you go to sleep and wake up in order to prevent overcharging. So, when you plug in the phone for charging, the device charges quickly until its battery charge reaches 70%, and then it stops charging or slows the charging down in such a way that the battery reaches 100% charge level when it’s time for you to wake up. This reduces battery degradation. However, such technologies are not perfect, and it is still better if you notice the battery charge levels when recharging the phone and unplug the charger once it is done charging.

Most modern smartphones feature fast charging, and most of them get fully charged within 2 hours. Some phones even get charged from 0-100% within half an hour. So, you wouldn’t have to wait for long to unplug the charger once the device is fully charged.

2. Avoid Infrequent, Haphazard, & Incomplete Charging

Maybe your smartphone battery barely lasts a day but that does not mean you keep charging it every few minutes when you see the battery drop by 10%. Frequently charging the phone can harm the battery’s life. Also, it is recommended that you charge the device from 0-80% and then unplug the charger. Moreover, it is better if you wait until your phone’s battery level drops to 10% or below and then plug it in for charing. We know, that might not be possible every time, but you should strive to follow these habits whenever it is possible.

It is best to keep the battery charged up to 80%, but that’s not always possible as well. Hence, some smartphones have an inbuilt feature that only charges the battery up to 80% and then stops charging. If you want to prolong the battery health, you should use this feature.

3. Do Not Use Unofficial, Unsupported, Or Low-Quality Chargers

Whenever we come across news regarding someone’s smartphone battery exploding or catching fire, proceeding investigation mostly reveals the use of an unofficial or low-quality charger or harmful charging conditions. Hence, you should always try using the phone’s official or certified chargers.

It may not be possible to carry the official charger everywhere, so you can buy an additional certified charger for your car or workplace so that you don’t have to worry about using an unofficial charger at your office or during travel.

4. Avoid Heavy Smartphone Usage While It Is Getting Charged

Some people have the habit of playing gaming while their smartphone is getting charged, which is not recommended behaviour. As we’ve mentioned earlier in the article, heat is a battery’s biggest enemy. Putting the phone through a heavy load, be it gaming, using the camera, or using any other heavy apps cause the processor to generate a lot of heat. When that heat is added to the heat that’s already being generated by the battery charging process, it can be a lot and can degrade the battery’s health, which ultimately leads to shorter battery life.

5. Do Not Place The Phone Under The Pillow While It Is Getting Charged

Many people have a habit of keeping their phones under their pillow so that it is easier to reach. Sometimes, they leave it under the pillow even when the device is getting charged, which is extremely dangerous. As we’ve mentioned earlier, the phone generates heat while getting charged, and that heat needs to be dissipated in order to save the phone from any possible damage or battery degradation. However, when the mobile phone is placed under the pillow, it can no longer dissipate heat and gets extremely hot. In some cases, it leads to the pillow catching fire which then spreads to the entire mattress and the room.

If you want to have easy access to the phone while it is getting charged during the night, it is better to place the phone on the bedside table.

If you follow the simple charging habits that are recommended in this article, it is likely that you will save the phone’s battery from getting degraded quicker than usual, thereby prolonging the phone’s battery life.

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