Stop Charging your Phone Overnight!

when we started working on this video it was supposed to be a psa about the dangers of using fast charging and wireless charging and we had this whole plan worked out where we were going to use a thermal camera to measure how hot our devices were getting discuss the detrimental effects of heat on phone batteries complain that they're not user replaceable etc etc but as it turns out if you're using a modern charger like these ones from anker that they unwittingly sent over for us to crucify it's basically a non-issue but don't stop watching yet because your non-replaceable phone battery is still at risk of a premature death and strategically applied wireless or fast charging could actually help prevent that death and i'm going to tell you how as long as you've got enough juice to make it through this really long segway to today's video sponsor private internet access are you looking for an affordable and reliable vpn pia encrypts your internet traffic and uses a safe protected ip check it out today through the link below [Music] growing up i was always taught that when my rechargeable discman and game gear batteries died i should charge them all the way and then discharge them all the way because if i didn't they might not last as long the next time because they would remember the lower capacity so fast forward you know what forget how many years it is fast forward to today and generally speaking i charge my phone with the same mentality leaving it plugged in overnight so that i have a hundred percent when i start my day and then only plugging in again when it is almost dead that evening but here's the problem as your phone charges its battery's acceptance of ions actually becomes more and more labored as the battery gets close to a full charge kind of like how packing in passengers is easy at the start but as a car gets more and more full it takes a lot of pressure to get the last couple of people in and it's a slow process so in the world of electricity voltage is a lot like pressure and the last five percent charge from 95 to 100 takes significantly more of it but with very little current actually flowing in that's why it's so slow and it's not by choice if you go too fast towards the end you'll end up with a unwanted gases that can cause the battery to swell and b an effect called polarization that makes your phone think that the battery is full when it's not well okay so i'm asleep the phone's fully charged well everyone knows that it can't overcharge what's the big deal going back to our car analogy sitting at a hundred percent capacity is really uncomfortable for your battery and well everyone so if you want your battery to stay healthy for years and years you should only allow it to charge to its less stressful voltage about 3.9 volts which means stopping charging once your phone reaches 60 to 65 which isn't nearly enough for me to get through a whole day so this is where fast charging and the wireless chargers that we mentioned before come in this might seem counter-intuitive because fast charging works by forcing in a ton of electrons at high voltages i mean we're talking 14 and a half volts on the iphone 10 when the battery is near empty but that is why fast charging is only activated while your battery is under 50 or 70 percent that's while it is still accepting ions very readily rather than turning them into wasted heat so what do you do if you're the type of person who needs as much screen time as possible each day and you plan on upgrading every one or two years anyway then charge it overnight you'll be reducing your battery's health but i guess that's whoever buys it on ebay's problem however if you're the type of person who wants their phone to last three four or even five years then you want to charge your battery in a way that preserves its health and this is where it gets tricky because even the act of discharging your battery ages it according to the depth of discharge therefore if you really want to optimize its longevity you should only let it drain down to say 50 before charging it up to just 60 a depth of discharge of only 10 percent now that sounds like a gigantic hassle but lots of people do try to stay between 25 and 80 percent and fast wireless chargers like the ones we were planning to tell you not to use are actually really helpful for that you just set your phone down on the pad whenever you're at your desk and let your battery graze rather than gorge and that's without the inconvenience of messing with a power cable just make sure that you put your phone down correctly so i like this design in particular because it's actively cooled for faster power delivery and it forces you to line up the phone correctly for maximum efficiency less wasted electricity means less heat which is better for your battery just don't leave it on the pad for too long because as of right now only android phones and only rooted ones in particular support apps that let you avoid the discomfort of a 100 percent charge speaking of discomfort it can be a pretty uncomfortable feeling when you drop your phone and break your screen and that's where ifixit comes in they are leading the charge in the electronics repair industry with both their guides on their website and their tools including their iconic black and blue protect tool kit and it's now only 60 bucks it stores in a nice compact little roll it comes with their 64-bit driver kit a wide variety of plastic opening tools spudgers and picks so you can safely poke and pry a suction cup with a fancy handle to remove display assemblies their own jimmy pry tool esd safe tweezers and more and it's all backed by ifixit's lifetime warranty so why pay someone else to fix your devices when you can check out their free repair resources over at ifixit.com and go to ifixit.com linus to snag your own fully loaded protech toolkit again it's now only 60 bucks so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description also down there is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum which you should totally join

Channel: Linus Tech Tips

Views: 2,434,649

Keywords: battery, charging, fast charging, quick charge, wireless charging, bad, damage, health, swell, lithium, li-ion, ion, iphone, fast, best, lifespan, battery life, life, memory effect, how, works

Id: AF2O4l1JprI

Length: 7min 18sec (438 seconds)

Published: Thu May 10 2018