Two Mistakes You’re Making While Charging Your Smartphone Battery

One of the most common complaints that anyone who uses a smartphone has, is regarding the battery of the device. While our new phones are packed with powerful features, ultrafast processors and are also as thin as a wafer, all this leads to a situation where the battery life of a device is not more than half a day with all features running. Sure, we can take these precautions like turning off 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS, turning down the brightness and other innovative ideas, but this just kills the functionality of what makes a smartphone ‘smart’ in the first place.

Moreover, some new devices also have the very unhelpful feature of irremovable batteries and this further compounds the problem. Gone are the days when we could just carry around a spare battery and solve our smartphone battery life issues. One great solution is an external power bank but this is just another clunky device to carry around with us, and the best power banks are far from cheap.

Common Myths about Charging Smartphones to Improve Battery Life

Heavy apps and medium usage generally lead to a rapid fall in the battery life of a smartphone. However, another factor that causes this drop is the frequency and method through which a phone is charged. There are some preconceived myths about charging smartphones and here we will try to clarify some of these myths for you.

MYTH # 1: I should wait till the battery is close to dead before charging

There are many people who wrongly believe that charging a smartphone battery in short bursts is harmful. In fact, this could not be further from the truth. Charging a phone from close to 5% battery up to 100% causes more stress to the battery and this is something that should be avoided. Even letting the battery drop down to below 10% can be harmful to the battery’s longevity.

MYTH # 2: It’s okay to keep my battery on charge all night

Many people find that charging their phone all night is a viable solution. When they wake up the battery is fully charged thus paving the way for a few hours of uninterrupted fun. However, it is highly advisable to unplug a charger once the battery has reached full charge. This is because once the battery charge level has reached 100%, it receives small doses of electricity to keep the level at 100% if it is still plugged in. This keeps the battery in a tense state and harms the chemistry within.

So the question that arises is what to do when it comes to charging smartphones? The simple answer to this is – Charge your phone as often as possible. This will keep your battery away from stress and hopefully improve its longevity as well. Some other tips to improve smartphone battery life are as follows:

• Do not wait till the battery is close to dying before you charge it
• Do not keep your battery plugged in for charging all night
• Keep a spare charger at home and at office to charge your phone frequently
• Remove back panels while charging to keep the phone temperature down

While some of these tips may prove useful, the fact of the matter is that smartphone batteries do not last very long. Some models have bigger batteries so last longer, but in general these batteries run out pretty quickly when many features are used for a few hours. This is why the next great game changer for smartphones will be an innovation that makes batteries last longer than a few days. In the meantime, we will just need to put up with this very notable shortcoming.

Rahul Thadani