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More isn’t always better. This saying is especially true when it comes to charging your iPhone. The tendency to overthink charging is what could actually be slowly, but surely, having a negative effect on your device and resulting in battery drainage. We spoke with Apple experts who agreed: This is the worst charging mistake you can make.
Charging Your Phone Too Much
There is such a thing as too much of a good thing when it comes to charging your device. If you plug your phone into a charger any chance you get, you could be damaging the battery.
“The worst thing you can do when charging your phone is charging it constantly — in your car, overnight, etc,” says Nick Drewe, tech expert and CEO of Wethrift. “This will absolutely fry your battery and decrease its life over time. Instead, try charging your phone for an hour or so at a time, a couple times a day if necessary. You don't need to be at 100% for peak performance. Aim for 80% and go about your day.”
Anna Lind, Chief Editor at Cryptoradar, agrees. “A charging error is draining our battery and then charging it to 100%,” Lind says. “When the battery charge is between 30% and 80%, Li-ion batteries work best. The high voltage from the electric current strains your battery as you 'deep charge' it to exceed 100 percent, causing it to overheat and shortening its lifetime.”
Smartphones have a limited number of charging cycles, so going over that limit can cause your phone to overheat and it's best to charge your phone when it falls below 30 and to turn it off when it exceeds 80, Lind says.
It’s equally important that you not make this second common charging mistake: not being able to keep your hands off of your phone while it’s charging.
The smartphones charger works on the direct current (DC) technology, according to Pranav Dhore founder and editor of Technicalroar. Dhore explains that when your charger supplies power to your phone, the phone's power management system keeps track of how the power is being used. When you don't use the phone while it is charging, all power is supplied solely to your phone's battery. Therefore, your phone get charged relatively faster.
“On the other hand, when you use phone while it is still charging, and you perform lot of operations on it, like playing games, browsing or using social media applications, the phone's system consumes power directly supplied from the charger, leaving negligible power to be supplied for the battery,” Dhore says. “Thus, it's the main reason why your phone charges slowly on using it during the charging.”
To ensure your phone is charging in a way that won't negatively impact its battery, charge it less and stay off of it until charging is complete.
