You've probably heard people say that you shouldn't leave your phone plugged in overnight. Doing so depreciates your battery life and makes it age faster. You're killing your battery! I always charge my phone overnight, and I always let it reach a full 100% charge. Am I really killing my battery? Am I a murderer? I can't live with this guilt, so I called up some battery experts to find the truth.
Daniel Steingart, Associate Professor at Princeton University told me that, actually: The easiest thing to do is just keep it plugged in all the time or as much as you can. - Did you hear that? I'll say it again, "as much as you can." The way he sees is it is that we all need our phones ready and charged, so we might as well keep them fully charged forever. Your phone is pretty smart, and its software recognizes when it reaches full charge, so you can't technically overcharge your battery.
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| Charging battery at night |
Problem solved! But not really. I also called Venkat Srinivasan, the Director of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science, and he told me: - [Venkat] Don't charge the battery all the way to 100%. Get it up to 90% and then stop it. - He never lets his phone reach a full charge, what? He says we should keep our phones between 30% and 80% charged because once they reach 100%, certain reactions occur that degrade the electrolytes and depreciate our batteries.
So this is probably where that overcharging myth comes from. Alright, so I went back to Dan, and I asked him to clarify. Like, Venkat says you're wrong. And Dan told me that both of them are actually right. So, awesome, you do damage your battery when you charge it to 100%.
But if you're going for the full charge already, keeping it there doesn't harm it. Basically, if you are a normal human who just needs their phone out all the time, feel free to go to 100% and keep it plugged in forever. But if you care a lot about your battery's life, like, a lot, a lot, or you don't use your phone that much, go Venkat's route and try to keep it in a narrow charging range.
I admire your discipline, and maybe you'll extend your battery's lifespan. Ultimately, though, batteries are meant to be used, and phones are meant to be used too. You don't do any damage by leaving it at 100. You'll probably replace your phone before your battery totally dies. Or in a worst case scenario, you replace the battery. That's not so bad. Okay, glad we settled this. Go live your truth, keep it 100, goodbye.