On Charge More Than 15 Hours a Day Hurting Battery? - Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I charge my phone overnight, from around 10PM to 8AM, then I leave my phone charging in its dock from about 9AM to 5PM during the work day...
any harm in doing this? I'd like my phone to last quite a while, as we are currently in a serious relationship, and I don't plan on letting her go....

What hurts your phone battery is not charging it but keeping it on high temperatures for a long time. And guess what keeps it on high temperatures: yep, you guessed it, charging for a long time.
Sent from my HTC Desire C using xda app-developers app

While it always depends on the charging circuit, keeping your battery topped up by constant charging (even trickle maintenance) will reduce the voltage level that it can be charged to. This will take quite some time to notice, and several deeper charging cycles will "repair" this to a certain extent. But with any battery, keeping it any constant level will reduce its charging capacity, and continual charging (trickle or otherwise) will "cook" the batteries chemical make up sooner.
To do what you're doing everyday will absolutely have an impact on your battery's health over the long term. But to exactly what extent is based on several factors I don't have specific data on.

Absolutely, our phone battery is designed for mobile usage, not to be tethered to a charger constantly. Constant charging is unnecessary, wasteful and leads to early battery demise.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

And aren't our high end modern phones also designed to trickle charge when it gets to %100, so no harm can come to it?

caliber177 said:
And aren't our high end modern phones also designed to trickle charge when it gets to %100, so no harm can come to it?
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I suppose it depends on how you define "harm". Read my post above again. Any level of current that is continually supplied to a charged battery will accelerate the aging of it.
Even if the charger were to shut off completely, and then resume charging at a certain level (which I believe is the behavior of the LG wireless charger at 95%), continually discharging and recharging from 95% to 100% is probably not ideal.
But all of this is probably not all that great of an affect in the grand scheme of things. You're not gonna kill your battery in a matter of months by leaving on the charger all of the time. Yes you will accelerate the degradation of the battery's health over time, but if your phone is in use enough so the battery is being discharged regularly between charges, I doubt that you will notice it for a long time, if at all.
I can say that if you simply leave it charging 24/7 without any other kind of use you will be able to measure degradation surprisingly soon. As to how noticeable it will be is very hard to say.

I use and suggest Battery Monitor Widget from 3c. It takes the guess work out of what you see when you're charging and what happens to the phone when it reaches 100%.
As the phone gradually reaches 90%, charging is noticeably slowed. From about 92-100% it trickle charges from around 300 to 200 to 100mA until it reaches 100%. Charger stops charging when full and lets the battery level drop slightly before charging it back to 100%. You're constantly topping it off at full and batteries of this chemistry don't like that.
As far as I can recall, these types of batteries actually thrive on being run down and cycled back up. The only catch is, don't run them down until it's completely dead. You've significantly cut the life of your battery if you do it quite often.
To answer your question, it probably doesn't hurt that much. If you do it for months, maybe years. Yeah, you'll see some degradation.

desynch- said:
As far as I can recall, these types of batteries actually thrive on being run down and cycled back up.
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I would correct this and say the battery loves being near the median. Store at 40% battery! 100%-0% is bad... 100%-10% is better, 90/10 is better etc...
80/40 is really good for preserving charge cycles. Basically, charging at 30% back up to 70% is better than letting it go down to 0%
Note: this is a REALLY good battery in this phone. Just USE it until you feel it's dying too soon and buy a new one. Batteries are cheap and will be cheaper in 2-3 years.

But we can't buy battery for this phone.. I always let it run down to 14% that's when the warning message pops up.. Then back up, charges in 2 1/2 hrs then I leave it on an hour more until I leave from work so I could have a full phone.. Note, I work over nights, so its dead at around 2 or 3 am sometimes, then I leave at 6 am..
Sent from my Nexus 4

Please... I would say we can in a few months! Most of us have already voided the warranty
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

Most of us in here don't keep our phones long enough to notice any battery degradation..
Just charge it as often as you can but unplug it when it's full.

To be safe I would let the phone idle off of the work charger and only plug in at home.

dralways said:
To be safe I would let the phone idle off of the work charger and only plug in at home.
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Agreed, I only charge once a day and it's usually sufficient, if your a heavy user and are concerned about the phone dying at night, let the phone decharge normally throughout the day and plug it in an hour or an hour and a half before you leave, however long it takes to charge the device after a workday's worth of usage (Whatever that is for you)
I do this myself if I'm using my phone heavily during the day and know I'll be out all night. Like some said you'll probably never even notice the degradation, but when you know it's not good for the battery in the strictest sense why risk it, the phones aren't designed to be charging 2/3rd of the time, they are designed to be charged and then taken off the charger and used.

Related

This is why your battery drops 10-15% in the first 20 minutes.

Plain and simple: When the Evo is fully charged, it begins running off its battery until you plug it back in. It DOES NOT trickle charge whatsoever after it reaches 100%. When you're using your Evo on the charger, and it's showing full 100% charge, it is running off the battery, not the AC plug. And then when you unplug it, well, we all know what happens next. The battery meter drops insanely fast to the actual charge of the battery, which could be very low, depending on how long it's been sitting idle at 100% on your charger.
So all those times you've charged your Evo overnight, only to take it to work the next day and be at 80% within an hour? Your Evo was running off its battery for what I'm guessing was most of the night. It takes my Evo about an hour to two hours to fully charge back to 100%. Let's say you put your Evo on the charger at 11PM, it'll reach full charge by 1AM at the latest, and then run off its battery until whenever you take it off the charger in the morning.
Workarounds?
1) Turn your Evo off while it's charging.
2) If you must leave it on for an alarm clock, put it in airplane mode and end all CPU intensive tasks to minimize battery drain.
3) When you wake up, unplug it for 10-20 minutes (still experimenting with this number), and then plug it back in to top it off. Once it reaches 100%, take it off the charger, and go about your day.
Try it out for yourself. When your Evo is 100% charged, take it off the charger immediately, and I highly doubt you will lose the 10%-15% within minutes. Please share your findings.
Er... Point of note, mine does it even if I pull it off the charger right when it turns green.
Post some technical schematic or other type of proof that shows that this circuitry isn't available in the EVO. That will prove beyond a doubt if what your saying is true.
That being said, only a group of the most retarded electrical engineers would design a charging system as you've described. It is INSANELY easy to build Li-Polymer charging circuitry that does the following (and it pretty much has to do these):
1. Detects battery temperature, and disables charging as a protective measure. In an emergency case it should shut off the device it's powering to allow the battery to cool down. This is a design requirement, or else your house burns down as you dump water on a Lithium fire thinking it's going to put it out. If you have a HERO, you can easily test this. Running the wireless tethering, GPS/Navigation, and Music with the screen running heats up the phone a ton. You'll notice the status light blink green once, then red a couple of times. This means that it's plugged in but not charging. Cool the phone down and it turns solid red again (charging).
2. Disable charging cycle when battery reaches a certain voltage. VERY SIMPLE voltage detection circuitry! The designer can of course adjust a gap to have charging turn back on when it dips below a certain voltage. Usually since this circuitry can be made with a decent amount of precision, that "turn back on" voltage ends up being roughly when the battery discharges to maybe 99.5%. That's just a guess, I admit but there's no harm in having the circuit switch on and off, even if it's often.
There are also a few other circuits that prevent the cell from blowing up in your pocket, like a current sensor to prevent an overcurrent. There's also some stuff that prevents you from being able to discharge the cell below it's avalanche voltage. In case you don't know what that is, when a Li-Ion battery discharges to a certain voltage, it avalanches to 0 (quickly falls). If it hits that point, you've pretty much ruined the battery and it will never charge the same again.
Anyway, this is stuff they taught and had design labs on back in college. While I have no actual proof that the phone wasn't designed as the OP describes, I find it highly unlikely. If this is the behavior that the circuitry exhibits, I would find it easier to believe that it's a design flaw, probably because some idiot didn't compile the correct bill of materials.
I haven't got any schematics or any sort of technical information on the subject. All I know is, it works wonders for me. When I take my Evo off the charger in the morning, it literally drops to ~90% within minutes. Once it does that, if I place it back on the charger for ~20 minutes, it charges back to 100% and stays there for 45 minutes to an hour.
I'd urge anybody who is noticing the immediate 10% to 15% drop in battery to give this a shot.
I would turn it off while I'm charging it overnight, but I use it as my alarm clock
Me Too
I am seeing the exact same behavior as the OP. This is really lame. Because of this, most people will end up losing 10% of their battery every day. Pretty lame.
I charge my phone overnight every night. Never noticed a problem and I just checked my battery and its at 88% and has been off the charger for 2.5hours so I'm not seeing the rapid discharge issue some people are seeing.
I don't think so man, I leave my screen on full brightness while it's charging, and if what you said was true it would go dead on the charger.
I think it's more likely the cells haven’t charged equally, so you get a big initial drop.
Grims said:
I don't think so man, I leave my screen on full brightness while it's charging, and if what you said was true it would go dead on the charger.
I think it's more likely the cells haven’t charged equally, so you get a big initial drop.
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I'm beginning to think that once the battery reaches 100% full, it runs off the battery until it reaches some arbitrary percentage. At which point it starts charging until it reaches 100% again, and then continues this cycle.
I'm testing a few other things right now. Part of me is convinced it reports 100% charge when it's actually below that level.
Krynj said:
I haven't got any schematics or any sort of technical information on the subject. All I know is, it works wonders for me. When I take my Evo off the charger in the morning, it literally drops to ~90% within minutes. Once it does that, if I place it back on the charger for ~20 minutes, it charges back to 100% and stays there for 45 minutes to an hour.
I'd urge anybody who is noticing the immediate 10% to 15% drop in battery to give this a shot.
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I'll try this out to see if I can get the same kind of behavior. I guess I honestly haven't looked to see if the phone drops 10-15% after pulling it off.
Krynj said:
I'm beginning to think that once the battery reaches 100% full, it runs off the battery until it reaches some arbitrary percentage. At which point it starts charging until it reaches 100% again, and then continues this cycle.
I'm testing a few other things right now. Part of me is convinced it reports 100% charge when it's actually below that level.
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This is what should be happening I believe, but I'd be surprised if it was set to such a huge swing like 10-15%
Grims said:
I don't think so man, I leave my screen on full brightness while it's charging, and if what you said was true it would go dead on the charger.
I think it's more likely the cells haven’t charged equally, so you get a big initial drop.
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This is an interesting theory. I do know that when you have multiple Li-Ion cells in a battery pack, if they discharge unevenly, you have to go off of the lowest charged cell. Again, if a cell were to drop below the avalanche voltage, you'd ruin the pack all together. On the other hand, the circuitry should let ALL cells charge to 100% so it's even again. Maybe they screwed this up, that design isn't so easy! Perhaps it detects one cell as 100% and shuts off the charge. Therefore, one could surmise that if you started with an unevenly charged battery pack, you'd have an immediate decrease in charge to the rating of the lowest charged cell. The good news (maybe) is that this is sometimes implemented with software. That means that HTC could release a bug fix for this, or if we have a savvy dev, they could try to fix it. We just need to prove the theory though.
This is all just a guess, keep that in mind. If I notice something like this with my phone today, maybe I can tear apart the battery and measure the voltage on each cell (if it even has multiple cells). I have a spare, so maybe I'd be up for this. Krynj (or anyone), if you have the HTC Hero, try charging your battery pack with it, see if it exhibits the same behavior on the Hero itself. If it doesn't, then try putting it back into the EVO and see if after a night of charging, it still drops 10-15% after disconnecting it from the AC.
The reason why the battery dies so fast has something to do with the memory card. Charge your phone and take the SD card out and watch it stay at 100% for a long as time. Then do it again with the SD card in and watch it dip down fast.
Apple laptops don't charge unless battery is below 90%. If you plug in the AC and the battery is above 90%, it will just run off AC power but I don't think the battery drains any then.
My battery life has been less than stellar, but I didn't notice it dropping 10-15% instantly off the charger. I did notice that it'd drop about 10% after driving to work with xiialive streaming, which was unusual to me. The battery would start running out after about 9 hours at work. I'd be in the yellow by the time I got home, and the battery would be complaining for a charge in the evening. So that's roughly 12 hours I would be getting out of the phone after normal use.
Since I'm suspecting an issue with the charging circuitry, I just recently tried charging my battery with the Hero. After it was fully charged, I put it back into my EVO last night and haven't charged it since. It's been running 13 hours, and is still nearly full green. The charge is at about 70%. I've been trying to graph the discharge all day too. It only dropped to 87% over night, dropped to 80% when I drove to work (xiialive), and then down to 74% after I spent some time setting up icons and modifying my home screen. This is...hands down a butt ton better than the past week.
I'm not using 4G.
WiFi is off.
3G is on.
GPS is on.
Not running a live wallpaper.
Sync is running at default settings.
Widgets that could be updating constantly:
I have the Clock/Weather HTC widget running.
I have the Dictionary.com "word of the day" widget.
I have the Friendstream Widget running.
Craigslist Craignotifica app is running, set to notify me with search results.
The results are inconclusive though. Yesterday, I wiped and re-flashed DamageControl 3.2.x from scratch (backed up all apps with Ti-Backup, this means Android Market won't be notifying me if there are app updates -grumble-). So, somewhere between re-flashing and also charging my battery with the Hero caused this turn around.
apollooff320 said:
The reason why the battery dies so fast has something to do with the memory card. Charge your phone and take the SD card out and watch it stay at 100% for a long as time. Then do it again with the SD card in and watch it dip down fast.
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Interesting.....Will have to give a try. Will report back later.
I'm waiting for some definitive results with the "use another charging device or battery" method. It seems that the EVO just sucks at recharging the battery since people who have used another phone or a separate charger seem to report better results.
I leave my phone off at night and charge it - when I turn it on in the morning it still drops 5-10% in the first 20 minutes. But during the day it drops REALLY slow, so I still can get about 13-16 hours before 15% easily.
I have manual account sync, 3g only, wifi at home, usually gps is off, auto backlight settings for screen, and I don't run too many apps in the background, I just use them when I need them.
Has anybody found a solution to this? It's really starting to bother me. I've noticed that I don't seem to have the issue if I charge -> recovery -> wipe battery stats -> reboot. That kind of leads me to believe that something is inaccurate about the battery stats and the phone instead uses the actual raw value provided by the battery instead of whatever it is that it does with the battery stats.
I can tell you this, I bought two of the cheap battery chargers off of ebay and I have two OEM evo batteries. I don't even plug my phone in anymore. I get an hour of standby at 100% from those chargers and it falls instantly when charging from the phone. I just run them down then swap them out. I couldn't be happier and they are only like 10 bucks each with 2 batteries each.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
jnewkirk10 said:
I can tell you this, I bought two of the cheap battery chargers off of ebay and I have two OEM evo batteries. I don't even plug my phone in anymore. I get an hour of standby at 100% from those chargers and it falls instantly when charging from the phone. I just run them down then swap them out. I couldn't be happier and they are only like 10 bucks each with 2 batteries each.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
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can you post a link or ebay or where ever u bought it from?
Try this I'm doing it from the phone
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250641711190&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT#ht_1991wt_913
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
apollooff320 said:
The reason why the battery dies so fast has something to do with the memory card. Charge your phone and take the SD card out and watch it stay at 100% for a long as time. Then do it again with the SD card in and watch it dip down fast.
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If you have apps on your sd card that are running then yes that could be the case. SD cards need power to work but I dont know how much they draw..

Why does this phone take so long to charge?

I have had it plugged into the mains, running tunein radio through wifi and its gone from 85% to 86% in one hour.
If I charge from 10% with phone off it takes about 4 hours to fully charge
If I charge from 10% with my phone on running stuff, it actually never gets to fully charges by the time I finish work...at 6pm
Sorry to keep comparing to the dreaded FruitPhone, but that would charge whilst running wifi and tunein from 10% to 100% in about 2 hours.
I am beginning to think my SGS2 is faulty
i am fiding it takes about 3 hours to charge from empty . It does take a long time indeed but i guess it is what we have to do for a 1650mah battery
3 hours from empty with stock charger .
jje
it might well be a 1650 battery, but it starts to get unusable when it takes all day to charge then a few hours to loose it all.
This phone is the greatest but the battery life just completely destroys it, I am beginning to think I made the wrong choice
JJEgan said:
3 hours from empty with stock charger .
jje
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Is that while using it?
you are not supposed to use the phone when its charging its really bad for the battery it gets very warm during charging as it is...
virussnake said:
you are not supposed to use the phone when its charging its really bad for the battery it gets very warm during charging as it is...
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Aye... if I don't the bloomin thing would be dead by lunchtime, and I listen to music.
So I basically have to turn it off not use it so I can charge it, how crap is that, owned my iphone a year never had any problems with battery and I always used and charged in its dock.
The desire had slow charging too but snq- fixed this in his kernels maybe we can port his fix to our kernels
btw it's true li-ion batteries degrade quicky when the heat up (or completely charge or discharge)
From 30% it took me one hour and a half to fully charge..
I recommend to download battery mix as it takes very good statistic on the battery life and one can tell exactly how long it takes to charge and discharge
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
just for the record all Lion batteries in phones never fully discharge or recharge, as there balanced by a balancing chip.
when you get to the likes of 0% you actually have 20% charge, thats why you can power on the phone but it will immediately switch off again. like wise, charging you never reach 100%, it's more like 89%, again because of how Lion works.
if you fully discharged and fully recharged, well put it simply you'd have a lot of exploding phones, fire and chemical burns...
Interesting!
My phone charges in about 2,5 - 3 hours, so should be normal...
But charging with the usb cable connected to the pc it takes much longer.
Any of you experience the same thing?
greets!
THUDUK said:
I have had it plugged into the mains, running tunein radio through wifi and its gone from 85% to 86% in one hour.
If I charge from 10% with phone off it takes about 4 hours to fully charge
If I charge from 10% with my phone on running stuff, it actually never gets to fully charges by the time I finish work...at 6pm
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Because:
a) That´s how Li-Ion-batteries are charged. To fully charge a Li-Ion-battery you need 3-4h.
b) The power-supply is pretty weak. It is just enough to charge the phone at decent speed, but it is not enough to charge it and intensely use it the same time. In this case much of the power is used by the phone and there is not enough left to do a proper charging. I use a 1,2A power-supply from my old Nokia, and while it won´t speed up charging itself, at least it slows down less when I´m using the phone while charging.
Sorry to keep comparing to the dreaded FruitPhone, but that would charge whilst running wifi and tunein from 10% to 100% in about 2 hours.
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This is not possible. The mighty fruity-phone may tell you it is 100% charged, but certainly it isn´t
You can charge a Li-Ion-battery very fast from 0 to 70-85% you could reach this in 1h. But you have to charge the remaining 15-30% very slowly, otherwise the voltage would raise too much and destroy your battery.
The so called saturation-stage (the charging-stage until 100%) takes longer the faster you charged at the beginning. If you really charged until the saturation-stage in 1h, the saturation-stage will take 2-3h.
If you charge slower, so you reach saturation-stage after 2h, the saturation-stage will only take 1-2h anymore.
In the end it will always take 3-4h to fully charge a Li-Ion-cell, regardless how strong your power-supply is.
Another few notes:
Charging will get slower the fuller the battery already is.
Using the phone with low battery-percentage will lengthen the charging-time quite a bit, a stronger power-supply could help.
Getting the last 20% in a Li-Ion-cell will always be very slow, usage of the phone won´t influence this a lot, and a stronger power-supply can´t help.
It doesn´t matter much, how much charge is left in the battery, to fully charge it it will always take long, as you spend most of the time in the saturation-stage (the higher the left percentage is, the more time you spent in saturation-stage)
I am beginning to think my SGS2 is faulty
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It is not faulty, it is designed this way.
It took 3 hours 10 minutes to fully charge my dog and bone yesterday whilst off
Thanks for the explanation!
jonny68 said:
It took 3 hours 10 minutes to fully charge my dog and bone yesterday whilst off
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Your having a bubble bath ain't you mate
Your battery sounds faulty to me, taking over 4 hours and only charging 1 percent in an hour. Try the battery calibration app in the market, if it doesn't improve get it swapped mate
[email protected]
Sent from my Samsung Galactic Crusader S II
The wifi is the killer, try turning it off when charging your phone..
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
it takes so long to charge because samsung capped the charge current at 650 mA in the battery driver. but other phones like HTC allow charging at the full 1 amp. so that's why its a slow charge, and why its possible to drain the battery even while plugged in to the charger.
Now who wants to ask kernel developers to increase that to .850 or 1 amp and use that lol.
I believe lack of heatsink due to design is the culprit behind decision to cap it at .650.
Sent from my GT-I9100
3 hrs to fully charge, and as i use tunein radio a lot i can tell you on my device with the screen off, wifi on with tunein running, it still seems to take no more than 3 hours maybe 15 mins more at most
I am probably going to order a cheap eBay Li-Ion battery that's 1800mAH and likely has a charge cap closer to 1000mAH. I will know in a week when I finally get my phone and report back if that battery helps. I expect it to heat up while charging and am going to use an external charger.
Two replacement batteries and an external charger go for about $12 USD on eBay btw.

Charging Nexus 7 before using it for 1st time?

Should I charge it for like 10 hours, then play with it? or you think its ok to just start playing out of the box.
I've heard stories..where you should, and where it's not necessary.
Thanks
lin013190 said:
Should I charge it for like 10 hours, then play with it? or you think its ok to just start playing out of the box.
I've heard stories..where you should, and where it's not necessary.
Thanks
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Mine came nearly full. I just plugged it into charger out of the box and played with it while it was charging
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
With any new phone I always play with it till it dies and then plug it in and charge for 8 hours and then power it on and good to go
Sent from my EVO using xda app-developers app
Hmm, I see.:cyclops:
With every electronic gadget using Lithium-ion batteries nowadays, it doesn't really matter how/when you charge it.
Some would argue to make sure to allow a full discharge from a full charge from a battery calibration point of view, so the battery meter is more accurate. It wouldn't affect the health of the battery itself either way.
Things like memory effect doesn't apply to lithium-ion. How often you charge it and how much you charge it (full or partial charge etc.) doesn't affect it much either. The only 2 things that can potential kill a lithium-ion is high temperature and letting it discharge far too low to the point that it cannot be charged up again. Note that all electronic devices will power off way before it even reaches this threshold.
What makaijin says is correct
I had mine a bit of a charge yesterday but it was no where near full.
Used it till it was flat this morning. It's currently on charge and I'm going to leave it till it's full only because I need to stop messing with it and do other things
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2
I charged mine for 4 hours before use.
Although it is probably not necessary nowadays, I like to fully discharge the device, then charge it overnight (so it gets back up to 100% and tops off), then cycle it that way 2/3 times, so properly "condition" the battery, as I don't 100% trust the conditioning done before shipping.
Just as a side note, most of the battery conditioning lore is coming from way back in the bad ol' nicad days (probably 1990's), when you HAD to 100% discharge/recharge the battery, and make sure it didn't overcharge or undercharge, else it would not be "conditioned" properly, and it had a permanently reduced max charge. Nowadays, expecially with Lion, it is not necessary, and may even be harmful to fully discharge/recharge cycle EVERY time you use it. The first few times it's probably best to do it to fully condition the battery, but beyond that, it really does nothing.
hanthesolo said:
Although it is probably not necessary nowadays, I like to fully discharge the device, then charge it overnight (so it gets back up to 100% and tops off), then cycle it that way 2/3 times, so properly "condition" the battery, as I don't 100% trust the conditioning done before shipping.
Just as a side note, most of the battery conditioning lore is coming from way back in the bad ol' nicad days (probably 1990's), when you HAD to 100% discharge/recharge the battery, and make sure it didn't overcharge or undercharge, else it would not be "conditioned" properly, and it had a permanently reduced max charge. Nowadays, expecially with Lion, it is not necessary, and may even be harmful to fully discharge/recharge cycle EVERY time you use it. The first few times it's probably best to do it to fully condition the battery, but beyond that, it really does nothing.
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"Conditioning" does not occur with li-on batteries, period. Charging/discharging does absolutely nothing for the life of your battery.
Ifixit shows that the battery inside the Nexus 7 is Lithium Polymer. Does that make a difference in terms of conditioning compared to Li-Ion batteries?
MaxCarnage said:
"Conditioning" does not occur with li-on batteries, period. Charging/discharging does absolutely nothing for the life of your battery.
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Oh, thanks. I thought that was my being paranoid .
Lithium Polymer batteries are actually worse than Lithium-Ion. Don't take my word for it, but at least with older RC Lipo batteries, fully discharging damages them even more the lithium-ion. I am sure the tablet cuts off way before the danger point, but still something to keep in mind.
Here's the deal- and this has been verified on multiple devices with larger batteries- Your tablet will need to self-calibrate the battery meter/charging to the battery. You can expect things like sketchy battery life and running down very low or completely overnight for the first couple days. Once everything "syncs up", you can take advantage of the full potential of the battery. This happened with my Razr Maxx and it happened on my Nexus 7's first overnight. And, talking to people who have had their Nexus 7's a few days, it's common and expected.
As said, it is NOT the battery conditioning, it is the device calibrating. The battery is pretty big and there's a period of time while the device learns.
I decided to drain the battery all the way and then charge it all the way up. It's charging right now actually, any idea how long it should take to get up to 100%?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using xda app-developers app
phoneman09 said:
I decided to drain the battery all the way and then charge it all the way up. It's charging right now actually, any idea how long it should take to get up to 100%?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using xda app-developers app
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Not sure but you can always tap the power button to pull up the battery charge animation. It should let you know when it is fully charged.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
Over discharging a Lithium Ion battery can ruin it in a single cycle. Of course any consumer device should shut off before that happens but deep discharges to the shut off point still permanently reduce battery capacity significantly more than shallower discharge cycles.
In simple terms, you'll get significantly more hours of battery use during its lifetime if you only discharge to 50% than 10% or less.
Lithium Ion batteries never need to be "fully discharged" to the device shut off point and as stated above, it isn't "good" for them.
That said, a discharge from fully charged to at or near shutoff let's the device software measure the battery capacity more accurately so you'll get a more accurate battery reading.
Lithium Ion batteries should not be charged at elevated temperatures. If you just watched a two hour movie, let it cool down before charging. A tablet is a nasty place for a battery with the CPU heating it up. Most manufacturers advise not charging at > 85 deg F and 70 deg F is better. A really good charger will measure battery temperature and reduce the max charging rate at elevated temperatures.
Lithium Ion batteries should be stored at 50-70% capacity and not fully charged. That's ~3.7 V per cell. Those of us who use the device a lot on external power would see a lot longer battery life if there was a mode which allowed keeping the battery below 100% while on external power. It seems every manufacturer thinks consumers are too dumb to understand the value of providing it and switching to full charge mode before we run off on battery power.
TP_NC_USER said:
Over discharging a Lithium Ion battery can ruin it in a single cycle. Of course any consumer device should shut off before that happens but deep discharges to the shut off point still permanently reduce battery capacity significantly more than shallower discharge cycles.
In simple terms, you'll get significantly more hours of battery use during its lifetime if you only discharge to 50% than 10% or less.
Lithium Ion batteries never need to be "fully discharged" to the device shut off point and as stated above, it isn't "good" for them.
That said, a discharge from fully charged to at or near shutoff let's the device software measure the battery capacity more accurately so you'll get a more accurate battery reading.
Lithium Ion batteries should not be charged at elevated temperatures. If you just watched a two hour movie, let it cool down before charging. A tablet is a nasty place for a battery with the CPU heating it up. Most manufacturers advise not charging at > 85 deg F and 70 deg F is better. A really good charger will measure battery temperature and reduce the max charging rate at elevated temperatures.
Lithium Ion batteries should be stored at 50-70% capacity and not fully charged. That's ~3.7 V per cell. Those of us who use the device a lot on external power would see a lot longer battery life if there was a mode which allowed keeping the battery below 100% while on external power. It seems every manufacturer thinks consumers are too dumb to understand the value of providing it and switching to full charge mode before we run off on battery power.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would rather always have my battery near max charge when I take it off the charger than have a battery last 7 years instead of 3 or 4 in a device I will realistically only use extensively for 2. Even more so with a phone where they battery can replaced for $20. I'll take a full charge every time over the battery lasting for years longer than I need it to.
I have a first gen iPod Touch I bought when they were released (2007 I think?). I have left it on a charger for MONTHS. Still holds a decent charge.
Is there benefit to using a battery calibration app like this if you're rooted?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nema.batterycalibration&hl=en
You don't have to but I like to. Mine was like 40% charged when I unboxed
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
sRDennyCrane said:
Here's the deal- and this has been verified on multiple devices with larger batteries- Your tablet will need to self-calibrate the battery meter/charging to the battery. You can expect things like sketchy battery life and running down very low or completely overnight for the first couple days. Once everything "syncs up", you can take advantage of the full potential of the battery. This happened with my Razr Maxx and it happened on my Nexus 7's first overnight. And, talking to people who have had their Nexus 7's a few days, it's common and expected.
As said, it is NOT the battery conditioning, it is the device calibrating. The battery is pretty big and there's a period of time while the device learns.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Calibration occurs every time the battery is charged to 100%. It isn't a "first few days" type of thing, it is every single time the battery meter reaches 100%.
I had no choice but to completely charge my N7 (purchased from Office Depot 7/14). When I went to turn it on the first time, I was greeted with small text in the upper left side of the screen that said "show low battery logo" on a completely black screen. No logo...no nothing. Completely blank. Plugged it in, the battery charging logo popped up, fully charged it and it's been working great since.
However, I found it a bit odd as I thought most of these types of devices ship with about a 40% battery charge.
Thoughts?

Charging - disconnect after full or leave connected?

I've got a question.... I leave my phone charging overnight on the pillow next to me and use the phone in the morning still plugged in to check emails, browse news etc and only remove the charger when I'm done and going to work...
Is this good for the phone and the battery or am I better off unplugging and then recharging when low again?
My method above keeps me charged up for the day's use as otherwise I would need to charge again at work..
What do you guys think?
Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
As long as you are using the original Cable+Charger, you aren't harming the phone or battery at all. Technology on batteries and chargers are amazing now, especially with usb-c.
i leave my 6p the whole nights too nothing happens. Just use the original charger and cable and youll be fine.
Alekos said:
As long as you are using the original Cable+Charger, you aren't harming the phone or battery at all. Technology on batteries and chargers are amazing now, especially with usb-c.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not entirely true, see below.
mchu6am4 said:
I've got a question.... I leave my phone charging overnight on the pillow next to me and use the phone in the morning still plugged in to check emails, browse news etc and only remove the charger when I'm done and going to work...
Is this good for the phone and the battery or am I better off unplugging and then recharging when low again?
My method above keeps me charged up for the day's use as otherwise I would need to charge again at work..
What do you guys think?
Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While you can't overcharge the battery, leaving it connected like that will degrade the long term life of the battery. A lithium battery shouldn't sit at peak voltage (100%) for extended periods of time. Here are a couple of really good articles:
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/do_and_dont_battery_table
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
Heisenberg said:
Not entirely true, see below.
While you can't overcharge the battery, leaving it connected like that will degrade the long term life of the battery. A lithium battery shouldn't sit at peak voltage (100%) for extended periods of time. Here are a couple of really good articles:
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/do_and_dont_battery_table
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is correct in my experience, and is one of the reasons why the battery life on laptops tends to go right to crap . . . because people just let them sit on the charger constantly. IIRC, ideally you want to let it drain to around 20%, charge to full, let it drain, etc. Never let it completely die, and long-term storage should be at around 40% charge. No one does this perfectly because it would be such a hassle but in general this is what keeps lithium-ion batteries happy.
*sits back and waits for an electrical engineer to come humiliate this peon's approximation*
cabbieBot said:
This is correct in my experience, and is one of the reasons why the battery life on laptops tends to go right to crap . . . because people just let them sit on the charger constantly. IIRC, ideally you want to let it drain to around 20%, charge to full, let it drain, etc. Never let it completely die, and long-term storage should be at around 40% charge. No one does this perfectly because it would be such a hassle but in general this is what keeps lithium-ion batteries happy.
*sits back and waits for an electrical engineer to come humiliate this peon's approximation*
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're pretty much right on the money there. I think three ideal range is between 40%-80% though. Small top up changes are the best way to charge lithium batteries.
20% is too low. Charge cycles slowly degrade the battery. 80% is a good number, but failing that 100% is a better option than continually cycling it. But this is a phone we're talking about not a laptop. I would imagine cycling is what's going to happen to it in most normal usage scenarios.
Sent from a 128th Legion Stormtrooper 6P
Many thanks for all the responses much appreciated.. I'll have to work out a way of not having to charge overnight as this is the only time I leave it plugged in for extended periods!
Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

How and when do you charge your battery?

Do you let your battery drop down to 5% before connecting the charger? Or do you charge every moment you get the chance to keep battery at max?
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
Battery łasts a long time as it usually goes off the charger at 7 a.m. I charge it while sleeping. Occasionally out of habit I will charge it while I'm driving in the car but for about 15 minutes. Otherwise, I am very happy with the battery.
Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
markwebb said:
Battery my a long time as it usually goes off the charger at 7 a.m. I charge it while sleeping. Occasionally out of habit I will charge it while I'm driving in the car but for about 15 minutes. Otherwise, I am very happy with the battery.
Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not an expert, but all I've heard is charging over night or after it hits 100% is bad. Why I don't know, but I try to charge my phone when it reaches everywhere from 15-30 to 95-100 then remove the charger.
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
I'm not constantly on my phone, so usually charge it up to 80% and recharge when it drops to 40%. I only charge it to 100% when I am out and about for the whole day. See the following link for charging advice:
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/mobile-phone/how-charge-phones-battery-3619623/
Namyep said:
I'm not an expert, but all I've heard is charging over night or after it hits 100% is bad. Why I don't know, but I try to charge my phone when it reaches everywhere from 15-30 to 95-100 then remove the charger.
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Overcharging won't happen on a advanced device like the S7.
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
Namyep said:
I'm not an expert, but all I've heard is charging over night or after it hits 100% is bad. Why I don't know, but I try to charge my phone when it reaches everywhere from 15-30 to 95-100 then remove the charger.
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nah, that's old news. Modern chargers and devices know when they've hit 100%, so they stop charging at that point and lets the battery dip down to 98-99% before trickle charging up to 100 again, and so on until you unplug. It's completely safe, and you shouldn't trust all those garbage click-bait articles out there. Do not, however, go down to 0% before you recharge it. That can actually damage the cells in your battery, so plug it into the charger before that. If you notice some funky behavior from the battery, like if it's jumping from 30% to 20% in five minutes, or is stuck at 10% for an hour, then it's a good idea to completely drain it to 0% to calibrate the battery since the OS has no idea how much battery is left (so it knows where 0 is again). This will usually happen after flashing a different ROM. Charge it up to 100 again and it should be back to normal.
I personally charge it normally at night, without quick charge, since there's no point in having it quick charge while I'm a sleep for around 8 hours. I'll only quick charge it in the middle of the day, which is almost never, since the battery is freakin' awesome.
Don't worry about the battery too much, but don't reach 0% too often, and you'll be good. By too often, I mean every 3-4 months or so is OK. I base these things from my Sony device which I've had for almost 3 years. The (sealed in) battery was very good out-of-the-box, and it's still very good after nearly three years, so I won't mess with a proven success.
To be safe on the longevity of the battery I use one of these with my wireless charger :
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003P...mer+outlet&dpPl=1&dpID=31OAEbif0lL&ref=plSrch
My battery is usually around 30-40% at the end of the day. I use the regular speed Samsung Charging Pad and set the timer on this outlet for 3 hours when I go to bed. So after 3 hours it stops charging and I don't have to worry about the possibility of damaging the battery (I know about trickle charging, but I think this is better)
Ive read somewhere that the new s7 edge charger doesnt have a power inverter so it keeps charging and wasting power which could damage the charger or possibly device. So know if thats correct.
eric150 said:
To be safe on the longevity of the battery I use one of these with my wireless charger :
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003P...mer+outlet&dpPl=1&dpID=31OAEbif0lL&ref=plSrch
My battery is usually around 30-40% at the end of the day. I use the regular speed Samsung Charging Pad and set the timer on this outlet for 3 hours when I go to bed. So after 3 hours it stops charging and I don't have to worry about the possibility of damaging the battery (I know about trickle charging, but I think this is better)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just purchased one of those...thanks for the advice. I charge my device when get around 20%-30% of battery and left charging over night ( when sleeping) on my standard Samsung wireless charging. My battery is just ok.. I'm not so heavy user and sometimes I have to charge around 8pm or so. I take off from the charger at 100% all morning around 8am.
Sent from my Galaxy S7 edge
At home. I do wireless when ever i can. If im not using the phone then i sit it on a wireless charger.
Battery hasnt drop pass 30% in the week i had the phone.
My note edge would drop pretty low because i didnt use wireless charging. So my phone would just sit in my pocket slowly draining.
ssgunner20 said:
Ive read somewhere that the new s7 edge charger doesnt have a power inverter so it keeps charging and wasting power which could damage the charger or possibly device. So know if thats correct.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whatever you read, either you misunderstood, or the person that typed it was a bumbling idiot. A power inverter converts DC power to AC. Your source/utility power is already AC. A USB charger is merely an AC adapter made for USB. The phone has integrated circuitry that controls when and when not to charge the battery and at what amperage.
I usually let mine get to around 5% everytime. Then charge it back fully to 100%.
J.Biden said:
Nah, that's old news. Modern chargers and devices know when they've hit 100%, so they stop charging at that point and lets the battery dip down to 98-99% before trickle charging up to 100 again, and so on until you unplug. It's completely safe, and you shouldn't trust all those garbage click-bait articles out there. Do not, however, go down to 0% before you recharge it. That can actually damage the cells in your battery, so plug it into the charger before that. If you notice some funky behavior from the battery, like if it's jumping from 30% to 20% in five minutes, or is stuck at 10% for an hour, then it's a good idea to completely drain it to 0% to calibrate the battery since the OS has no idea how much battery is left (so it knows where 0 is again). This will usually happen after flashing a different ROM. Charge it up to 100 again and it should be back to normal.
I personally charge it normally at night, without quick charge, since there's no point in having it quick charge while I'm a sleep for around 8 hours. I'll only quick charge it in the middle of the day, which is almost never, since the battery is freakin' awesome.
Don't worry about the battery too much, but don't reach 0% too often, and you'll be good. By too often, I mean every 3-4 months or so is OK. I base these things from my Sony device which I've had for almost 3 years. The (sealed in) battery was very good out-of-the-box, and it's still very good after nearly three years, so I won't mess with a proven success.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the details information. I figured the technology is so advanced with batteries that overcharging is in the past.
t12icky0 said:
I usually let mine get to around 5% everytime. Then charge it back fully to 100%.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 :good:
J.Biden said:
Nah, that's old news. Modern chargers and devices know when they've hit 100%, so they stop charging at that point and lets the battery dip down to 98-99% before trickle charging up to 100 again, and so on until you unplug. It's completely safe, and you shouldn't trust all those garbage click-bait articles out there. Do not, however, go down to 0% before you recharge it. That can actually damage the cells in your battery, so plug it into the charger before that. If you notice some funky behavior from the battery, like if it's jumping from 30% to 20% in five minutes, or is stuck at 10% for an hour, then it's a good idea to completely drain it to 0% to calibrate the battery since the OS has no idea how much battery is left (so it knows where 0 is again). This will usually happen after flashing a different ROM. Charge it up to 100 again and it should be back to normal.
I personally charge it normally at night, without quick charge, since there's no point in having it quick charge while I'm a sleep for around 8 hours. I'll only quick charge it in the middle of the day, which is almost never, since the battery is freakin' awesome.
Don't worry about the battery too much, but don't reach 0% too often, and you'll be good. By too often, I mean every 3-4 months or so is OK. I base these things from my Sony device which I've had for almost 3 years. The (sealed in) battery was very good out-of-the-box, and it's still very good after nearly three years, so I won't mess with a proven success.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I reach 5% max, is it a problem for the battery's life?
turtuv said:
+1 :good:
I reach 5% max, is it a problem for the battery's life?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not at all, but just try to not discharge the battery completely to the point where it turns itself off. It won't ruin the battery to the point where you actually notice it there, but it's better if you just turn the phone off if you're able to (unless it's an emergency, of course).
J.Biden said:
Not at all, but just try to not discharge the battery completely to the point where it turns itself off. It won't ruin the battery to the point where you actually notice it there, but it's better if you just turn the phone off if you're able to (unless it's an emergency, of course).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never discharge the battery completely, like I said I use until battery is max at 5% [emoji3]
Sended from my Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Gold Platinum
I charge it when it hits 20%. But i dont use the fast charging unless i need a quick top up
Does it hurt the battery to charge the phone with a different charger ?
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
I never used the fast charging, I think that slowly charging a battery is better for the lifetime. Most of the time it is below 10 % before I plug it in and I also want it to be at 100% and ready (green LED) when I unplug it.
my note 3 battery is still superb and I got the phone since 2013
Best way to keep a battery in good health is to charge it to full before you start using it. Also, try and never charge it until it's less than 50%. Charging it overnight is perfectly fine it won't hurt anything but once ina while, at least say once a month let the battery drain all the way, try to turn it back on if it goes off sometimes there is still some juice left and it might start up, once it won't start anymore try and charge it without turning it on to full. I wouldn't do it more than say a couple times a month any more than that is overkill and may do more harm than good. These are the guidelines I use and I have never had battery issues. I currently am waiting for my S7 Edge and on my Nexus 6 I usually get 48+ hours with 4+ hours SoT. I'm just an average user currently.

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