Your smartphone has less and less battery life. This is a sign that the battery is worn out. To maintain its performance and extend its lifespan, adopt this very simple rule established by experts.
Your smartphone’s battery is fragile, and you need to take care of it! You have certainly experienced this: over the months, the autonomy of your device gradually declines, and its valiant autonomy from the beginning is nothing more than a distant memory. This is unfortunately normal: the lithium-ion batteries with which our smartphones are equipped wear out over time and with their use but also with their recharges. After a certain number of complete charge and discharge cycles, they will gradually lose their efficiency.
Phone charging: follow the 80/20 rule
However, it is easy to delay this inevitable moment by applying a few easy-to-implement tips. The first, notably shared by ADEME, the Ecological Transition Agency, is to apply the 80/20 rule, which simply consists of maintaining the battery level between 20 and 80% of its capacity, neither more, no less! In practice, you should not charge your smartphone up to 100%, and prevent the battery from discharging below 20%. And this, for a simple reason: below 20% and above 80% capacity, a higher voltage will be applied during charging, which will cause greater heating and fatigue the battery more quickly.
In other words, charging your smartphone at night after a long day is not necessarily ideal. Because once your battery reaches 100%, your smartphone will continue to maintain a high voltage until you unplug it. Another behavior to avoid: leaving your smartphone plugged in all day while using it. Ideally, it is better to charge your smartphone more frequently during the day, without going for a full charge.
Activate your smartphone’s smart charging options
Well aware of this problem, smartphone manufacturers however offer solutions to make your life easier. Since iOS 13, Apple has, for example, offered “optimized charging” on its iPhones. Practical, this technology puts the charge on hold beyond 80% at night, so that your iPhone reaches 100% just before you wake up. With its new iPhone 15s, Apple now also allows you to stop charging at 80%.
On the Android side, similar technologies exist. Google offers what it calls “adaptive charging” on Pixels, which works similarly to Apple’s tool. Samsung offers 85% charging blocking on some of these models. If you have a smartphone from another brand, do not hesitate to take a look in the battery settings to activate, if necessary, a similar option.
Other simple tips will also help you extend the life of your battery. As high temperatures have a negative impact on batteries, avoid intensive tasks, such as a 3D game for example, when your smartphone is plugged in, or unplug it when you notice significant heating.
Another way to relieve your battery: simply consume less, in order to extend your autonomy every day! So, do not hesitate to use the “energy saving” mode even if your phone is well charged, to reduce the brightness of the screen, or even to switch to airplane mode, which consumes much less energy, when you do not have an immediate need for your cell phone. Your battery will thank you.