Battery Life According to Accubattery

[swebb]

My battery health currently shows as 97%. This is an average of all charging history. When I look at recent charging history, it is only charging to 3190 mah capacity, only 92% capacity. I've had my P3 XL for 9 months. Never have I had these bad results on a phone I bought new. My usual results on new phones is over 100% for the better part of a year, then slowly declining after a year. The P3 XL never charged to it's capacity. For comparison, an OG PXL that I bought used still showed 98% after a year and 3/4 total usage.

I've charged all my phones the same; overnight to 100%. My question is how does this compare to everyone else's experiences? Do these results warrant trying to get an RMA from Google? Results from other Accubattery users to compare with mine would be nice.

TIA


Edit - Android 10 has no impact on this. Problem started day one on Pie. Results on 10 are no different.

 

[mrpackerguy]

I also have Accubattery. I've been conservative with my battery charging as most phone battery sites recommend, and as Accubattery recommends in terms of charging to reduce wear cycles. I've been following Accubattery in charging my battery to between 75-80% to reduce wear cycles. I've had my 3XL for 8 months. I'm at 105% capacity or 3585 mAh. It hasn't dropped much in 8 months, only 2%. So I'm believing that whole "don't charge your battery to 100%" thing.

 

[swebb]

Thanks for the response. The 80% rule should extend the life of the battery for sure, but my issue is that my battery capacity never was above 100% from the beginning, and has degraded significantly in just a few months. I've had at least 5 devices that were tracked with Accubattery and none of them showed capacity less than 98% until well over a years' usage.

I'm wondering if I got a bad battery. Wanting to see how others have fared.

 

[mrpackerguy]

Could be. BTW, I accidently charged my phone to 100% last evening, and accubnattery has my battery capacity down another percentage point to 104%. Interesting.

 

[Rukbat]

1. Accubattery is no more accurate than any other measure of battery - including the phone's own state-of-charge indication. That just measures the battery voltage, and the conditions are calculated. The only way to actually measure anything in the battery is by measuring the electrolyte chemically, and that's a destructive test. (Once you make the measurement, you dispose of the battery.)

2. Charging to 100% is actually charging to about 98%-99%, unless you allow the charger to stay connected for another 30 minutes. The charger voltage is higher than the battery voltage (it has to be to force electricity into the battery - water runs downhill, not uphill), so the instant the phone reaches "100%", that's the charger voltage that's at the 100% level. 95%-95% is fine for a maximum charge. the onlyproblem with a 100% charge is that the charging chip in the phone could fail and overcharge the battery, cooking it to death. But if you stop the charge before 100%, it won't shorten the life of the battery.

3. What WILL shorten the life of the battery is discharging it lower than 50%. Letting it go to 40% before charging isn't too bad - the battery should still last 3-4 years like that. But some people let the battery drop down to 10% (or even less), and if you drop it to 0% every time (that's still a battery voltage above 3 Volts), you can totally kill a new battery in a month or two.

40% or 45% to 99% is a very safe range.
@mrpackerguy, every charge takes away from the battery life. Lithium batteries have a limited number of charge cycles. (They're not used because they last forever, or because they can be deep-discharged, but because lithium is the lightest metal [aside from hydrogen in its solid state - which is achieved at a temperature of −434.45 °F - and you don't want to carry a cooling plant around with you], and can be formed into flexible batteries [making for very thin ones].)

 

[mrpackerguy]

Good and interesting.

 

[swebb]

All this information is good and I understand that 100% doesn't necessarily mean that the battery is completely charged just as 105% does not mean you have a better than normal battery. My concern is that as a benchmark, the beginning capacity percentage that my P3 XL measures is lower than any other device I've had in the last 5 years. And the degradation from this benchmark is much greater after 8 months than any of those devices.

 

[J Dubbs]

Could be. BTW, I accidently charged my phone to 100% last evening, and accubnattery has my battery capacity down another percentage point to 104%. Interesting.

Rukbat's info pretty closely matches my real world experiences..... I always charge my batteries to 100%, but then I stop charging them. But I never let them get below 50% or so if I can help it (which they rarely do). I tend to keep my phones for 2 to 4 years, sometimes even more, and I've never had a battery lose enough life to affect my daily usage at all. (Well there was that Note 7 lol).

 

[Dan Oliver1]

Hi first post btw.....that's really interesting to know... especially as I've got the pixel 4 xl.

Thanks

 

[Jefferson mitchell]

1. Accubattery is no more accurate than any other measure of battery - including the phone's own state-of-charge indication. That just measures the battery voltage, and the conditions are calculated. The only way to actually measure anything in the battery is by measuring the electrolyte chemically, and that's a destructive test. (Once you make the measurement, you dispose of the battery.)

2. Charging to 100% is actually charging to about 98%-99%, unless you allow the charger to stay connected for another 30 minutes. The charger voltage is higher than the battery voltage (it has to be to force electricity into the battery - water runs downhill, not uphill), so the instant the phone reaches "100%", that's the charger voltage that's at the 100% level. 95%-95% is fine for a maximum charge. the onlyproblem with a 100% charge is that the charging chip in the phone could fail and overcharge the battery, cooking it to death. But if you stop the charge before 100%, it won't shorten the life of the battery.

3. What WILL shorten the life of the battery is discharging it lower than 50%. Letting it go to 40% before charging isn't too bad - the battery should still last 3-4 years like that. But some people let the battery drop down to 10% (or even less), and if you drop it to 0% every time (that's still a battery voltage above 3 Volts), you can totally kill a new battery in a month or two.

40% or 45% to 99% is a very safe range.
@mrpackerguy, every charge takes away from the battery life. Lithium batteries have a limited number of charge cycles. (They're not used because they last forever, or because they can be deep-discharged, but because lithium is the lightest metal [aside from hydrogen in its solid state - which is achieved at a temperature of −434.45 °F - and you don't want to carry a cooling plant around with you], and can be formed into flexible batteries [making for very thin ones].)

I appreciate the well thought out and informative response "Rukbat" I apologize for accidentally reposting. I just wanted to a add something touched your reply. Most obvious

1. Avoid battery exposure/stotage in extreme Temps, hot or cold.

2. Most research shows that as stated above that discharging below 40% lithium/ion battery causes more of the natural degradation that is a property of charging/usage ;however, there is still increased wear when charge reaches about 70% and increases the closer to 100%. Which led to the birth of the 40 - 80 charging rule often cited.

3. While negligible Other factors that affect longevity There are things like using The phone while charging as well as Taking advantage of your phone's dark mode more apps are compatible these days, especially beneficial on an OLED panel .

4. Some research suggests That if the lifespan of a smartphone battery is assumed to be on average 300 to 500 charging cycles ...with some of these suggestions in combination that figure can be increased potentially to 2000 cycles or more..

5. However It can be unfeasible to keep your battery constantly in the 40 to 75% range So I recommend like Rukbat stated To Put more effort into avoiding deep discharge below 40% Recently more devices now have a protect battery feature Built-in to Android if enabled automatically limits charging your battery beyond 85%. Which I find very useful when charging your phone overnight or when busy. Rather than just an alarm from accubattery that still requires you to physically unplug your charger. I generally follow these rules with all of my devices. FOR EXAMPLE: My Samsung S7 edge 3600mah battery is still performing well at around 80% of capacity over 5 years. I apologize if went beyond scope of this thread bit hope some if this information is useful. Thank you all

 

[mustang7757]

I appreciate the well thought out and informative response "Rukbat" I apologize for accidentally reposting. I just wanted to a add something touched your reply. Most obvious

1. Avoid battery exposure/stotage in extreme Temps, hot or cold.

2. Most research shows that as stated above that discharging below 40% lithium/ion battery causes more of the natural degradation that is a property of charging/usage ;however, there is still increased wear when charge reaches about 70% and increases the closer to 100%. Which led to the birth of the 40 - 80 charging rule often cited.

3. While negligible Other factors that affect longevity There are things like using The phone while charging as well as Taking advantage of your phone's dark mode more apps are compatible these days, especially beneficial on an OLED panel .

4. Some research suggests That if the lifespan of a smartphone battery is assumed to be on average 300 to 500 charging cycles ...with some of these suggestions in combination that figure can be increased potentially to 2000 cycles or more..

5. However It can be unfeasible to keep your battery constantly in the 40 to 75% range So I recommend like Rukbat stated To Put more effort into avoiding deep discharge below 40% Recently more devices now have a protect battery feature Built-in to Android if enabled automatically limits charging your battery beyond 85%. Which I find very useful when charging your phone overnight or when busy. Rather than just an alarm from accubattery that still requires you to physically unplug your charger. I generally follow these rules with all of my devices. FOR EXAMPLE: My Samsung S7 edge 3600mah battery is still performing well at around 80% of capacity over 5 years. I apologize if went beyond scope of this thread bit hope some if this information is useful. Thank you all

Welcome to AC!