Perserving Battery life

[Abbers727]

I'm confused. I hear that when your phone gets to 50% to charge it to maybe about 80 or 90% and not to let it go under 50% but then I also hear to charge your phone when it gets to 15%.

I just want my phone to have a good battery life so I don't have battery issues or battery draining issues.

 

[Rukbat]

Three cycles of "let the phone shut off before charging", then never let it get below 40%. See Battery University - How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries for graphs on battery life. (Start looking for a way to charge it at 50% and you'll probably find an outlet before it drops to 40%.)

When charging, charge to 100% - then another 30 minutes. (Due to the way we have to measure state of charge, if you disconnect the charger the moment the battery says "100%", you'll see it drop to 98% or so - the extra 2 or 3% is the charger. So let it go for a while, to make sure that the battery itself is at 100%. (You can't overcharge it - the charging circuit in the phone turns the charging off at 100%.)

I know this works because my V551, about 12 years old now, is still running on the original battery - kept charged to about 50% for long-term storage, 100% for use.

 

[chanchan05]

Battery life is different from battery longevity. The advice you received and Rukbat is giving is related to battery longetivity, that is, keeping your battery able to properly keep a charge for longer periods of time. Normally, a battery that is not takrn care of in the previously mentioned steps would have a noticeable decline in performance in a year or so, and may be unusable once you go beyond 2 years. However a properly cared for battery may be usable for more than 3 years. That's battery longetivity.

Battery life is often colloquially referring to the amount of time the battery can keep going before it needs a recharge. The advice given you will help you keep battery life stable throughout the lifespan of the battery, but it will not improve battery life.

 

[Abbers727]

Three cycles of "let the phone shut off before charging", then never let it get below 40%. See Battery University - How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries for graphs on battery life. (Start looking for a way to charge it at 50% and you'll probably find an outlet before it drops to 40%.)

When charging, charge to 100% - then another 30 minutes. (Due to the way we have to measure state of charge, if you disconnect the charger the moment the battery says "100%", you'll see it drop to 98% or so - the extra 2 or 3% is the charger. So let it go for a while, to make sure that the battery itself is at 100%. (You can't overcharge it - the charging circuit in the phone turns the charging off at 100%.)

I know this works because my V551, about 12 years old now, is still running on the original battery - kept charged to about 50% for long-term storage, 100% for use.

Thanks! I was once told (on this forum) it was good to let it drop down to 15% and then charge the phone. Then I got this tips on how to maintain battery from Samsung through an email. I've already let it get below 40% before. But after reading about that, I've been trying to make sure it doesn't go under 50% by too much anymore. Just because I didn't know which one was true. If I'm kind of close to 50% right before bed time and I think it'll get to low before I wake up in the morning, I just shut my phone off while I'm sleeping.

I was wondering about that whenever I've charged my phone overnight or something. If I could end up overcharging my phone.

I had a Galaxy S5 before I upgraded this past September to the Galaxy S7 edge. I felt like no matter what I did, Galaxy S5's battery would drain kind of quickly.

 

[Abbers727]

Battery life is different from battery longevity. The advice you received and Rukbat is giving is related to battery longetivity, that is, keeping your battery able to properly keep a charge for longer periods of time. Normally, a battery that is not takrn care of in the previously mentioned steps would have a noticeable decline in performance in a year or so, and may be unusable once you go beyond 2 years. However a properly cared for battery may be usable for more than 3 years. That's battery longetivity.

Battery life is often colloquially referring to the amount of time the battery can keep going before it needs a recharge. The advice given you will help you keep battery life stable throughout the lifespan of the battery, but it will not improve battery life.

Oh okay. Thanks. I don't want my Galaxy S7 Edge's battery to end up like my galaxy S5 (that I had before my S7 Edge.) Galaxy S5 had a bad battery. It drained kind of quickly.

 

[chanchan05]

Oh okay. Thanks. I don't want my Galaxy S7 Edge's battery to end up like my galaxy S5 (that I had before my S7 Edge.) Galaxy S5 had a bad battery. It drained kind of quickly.

Battery life is dependent in the phone setup. For example I used to own a Note 2 that on my setup lasted 12-14hrs in a single charge. I gave that to my mom after I got an S7 Edge, and she makes it last up to 2 days, still on the original battery I gave her.

If your phone is draining fast, and it's new, I'm more leaning to asking you as to how your phone is setup as opposed to advising you battery care.

On battery care, my numbers are 40% and 90%. Keep it above 40, and charge it to 90. I setup Lightflow to sound an alert and change the charging light to green once the charging hits 90 so i can take it off the charger.

 

[Abbers727]

Battery life is dependent in the phone setup. For example I used to own a Note 2 that on my setup lasted 12-14hrs in a single charge. I gave that to my mom after I got an S7 Edge, and she makes it last up to 2 days, still on the original battery I gave her.

If your phone is draining fast, and it's new, I'm more leaning to asking you as to how your phone is setup as opposed to advising you battery care.

Ahh okay. My S7 Edge will last almost a day and half or about a day and half until it needs to be charged sometimes, depending upon how much I'm using it and what app that I'm using for a long time. I always close out of apps when I'm done with them. Can you give me examples of what you mean by how my phone is set up? So that I can tell you more on how my phone is setup.

I don't leave my wifi on unless I need to use it. I don't leave location or bluetooth on unless I need to use it and then I turn it off when I'm finished. I have the always on display on. I dim the brightness as much as I can while still being able to see the screen. Sometimes, I have to brighten the screen a little more to see things better.

I no longer use Galaxy S5 though.

 

[Morty2264]

A very interesting thread! Battery life and how to care for it has always been a popular topic around these parts... It's cool to see different thoughts on the subject.

 

[chanchan05]

My phone is dual SIM, and I usually have 4G left on. That alone gives me a drain of 3-5% per hour on standby. Although my location where signal is not optimal may have something to do with it, especially with the fact that my phone looking for 2 signals at a given time.

I also have Tasker with around 7 automated tasks running in the background. An example of which is the autorotate. The only times I want to autorotate on is in Gallery and Chrome. I get annoyed when it rotates in another app. And it's annoying when I forget to turn it off latet after using it. So I have Tasker running in the background to automatically turn on rotate when I am in those apps, and auto turn off when I leave those apps. That's an additional battery drain not normally seen on most people's phones.

I also have Lightflow, which is basically a service running in the background watching for notifications. If you would notice, not all notifications light the LED on the S7. And you can't change the color or speed of blink. Lightflow allows me to have all notifications have lights and assign colors.

That's an example of a setup with an additional battery drain. Granted it may not be too much, but every little one adds up.

 

[Abbers727]

My phone is dual SIM, and I usually have 4G left on. That alone gives me a drain of 3-5% per hour on standby. Although my location where signal is not optimal may have something to do with it, especially with the fact that my phone looking for 2 signals at a given time.

I also have Tasker with around 7 automated tasks running in the background. An example of which is the autorotate. The only times I want to autorotate on is in Gallery and Chrome. I get annoyed when it rotates in another app. And it's annoying when I forget to turn it off latet after using it. So I have Tasker running in the background to automatically turn on rotate when I am in those apps, and auto turn off when I leave those apps. That's an additional battery drain not normally seen on most people's phones.

I also have Lightflow, which is basically a service running in the background watching for notifications. If you would notice, not all notifications light the LED on the S7. And you can't change the color or speed of blink. Lightflow allows me to have all notifications have lights and assign colors.

That's an example of a setup with an additional battery drain. Granted it may not be too much, but every little one adds up.

Ahh okay. I've turned off the LED lights. At most, my phone usually just goes down 1 % almost every hour (when it's just sitting there, not being used.) I have the 4G LTE left on all the time when I'm not using WiFi.