Correct charging procedures.

[thecomicbookandme]

Wanting to know how to take care of my S7edge battery to get optimal performance and longest life.
I read somewhere that you should start charging at 40%,and stop at 80%.Another opinion was to charge at 50%and let it go to 100%.
With my S5, I had a Samsung flip case with inductive charging, and I would often leave it on the pad after it fully charged. Is this harmful to the battery?
Presently I am using Samsung fast charge system that came with the phone, and Samsung fast charge inductive pad. Will leaving the phone on the fast charge pad after it is fully charged hurt it in any way?
Any information appreciated.

Yeah, heavy, and a bottle of bread.

 

[cwbcpa]

This a topic that comes up with almost every phone and like you said, you will read different opinions. The reality is that these phones and their batteries are built with technology that manages charging once they are full and still on a charger.

The bottom line is, enjoy your phone, charge when you need to, and don't worry so much about how you charge it. The difference in battery life over the two years or so that you own it won't change much regardless of your charging habits.

 

[chanchan05]

Good charging practices simply manage how many charge cycles your phone can endure, and thus lengthen the battery lifespan. But in no way does it actually hasten deterioration.

Charging habits do not really affect battery life, unless heat is generated in amounts significant enough to do harm to the battery.

 

[thecomicbookandme]

Good charging practices simply manage how many charge cycles your phone can endure, and thus lengthen the battery lifespan.

Exactly! And that's what I'm trying to learn.

Yeah, heavy, and a bottle of bread.

 

[chanchan05]

I can't find my previous lengthy post about it, with the physics broken down, lol, but basically you want the phone to never drop below 40%, 50 if you can make it, and try to charge it to between 80 to 90% only, never to full.

Batteries have a finite number of charging cycles that exponentially increase the higher the retained charge is when you plug it in. Normally, when charging from 0-5% to 100%, the battery has approx. 500 charge cycles. Charging from 50% gives it 1500 charge cycles, and charging from. 75% gives it 2000 charge cycles. If you calculate that, an S7E battery would normally give you 3600mahx500 or 1800000mah of power to use over the time you go through the 500 cycles (usually 1.5yrs). But charging from 50% gives you 2700000mah over the course of how long you go through that 1500 charge cycles. That's when you account to full.

Then about the never charging to full, this is related to how the battery works. A battery is fully charged once all ions are fully polarized. However, fully polarizing and depolarizing ions also cause them to deteriorate over time. Hence why there are limited number of charge cycles before the battery life deteriorates. The idea is to keep 10% of the ions free, so that they aren't as abused as others. Once other ions are deteriorating, you have still ions that aren't that bad in retaining charge. Hence you still keep charge as long as it used to when new. I'm not sure if I explained that well. English isn't my first language. Lol.

Anyway, the best practice recommended is basically charge at 40-50% and never charge to 100%. Personally I follow only the 40-50% bit whenever I can, but not the 100% thing. I just don't regularly check my phone to see what percentage it has already charged to so it's a bit more difficult to follow. Although recently I realized I could set Lightflow to sound off and change LED color at 90%, so that helps.

In my experience so far, it's been good actually. My Mom got my old Note 2 since she didn't want to spend on a new phone when all she wants is a bigger screen and the ability to Viber and Candy Crush. And it still lasts her 2 days on a single charge, on the original 3 year old battery that came with it when I got it.

Source is batteryuniversity.com

PS: never use fast charging unless you absolutely need to because of time pressure. Fast charging generates more heat than normal charging, and heat hastens battery charge deterioration.

 

[thecomicbookandme]

Excellente! Now that's what I'm talking about! Thanks

Yeah, heavy, and a bottle of bread.

 

[anon(5719825)]

PS: never use fast charging unless you absolutely need to because of time pressure. Fast charging generates more heat than normal charging, and heat hastens battery charge deterioration.

I have never seen any proof that fast charging with harm the battery. I can have been using the fast charger on my Note 5 since the day I got it and it is still running just as good on day one. I've been doing the same with both of my S7 Edge phones since getting them in early March.

I say just use and charge the phone the way you want and don't worry about it.

 

[cwbcpa]

I have never seen any proof that fast charging with harm the battery. I can have been using the fast charger on my Note 5 since the day I got it and it is still running just as good on day one. I've been doing the same with both of my S7 Edge phones since getting them in early March.

I say just use and charge the phone the way you want and don't worry about it.

Exactly. Use the phone, charge it, use it some more and then charge it some more. Repeat. That's it. There really isn't anything more to it.

 

[chanchan05]

I have never seen any proof that fast charging with harm the battery. I can have been using the fast charger on my Note 5 since the day I got it and it is still running just as good on day one. I've been doing the same with both of my S7 Edge phones since getting them in early March.

I say just use and charge the phone the way you want and don't worry about it.

Fast charging per se does not harm the phone battery. Just the heat it generates if any generated. Heat is a well known factor in battery deterioration. If your phone isn't heating up during fast charging, then fine. But they placed the heating warning in the fast charge toggle for a reason. However, using Fast charging does not mean that your phone WILL heat up. It would also depend on ambient temp and the case if it allows good heat dissipation.

And no it doesn't really show up like the next day your battery is bum. It's cumulative stress that you really won't notice until the deterioration is pretty big. The Note 5 is less than a year old. Obviously you won't notice any deterioration YET. Even if the deterioration already set in, you would probably have lost what, 5 charge cycles? So your phone would still hold up nearly like new for the next foreseeable year. Plus they've made batteries more resistant to heat nowadays anyway. It's simply prolonging the lifespan of the battery. If you plan on replacing the phone within a year or 2, you really won't notice much difference. But when you start going beyond year 2, thats where you see changes in deterioration speed.

For a regular user, batteries nowadays are tough enough to withstand just being used with no thoughts about it whatsoever. These 'optimum practices' just matter if you plan to keep the phone for 3 or 5 years without replacing battery. If you would read my first post in this thread. I specifically said that these charging practices DO NOT affect the perceived battery capacity. They just affect how long the phone is able to maintain that optimal capacity.

 

[D13H4RD2L1V3]

I wouldn't worry too much about battery lifespan.

Just charge your phone when you have to. Modern batteries and charging circuitry are way smarter at managing power these days.

That said, users above me have given some good advice if you really want to make sure your battery goes the extra mile when it comes to lifespan. You might find them interesting.

 

[pjwk81]

I couldn't use the phone as needed if I could only use 40% of its battery capacity.

 

[chanchan05]

I couldn't use the phone as needed if I could only use 40% of its battery capacity.

As I mentioned before, it is only recommended if you want the battery to last a couple more years. It varies. Personally, as I said, I do try to follow but it's not really imperative. If you have a chance to plug in at 70% do so. If you don't then doesn't matter. Just plug in when you can. But if you only plan to keep it for a couple of years or won't mind having it opened up for battery replacement, it shouldn't matter at all. But the knowledge to extend battery lifespan does exist.