does a fast charger hurt your phone battery?

[lanyuan]

In general do chargers with higher amps/watts and charge fast hurt phone batteries?

Thanks for the help.

 

[Mooncatt]

Fast chargers are kind of a misnomer. The phone will only draw as much power as needed from a charger, regardless of how high the amperage rating is. Some people say a higher-than-stock rated charger had allowed for somewhat quicker charging, but I haven't done any tests between my normal and higher rated chargers, or seen any tests backing up or disproving those claims. My belief is that if it is any quicker, it's not enough to be noticeable to the average user.

I do like higher rated chargers, though, for other reasons. The biggest being that the charger doesn't have to work as hard to put out the same power as a weaker one. All other things being equal, this should allow the charger to last longer. It's also handy in case someone else wants to charge off it and you don't know their phone's power requirements.


In short, if you're using your phone to do the charging, the higher rated chargers make no difference and don't affect battery life. Now if you're talking about an external charger where you pull the battery from the phone and charge separately, I don't know. Then it is the charger regulating how much amperage is being fed into the battery and I do know older style batteries did benefit from a slow charge (think NiCad AA's). I would think current Li-Ion batteries handle fast charges better.

 

[FoneFill]

Some phones are capable of drawing more power than the stock charger is capable of supplying. Some phones will draw up to 1.5A when paired with a charger capable of supplying it. By design, the power management chip in your phone won't let the battery accept more current than it can handle.

So, no, your battery won't be "harmed."

-Charles
FoneFill Restaurant Phone Chargers

 

[MANIMOZHI]

Dear Friend
It it does not hurt the battery, will it hurt the Phone.

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Dear Friend
It it does not hurt the battery, will it hurt the Phone.

 

[garublador]

Dear Friend
It it does not hurt the battery, will it hurt the Phone.

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It can't hurt the phone, either. If something is somehow broken and the voltage is too high it could hurt the phone, but that's true with any charger and a very rare occurrence. The phone (and charger) only pull as much current as they need. The higher current from the wall outlet is not pushed into the charger and the higher current from the charger is not pushed into the phone.

 

[Rukbat]

Any charger can actually supply a lot more current than it's rated for - not for long, but it can. (Short the output of a charge and it'll supply tens of amps - for a fraction of a second before it dies a spectacular death.) The phone draws what it's designed to draw to charge the battery - as long as that much current is available. If you're using a USB 2.0 port to charge, it's limited to 100mA, or 0.10 Amps, so that's all the phone can draw. If the phone is designed to charge with 1.5 Amps, using a charger that can supply that much current will charge the battery faster, and it won't hurt anything. But phones have been standardized to charge with a 5 volt source, so just about any 5 volt source, regardless of the available current, will work. (If the charger can't supply at least 100 mA, you may damage the charger, but you won't damage the battery.) But if you have 5 volts at 100 Amps available, you can charge a lot of batteries at one time with no problem.

If you have a charger that can charge the battery out of the phone, you can overcharge the battery, Chargers like that are designed for specific batteries, and you should only use them with the battery they're designed for, even if a different battery fits.

 

[garublador]

If you're using a USB 2.0 port to charge, it's limited to 100mA, or 0.10 Amps, so that's all the phone can draw.

Most USB 2.0 ports will supply up to 500mA and are "charging" USB ports. They're only required to supply up to 100mA (non-charging port), but I haven't run across one on a PC or laptop that won't do at least 500mA. My guess is it's mostly low power, mobile devices that don't give "charging" ports. Anything that's USB compliant won't damage the 100mA ports because they'll correctly negotiate for supply current (i.e. they'll ask for 500mA but not get it) even if they normally charge at 500mA on a USB port.

As an aside, I've found that many PC USB ports will supply way more than 500mA. I tried a few around the office and most supplied ~0.8A continuously while maintaining at least 4.75V (the USB minimum). All of them (including a cheap netbook) supplied at least 1.5A down to 4.3V, some supplied 1.5A at 4.5V.

 

[mpbello]

Yes, it may damage it.

Heat is one of the worst enemies to your battery. Quick chargers can pump energy into your batteries at a higher rate than with "slow" chargers and therefore your battery will heat up more. This could mean that your battery will lose its capacity faster.

Your battery will usually have the circuits to prevent it from taking more power than it can handle, however even with the charger staying within the limits of what your battery can handle, a faster charger will heat it to higher temperatures.

For instance, my current smartphone supports Quick Charge 3.0 and it gets quite hot when I connect it to a QC 3.0 charger. This heat cannot be good to my battery, although it is difficult to say how bad it really is.

I avoid the QC charger as much as I can and on my bed side where I recharge my phone every night I have a 0.8A charger which is fast enough for an overnight charge.

Except for my slow bed-side charger, I try to have 2.1amp chargers everywhere else and a QC 3.0 only for emergencies.

 

[Mooncatt]

Wow, old thread. Yes, heat can kill a battery, but Li-ion's are fairly robust and can handle some high temps well. It's unlikely your phone will get hot enough to damage the battery when charging unless it's either defective (and no longer throttling properly), or left hot for long periods of time.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_at_high_and_low_temperatures

My G4 has QC2.0 and it gets hot more from usage than charging. Just charging, it rarely gets over 100°F/37°C. It gets way hotter than that gaming or even watching a video. I noticed similar temps on my old M8 too. So even IF your battery is being heat damaged, it's more likely from your usage than the charging current.

 

[Larry Crenshaw]

Re: Can a fast charger hurt your phone and/or it's battery?

I have purchased a car charger that claims to charge devices up to twice as fast as standard chargers. (It also incorporates into the design a locator feature to find your car when parked in a large parking lot - by the device or by GPS - which was an important selling point for me)

It is the - Zus Connected Car made by a company called, Nonda.

Shareasale.com

I probably should have thought about asking this question before ordering especially since I ordered extra units for family members as well. My concern is that using a 3rd party high speed charger may hurt the battery or the phone long or even short term?

Before I start using it and give it to the others to use, I want to feel assured that it will be safe to use with the various devices it will be charging, which will be Android and I-phones, and possibly tablets as well.

Thank you in advance for your time and response,
- Larry Crenshaw, Arlington, TX.

 

[Mooncatt]

Well, I had a rather detailed reply made, but it messed up a link I included, then the site ate my reply entirely when I tried fixing it.

Long story short, that device is marketing hype and will not charge any faster than the OEM charger. It is not QC2.0 compatible, but I wouldn't worry about harming your phone.