is it bad to charge too long ?

[Racinghart91]

Hi.

When i go to sleep after a normal day my battery is around 60%
Yesterday it was only 85% after a full day of usage.

I sleep around 4 - 5 hours at night. That is how long i charge my phone, its allways charging when i sleep.

But is it bad if my phone is charging for so long even if my battery was not complete empty ?

 

[Rukbat]

It's not. When it reaches 100% (not by what the phone says, but by what the battery says), it stops accepting a charge. The charger is connected, but it's not doing anything. When the phone dischages a little bit, the charger charges it back up. Then the charging stops. If my phone is under 50% when I go to sleep I either turn it off or put it on charge (or both). 2 hours is more than enough to fully charge it, and I sleep a lot longer than that.

My spare phone is over 10 years old and still on its original batteries (I always keep a spare battery for any phone I own, and swap them monthly), so it must not hurt too much to keep the phone on the charger all night. Maybe I won't get 20 years on those batteries - maybe only 18 years. (They didn't make smart phones back then - it's a phone, it takes pictures [640X480] and it does a little [very little] 2G data. But it works, so I keep the batteries charged for when I need it or for when I may lose or damage my phone. [If it costs $30 to replace, I'm getting robbed.])

 

[moegumby]

Don't worry about it, modern batteries stop charging once they are fully charged. No worries.

 

[Racinghart91]

okay thanks guys for your reply´s

 

[worwig]

Just to add. No it is not a problem to leave it plugged in.
But.....
LiIon (or LiPo) batteries require very careful charging and discharging controls. Over charge them or UNDER charge them, and you will damage the battery. Or worse, they literally can explode. So, in the phone, there is smart electronics to keep the battery safe. Plug it in and leave it. The electronics prevents damage to the battery. (Run it to zero, and you risk the safety circuit killing the battery for good BTW) Interestingly, since we have a removeable battery, for safety reasons, they also add safety electronics to the battery pack itself. So you could say that that Note 4 removeable battery is double protected. The poor folks with non-removeable batteries aren't.
I know I have seen and heard about a few phone from "the other guys" that have exploded. I wonder if anyone has studied it to see if any company has more or less battery problems.

 

[natehoy]

Very long-term, it's still not the best for the battery to bring it above 80% or so or let it drop between 20% or so. But as batteries get better and smarter, the effects of this very minor damage get less and less significant.

On something with a sealed battery, I'd be more careful with the battery and baby it a little more if possible and convenient. If you charge it overnight, use a lower-powered charger - in general fast charging a battery is not the best for it (again, damage done is very minor and will take a year or more to show up).

On the Note 4, plug it in and fuhgeddaboudit! Charge it at a time and place that is the most convenient for you, which for most of us works out to overnight. A replaceable battery means you are $20 and 30 seconds away from that "factory fresh battery" feeling.