battery charging myths

[Anonymous]

Myth: leaving your phone on the charger all night will overcharge your battery This is one of the most common rumors we come across but it’s just plain wrong, at least the overcharging part is. It’s complicated, as leaving your battery plugged in all night certainly isn’t dangerous but it might make your battery age slightly faster. “Overcharging” is the term that gets thrown around a lot with this one. The concept is that if you leave your phone on the charger for a while after it hits 100 percent, it will keep pumping in the current and that will reduce the capacity of the battery or even cause it to catch fire. This myth has some pretty legitimate origins, so it’s no surprise that it’s stuck around. In the days of yore, lithium-ion batteries would overheat if you left them charging for too long. This did, in fact, cause damage to the battery and reduce performance. it even led some to explode.

Reality 

Modern devices are way smarter with managing power and will gradually reduce the amount of current as the phone fills up. However, there is some truth to the reduced capacity issue, as both heat and high voltage  in charging  like fast charging do cause lithium-ion batteries to age faster. Charging between 80 and 100 percent is slightly worse for your battery than stopping before then. If you have a poorly designed case that doesn’t allow for heat dissipation or tuck your phone under your pillow at night, the heat build-up is definitely bad for the battery. But the same applies if you leave your phone charging on a hot dashboard too.  

  Myth: Always use the official brand charger for your phone Oh boy, this one. This one has its roots in what is essentially marketing. Whenever you get your shiny new phone from a given manufacturer, odds are pretty good that the manual will tell you to always buy chargers from the company that made your device.

Reality 

Of course they want you to buy their accessories, duh! But it’s not for the health of your phone, it’s for profit. Any reputable third party charger should be just fine. There are some exceptions, especially in the case of USB-C cables, and some unofficial chargers might not allow for quite the same fast charging speeds or use of a proprietary standard. But in most cases, a quality third party charger should be just fine with your device. Really the only ones that you have to watch out for are the super cheap $5 chargers you’d find at a gas station or convenience store. Most of those are just fine, even, but every once in awhile you can come across some bad eggs that might give your phone a hard time.  

 Myth: Never use your phone while it’s charging This one gets thrown around a lot by concerned moms and semi-tech-savvy grandpas. This is a fear-uncertainty-and-doubt kind of myth that stays alive not because of any sort of actual evidence, but because the urban-legend-tier consequences that are said to follow such supposedly unwise use of your smartphone. Some people say that using your phone while it’s charging can make your device explode, catch fire, or electrocute you. While not quite on par with the Korean concept of fan death, it’s still a pretty far-fetched yarn.

Reality 

There is some truth to the talk about”mini cycles”, which occur when the battery drains at the same time as it charges. Over a very long period of time, this can lead to parts of the battery than have been through more cycles than other parts, meaning that it hasn’t aged evenly. Batteries age anyway, but if you really want to maximize its lifespan it’s arguably best to avoid very heavy use of your phone while charging, such as gaming, but everything else is fine. Anyway, there’s absolutely no danger in playing around on your device while it’s charging. Have at it.