Cell Phone Charging Wisdom: How, Why, When

Written by Dr. Lynda

Life is better when we know why. Today we get the science and truth about charging our cell phone batteries and end some myths.

Source: Pexels, Pixabay

If you have a cell phone, you know there are endless complaints and suggestions about battery life. My husband’s fancy Samsung phone won’t stay charged for more than a couple of hours.
He has his theories about why that is, and my teenagers roll their eyes and think they have all the answers. I’m one of those people who dives in for the facts when I hear conflicting advice, so with this recent cell battery quandary, I decided to get to the bottom of this.
First, I needed to understand how a cell phone battery works. I came across a wonderful video by an incredible channel I discovered, Tech Insider, that explains the science of lithium batteries (very interesting) in a reasonably entertaining way. After knowing more, I then found some solid advice for us.
Okay, first up, let’s take two minutes to understand how our cell phone batteries work:

Via: Tech Insider ¹

A little complex? Yes, but you get the gist of things.
Now an even better video from Android Authority that brings that knowledge to some practical advice. (Be sure to get out of the video after about 3 minutes 40 seconds, because the end is an advertisement that we could not cut.)
Otherwise, it will teach you a lot on the why and how:

Via: Android Authority ²

 

Let’s wrap things up with a few great tips related to battery life:

This one is from CalTalksTech.

Via: CalTalksTech ³

Now, did your urban legend alarm go off when he mentioned using your iPad charger for your phone?
I know there is controversy about whether you can use an iPad charger with an iPhone, and whether it will hurt anything. After doing some digging, I found out unequivocally that we can use our iPad chargers with our iPhones. If you want to see it for yourself, check out Apple’s web page for battery charging questions exactly like this. And I got to that page from a great article in Forbes Magazine.

 

So, here’s a quick wrap-up:

• Keep your charge between 10% and 90% if you want your best chance at extending the life of your battery.
• Letting your battery charge overnight is totally okay with today’s technology.
• It’s completely fine to use an iPad charger to charge your phone.
• Turn your phone on airplane mode, or off completely, while charging.
• Prevent your phone from experiencing temperature extremes, and certainly when charging.
• Check which apps are using most of your battery, and cancel those tasks if you want your battery life to improve or your phone to charge quickly.
• Do a full cycle re-charge once a month (Apple recommended). Let your phone go from 0% to 100% charge, and then down to 0% again.

Are you just discovering us here at EWC?

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Today’s article was very practical, but usually, we are celebrating innovations and insights that the mass media is ignoring.
Scroll down to the bottom of this page to see a few articles I can recommend, or jump over to our homepage and scroll down there to see the scope of our project here.
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Stay open, curious and optimistic!
~ Dr. Lynda