Why does battery life shorten with use?
When using your cell phone, do you find that your newly purchased phone's battery doesn't last as long as it did after two or three years? This is because there are several reasons why batteries are less capable of storing power, so today we're going to take a look at what causes battery life to shorten.
Over time, batteries undergo chemical degradation. As batteries age, chemical reactions become less efficient. This is because the anode and cathode materials degrade over time, reducing the ability to release and store ions. This is one of the main causes of chemical degradation in batteries.
In addition, batteries typically have about 500 full charge cycles. Each cycle causes minor wear on the battery. As the number of cycles increases, the battery's ability to charge decreases.
The heat generated during the charging process or in the environment accelerates chemical reactions in the battery, leading to accelerated aging.
Excessive voltage stress can lead to faster chemical breakdown. Keeping the battery between 20% and 80% reduces the stress on the battery because the higher the percentage of charge, the more stress is placed on the battery. Higher voltages accelerate oxidation reactions in the battery, which in the long run can wear down the electrodes, and when the voltage drops below 20%, the chemistry becomes unstable, which accelerates the aging of the battery and reduces its overall life.
Once we know that time, charge cycles, heat, and having too much or too little voltages can all affect battery life, you may ask, what can I do to extend battery life?
How Major Cell Phone Manufacturers Can Help You Extend Battery Life
Apple introduced a feature called “Optimized Battery Charging” in iOS 13 and later models. It uses machine learning to analyze charging patterns and reduce the amount of time your phone spends charging at 100%. For example, if the system detects that you usually charge your phone before going to bed. The feature will be turned on by default and the phone will charge to 80% overnight and wait until you wake up in the morning to charge to 100%.
However, when you're out with friends at night and need to charge your phone using a portable charger, the system will detect that this isn't your normal charging time so it will continue to charge your phone past 80 percent.
Google Pixel and Samsung have a similar feature called the Adaptive Charging method. Google's “Adaptive Charging” feature, which was introduced in Android 11, uses machine learning to keep track of alarm settings and normal wake-up times. Charging slows down when it reaches 80 percent, ensuring that it only reaches 100 percent shortly before the user wakes up or unplugs the phone from the charger.
Maybe you're wondering what happens to the charging pattern if I forget to stop charging my phone when it's fully charged to 100 percent, Your phone enters a mode called maintenance mode (trickle charge) when it is fully charged. It effectively keeps the battery charged without completely cutting off power. So if you want to extend the battery life(Not letting the battery level reach 100% for a long time), consider unplugging it when your phone is fully charged.
Depending on the phone manufacturer, make sure your phone has smart charging methods to extend battery life.
How the Tessan multi-device fast charger is a great companion for extending battery life
By combining the software features of adaptive charging (optimized battery charging) with our Gallium Nitride-powered multi-device fast chargers, battery life can be further extended. This is because the use of adaptive charging (optimized battery charging) keeps the battery at around 80% for a period of time, reducing the time it takes for the battery to be at 100%, while Gallium Nitride GaN technology keeps the temperature of the rechargeable battery from rising too much, slowing down the chemical reaction of the battery due to the heat, thus prolonging the life of the battery. Our 65W multi-device fast charger is equipped with GaN technology, the temperature rise of a GaN charger at high loads was only 10-15°C, compared to a conventional silicon charger, which can reach 30°C or more.
This is because GaN as a semiconductor has a much wider bandgap (3.4 eV (WBG)), whereas the silicon semiconductor material in a normal battery charger has a bandgap of only 1.12 eV. The rule of thumb is that the wider the bandgap, the higher the electron mobility and power frequency. When the electron mobility is higher, it proves to be more efficient at delivering energy, so less power is left in the charger and less heat is dissipated. When the charger generates less heat, less heat is transferred to the phone so that the battery will also generate relatively less heat.
What are some other tips to extend battery life when charging your cell phone?
Heat is a battery life killer
Heat is a killer of cell phone batteries, if the battery temperature is kept between 25 - 40 degrees Celsius (77 - 86 degrees Fahrenheit), the battery capacity should remain around 85% - 96% after the first year with reasonable charging cycles. If the temperature is regularly raised above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and charged to 100% often, the capacity will drop to 65% after the first year. Consider moving the phone to a cooler place to charge, or removing the phone's case while charging to allow the phone to dissipate heat better. When the phone is running games or playing videos, it increases the load on the processor and generates excess heat. Consider giving the phone a break while charging or using apps that don't require too much energy. For example, e-book readers, weather apps, or basic utility applications(Calculator, Clock) require less energy.
Regular charging is a healthy habit
Don't wait until you run out of power to recharge your phone. For lithium-ion batteries, it's much better to recharge them sparingly, but regularly, rather than fully recharging them over a long period. That's because the life of a lithium battery is usually measured in the number of charge cycles. A complete charge (from 0% to 100%) counts as one cycle, while multiple short charges (e.g., from 30% to 80%) reduce the number of cycles and extend battery life. Moreover, charging a Li-ion battery at a low state of charge (e.g., near 0%) puts more stress on the battery, which can accelerate battery aging over time. Regular charging keeps the charge level within a relatively safe range and reduces the risk of degrading the battery when charging in a full cycle.
Use factory software updates
By using original software updates, phones can optimize battery management, background processes, and hardware resources, fix power consumption issues, and introduce smart charging features to reduce the burden on the battery. These updates not only improve battery efficiency but also slow down battery aging and extend its lifespan through better charging strategies and temperature control.
Use the right charger
Using an official or certified high-quality charger from your phone brand, especially one that supports the appropriate current and voltage, can prevent overheating and battery depletion due to incompatibility.
Utilize methods to conserve power and thus reduce the number of recharges
When you don't need to use the network on your phone, you can try to turn on Airplane Mode. Turning on Airplane Mode can drastically reduce battery consumption and prevent your phone from draining by frequently searching for network signals. Moreover, you can close the applications that you don't need to use on your phone or turn off the power-consuming features such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, and mobile data that can reduce the battery level. Consider turning on the low power mode when the battery level is low, which can reduce the activity of background apps and other power-consuming features of your phone, thus reducing the frequency of charging and prolonging the battery life.
Conclusion
In this article, we covered why battery life decreases with frequent charging. Nowadays, all major cell phone manufacturers (Apple/Samsung/Google) have introduced their features to optimize battery charging. For example, Apple's “Optimized Battery Charging” feature reduces the charging time of the phone at 100% full charge, which reduces the stress on the battery and helps prolong the life of the battery. GaN Multi-Device Fast Charger utilizes its GaN material to deliver energy efficiently, allowing less heat to be generated in the charger, and thus less heat to be transferred to the phone. In addition to this, we also recommend ways to reduce heat generation while charging and ways to increase battery life by charging frequently rather than waiting until your phone runs out of juice. More often than not, battery life can be increased by using factory software updates as well as using the proper charger and applying ways to conserve power so that you can charge less often. Try using GaN Multi-Device Fast Charger with your phone's optimized battery charging feature and combining them with tips to make your battery last longer!
