I was told many years ago to fully drain and then fully charge a rechargeable battery or else it would shorten its life span. Is this really true?
Currently, if my battery is at 30% when I go to bed I leave it alone and charge it the next morning when I get to work after it drops to 5% or less and just deal with not having my phone for a few hours during the work day. I would love to charge my phone each night and always have my phone usable throughout the day.
My concern is that if I charge my battery each nigh I will kill the battery before I can get a new phone.
What us the truth?!
There's a lot of confusion on proper battery charging techniques. Lots of people are stuck on the old ways of thinking, where you should let the battery completely die before recharging it or else the battery will get a "memory" and won't last as long. I won't pretend to be an expert on the topic, so hopefully someone else can chime in, but from my understanding you do NOT want to let newer style batteries die before recharging them as it shortens their lifespan.
That used to be true, but doesn't apply to the batteries used in phones today. You can recharge whenever you'd like, but you may need to 'calibrate' your phone from time to time to properly recognize an entire battery cycle.
Recently, my Droid Razr Maxx drained completely, and will no longer take a charge; very frustrating considering it's less than 2 months old! That's the problem with a non-removable battery. Very expensive paperweight.
Sent from my HTC6435LVW using xda app-developers app
The truth...found
Found this....the science of modern batteries. Lets hope it works for our DNA's.
http://lifehacker.com/5875162/how-often-should-i-charge-my-gadgets-battery-to-prolong-its-lifespan
that article applies to our battery chemistry. Personally i still use my phone as a beside clock and keep it charged overnight and discharge it to whatever % it's at at the end of the day.
Related
I am wondering whether the charging methods make a difference to battery life?
How do you charge your battery, and also your initial charge from new?
This is the first phone I've had that I didn't leave the initial charge on all night 16 hours initial as recommended by most phone manufacturers, and I just took it off after a few hours when it was charged up. Do you think that affects the performance of the battery? I've never charged it for more than a few hours. The main reason I don't leave it on all night is because it gets really hot, so when it goes green light, it's done for me
Do any of you let it run out past the amber warning colour as a completely flat battery is probably better to charge?
All my other phones were left on charge all night, every night, but they weren't this type of phone.... and in truth, it makes no difference whatsoever to the battery. The Motos also needed charging every day
Stunning work guys, 56 views by people I can only assume own the Hero, and nobody wants to divulge their dirty secrets about battery charging... Thanks anyway
Just look around google for Li-ion recharging, there is plenty of resources to read up on when trying to keep battery life at a maximum.
Peter Franks said:
Stunning work guys, 56 views by people I can only assume own the Hero, and nobody wants to divulge their dirty secrets about battery charging... Thanks anyway
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
probably because the hero is so new that nobody can tell anything about the battery life? and i don't suppose any of the 56 people has two heros and did the experiment of charging one full and the other for 16 hours, only to use them in the same manner afterwards and count battery life... ?
kendong2 said:
probably because the hero is so new that nobody can tell anything about the battery life? and i don't suppose any of the 56 people has two heros and did the experiment of charging one full and the other for 16 hours, only to use them in the same manner afterwards and count battery life... ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeh, that wasn't actually my point, but thanks anyway!
112 now...
I was wondering how many people just got the phone, and charged it 16 hours initially or couple of hours and go, and do they leave on all night despite it getting hot.
Not hard...
You should charge it until it is fully charged but not leave it on charge extensively - excess heat may cause the battery life to reduce (although I wouldn't know how much degradation this would cause). It is probably ok every once in a while to leave it on charge overnight, in theory the phone should have circuits to protect against overcharging it anyway. 2 hours is about right for a charge cycle. You should charge it when the phone advises to do so - 15% or less charge. The Lithium Ion battery will only recharge cycle effectively a minimum of 300 times but I would estimate conservatively that is the number of times you can recharge. 2 days between recharges would give you about 2 years life out of a battery. I recharge it every two days, and charge time is about 2 hours.
Yeh, I have to charge it every day though......... Never lasts longer. I just wondered if you were supposed to do the initial first charge overnight and whether it sets the standard for the length of time you get each day after that?
i guess every hero is different. longest i used my phone without charging is 2 days with moderate use.
before i charge my phone i kill all tasks in the background and clear my browser history. might not make a difference but to me it feels better to have a fresh phone after charge.
Is that with the task killer app, or is there another way?
I can't imagine mine ever lasting 2 days.....
Peter Franks said:
Is that with the task killer app, or is there another way?
I can't imagine mine ever lasting 2 days.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using TaskPanel as a taskiller...
when i got the hero the battery was ~half full. i charged it for about half an hour, but had to stop the charging before it was full.
the battery doesn't last longer than one day, although i play a lot with it (obviously). when i put it to the charger i try to let it charge fully up, and i noticed that the charging is stopped when the battery is full (you see the icon in the not.bar go back to normal green battery, and the phone cools down noticably after charging is completed). concerning this i have no problem to leave it plugged in overnight. checked last night, when NOT plugged in it takes 4% of battery for ~7 hours in airplane mode.
Had a bender last night and just found my phone with 40% battery life. When I checked the battery usage graph it says it's been on battery for 17 hours, wow. This phone is awesome.
But, do I need to drain the battery to zero now and then or anything else to keep my battery in good health?
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium
i dont think lithium ion really needs to be fully drained. i know that, u should never keep it drained for long periods of time because that will kill the battery. the phone has to go through a few charge cycles to get used to things. it adjusts certain settings on its own.
The way I usually fly mine is to charge it to 100% and once it hits 15% I charge. And that has done really good for me not destroying my battery. But I guess it's different for everyone.
Rechargable batteries these days generally have a lifespan beyond the length of time you'll actually use your phone. For purposes of longer charges, it does help to charge, reset stats, drain, then charge and reset stats again, although the phone will sort of self-calibrate over the course of a couple weeks. If you're worried about lifespan of the battery, you shouldn't have to replace it before you're ready for an upgrade unless the battery itself has a defect.
One of the worst things you can do to a lithium battery is discharge it completely. They don't suffer from "memory" yet every time someone here in the forums complains that they are getting crappy battery life the instruction to discharge and recharge to 100% before clearing stats pops up.
For those who are interested here is an article that explains in detail.
batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
My main question- Is there some function in android that looks at the maximum depth of discharge level of the battery or is it that most people don't understand the characteristics of L-ion and confuse them with those of Ni-Mh or Ni-Cad?
I want to know because if I need to completely discharge to get better perfomance, despite the reduction in charge cycle lifetime, I will do it but only infrequently.
I've only let my battery discharge completely once, and it wasn't on purpose. From the posts I see here I think I get above average battery life. About 18 hours miui before I go for the charger and on 2.2 roms I'd get 20 hours and still have 40% or so to go. So no I don't think completely discharging your battery does anything for battery life.
Sent from my T959 using XDA App
I have never run mine down completely. Gotten it to about 6% but that was because I was fighting ROM flashing problems. I usually call 25-30% enough for me and plug in then. I am also getting 30 hours out of my 2.2 with a good deal of use. I used to have a Motorola and their batteries are total crap. If you EVER let it get down below 10%, it took some real work for it to charge correctly and boot up. Even as much as a hardware mod where I have had to cut the wires on a USB charge cord and charge it rigged up with the wires pressed against the battery and prongs in the phone. Very dangerous, but worked for a last resort.
Discharging the battery is not for the sake of the battery,but more so for the ROMs data and how it acquires the battstats usage. I only run it up and down and clear stats when flashing a new ROM, but I do use my phone moderate to heavy daily and have had great success in battery life the way I calibrate it.
The solution I think is to use a larger capacity battery and regulate it to narrower window of operation never fully charging or discharging.
The fastest killer though seems to be heat.
I have read several times that your phone does not fully discharge the battery...that there is still a minimal amount of charge,not enough for the phone to opperate but enough to not damage the battery when it shuts down
Maybe the batterystats file can be saved after being calibrated once and then restored after every wipe oor flash.. that would save some time aabd according to you guys, batt life too
Sent from a cell tower to the XDA server to you.
I've only ever calibrated my a few times and only after flashing a new rom. I never run my battery down after resetting the stats. I just use my phone as I normally do. My understanding of calibration is that it's not about squeezing more life out of the battery despite what most people think but of getting a more accurate measurement of the battery's actual charge. Also while it's true that the phone will shut of before the battery is completely discharged damaging the battery, allowing the battery charge to drop that low shortens your battery's life and decreases the amount of charge your battery can hold.
What gets me is I also read somewhere that for optimum battery life you should keep your battery level somewhere between 70%-40%. Of course that doesn't stop me from charging my phone to 100% everyday. I don't remember where I found that article but I'll post a link if I can find it again.
The reason this bad advice about completely discharging your battery persists is probably the same reason people keep recommending automatic task killers.
batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
ok, ok ill volunter, ill watch porn till my battery"discharges" At least my log will be interesting
radiohd said:
One of the worst things you can do to a lithium battery is discharge it completely. They don't suffer from "memory" yet every time someone here in the forums complains that they are getting crappy battery life the instruction to discharge and recharge to 100% before clearing stats pops up.
For those who are interested here is an article that explains in detail.
batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
My main question- Is there some function in android that looks at the maximum depth of discharge level of the battery or is it that most people don't understand the characteristics of L-ion and confuse them with those of Ni-Mh or Ni-Cad?
I want to know because if I need to completely discharge to get better perfomance, despite the reduction in charge cycle lifetime, I will do it but only infrequently.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Discharging the Battery & Running the Battery Dead is 2 Different things!
We recommend running the battery dead ( Phone Shuts Off ) & recharging while off to train the Android OS from Full > Empty..
Running the Phone until Dead is not Going to hurt the Battery in anyways shape or form despite what you may think or read!
The Reason is, the battery is never fully Discharge & still holds Voltage.. The Calculations of Charged / Dead is at the Kernel Level, so even when dead it still has a 3.4v still or roughly..
As long as the kernel isn't tampered with, discharging the battery via the Phone will never hurt the battery period!
Now, Based on the link you posted you would have to run the battery down past the safe discharge point.. Via some other means of killing the battery, other than using the Phone.
To help ease your mind, Remember this:
~ Charge levels is controlled by the kernel
~ Even when Phone powers off, there is still plenty of charge in the Phone's Battery
~ Battery is never Fully charged, as this also hurts lithium batteries
Roughly every Android kernel does not let lithium battery get below 3.4v and at most 96% charged.
Hope this helps,
~Eugene
If you are still concerned wait until your phone turns off and stick your battery on a meter. You will see there is still power left in it...
My original battery that came with the phone got great life, then couple of months later it was discharging in like 2-4 hrs(froyo), so I called, they sent another one free...5-6 months later that one started doing it as well, so I pulled out the old one from the drawer, it powered on at like 85% ! and I was getting crazy ass life out of it on miui over 30 hrs one time...now that one is acting up again, so I'm going to try to swap again..lol...maybe there's something to not using them for a while...
I've used diff roms and combinations of draining/recharging...calibrating, not calibrating...it's always different results..honestly I don't think there's any rhyme or reason to it other than the fact that many vibrants have diff hardware and there will always be some weird quirk on a per user basis...
As far as hurting it by draining it all the way, I hardly think that's the case seeing as with both batteries I've always let it run down...not on purpose but there has been many many times I've plugged in at 1% or had to power back on because it died...charged it up and got 20-30hrs no prob..usually issues come up when flashing a new rom...
i think it all comes down to luck of the draw. ive had my vibrant since launch day, and i still manage great battery life. my battery is actually stamped 7-02-2010. every 2 weeks or so ill drain the battery completely, turn it back on and allow itself to die again, and finally allow it to fully charge overnight or 4 hours. i usually get a good 7-8 hours of constant use on cm7, or over 24hours if let on standby.
im still debating if i want to grab an epic 4g touch battery as well to increase it even more.
qpinto said:
im still debating if i want to grab an epic 4g touch battery as well to increase it even more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what's this about?
Epic 4g batteries are 1800 and fit in our vibes.
Dr.Stainedglove said:
what's this about?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1262035
in there they tested in a store since the epic 4g touch battery fit into a regular epic 4g, if it would fit into a vibrant. only thing is you have to put the battery in facing inside, and it fits and works 100%
Yeah the Epic 4G batteries fit in our Vibrant's. You can buy knock-off one's (that work well) for 19.99$ US! Here's a thread about it...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1316492
Epic touch battery for the win. I've been rocking it for a few weeks. I was on miui and getting 14-16hrs. I recently went back to froyo and yesterday I got 12hrs off of a 67% charge.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using xda premium
dont know if people have seen this article but i thought it was pretty interesting about the battery stats file not actually needing to be deleted...
http://www.androidcentral.com/wiping-battery-stats-doesnt-improve-battery-life-says-google-engineer
jonen said:
dont know if people have seen this article but i thought it was pretty interesting about the battery stats file not actually needing to be deleted...
http://www.androidcentral.com/wiping-battery-stats-doesnt-improve-battery-life-says-google-engineer
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol one of the biggest flukes in our forum haha.. people will harm their battery to calibrate it and it doesn't even do anything ...
Thank god I only calibrated once
sent from the xda app on my android smartphone.
I'm getting a replacement Maxx from Verizon and I'm curious if its better to drain the battery right out of the box than charge or should I charge it first? Or does it really not matter? I charged for 3 hours the first time not knowing what the LED lights meant and I feel like I was not getting the same battery performance others are claiming to get on these forums. I got 24 hours with juice defender, 4g on and moderate usage.
Just want to do it right this time.
http://dottech.org/tipsntricks/1770...-longer-but-be-sure-to-condition-it-properly/
For every post about to condition I could post to not to. I tried on several batteries on my charge several different ways and it never mattered. My Maxx I charged full the first time and get excellent battery.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1224601&highlight=condition+battery&page=2
post #16
http://phandroid.com/2010/12/25/you...is-lying-to-you-and-its-not-such-a-bad-thing/
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1187097&highlight=condition+battery
While from the Charge that I came from it still has both points.
The manufacturers always recommend to fully charge first, although I've rarely been able to keep my hands off the phone long enough.
What actually does something for your battery life though, is fully charge, and then fully drain once a month or so.
This is NOT due to battery chemistry, but entirely due to the calibration of the battery software.
Older battery types needed this treatment to physically work better, li-ion revives this problem with this "anti catch fire and kill you"-chip
Good day people, I have a dumb question and no need to be polite I know its dumb lol I just got an evo lte and I love it so far. But I did some reading up on training batteries and I'm aware that you can't necessarily train a lithium ion battery but I know there things that you can do help the battery last longer etc.
The first day I did my normal routine, drain it all the way charge it all the way. It took a long time for the battery to die which seemed like it was a good thing. I did that twice and I noticed that after a full charge the battery drops to 97% fairly quickly (like withinless than a min or 2) and from the few days I've had it it seems like it may not hold the charge well over time . I wouldn't normally be concerned about this however this is the first phone I've owned without a removable battery, I don't want to regret it 6 months from now because the phone only lasts 5 hours.
So my question is this I am still within the buyers remorse period should I just exchange it for another onevor am I just being too paranoid? Secondly how do you all train your batteries when you first get the phone? What works for you all who own this phone?
Thanks in advance.
tmotechsupport said:
Good day people, I have a dumb question and no need to be polite I know its dumb lol I just got an evo lte and I love it so far. But I did some reading up on training batteries and I'm aware that you can't necessarily train a lithium ion battery but I know there things that you can do help the battery last longer etc.
The first day I did my normal routine, drain it all the way charge it all the way. It took a long time for the battery to die which seemed like it was a good thing. I did that twice and I noticed that after a full charge the battery drops to 97% fairly quickly (like withinless than a min or 2) and from the few days I've had it it seems like it may not hold the charge well over time . I wouldn't normally be concerned about this however this is the first phone I've owned without a removable battery, I don't want to regret it 6 months from now because the phone only lasts 5 hours.
So my question is this I am still within the buyers remorse period should I just exchange it for another onevor am I just being too paranoid? Secondly how do you all train your batteries when you first get the phone? What works for you all who own this phone?
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First off, congrats on your choice. This phone has a Li-Ion Polymer battery, which is different from the Li-Ion batteries of yore. I am stock rooted and with medium to heavy use I get a day<12+ hours> out of a full charge with no batt training. I have not experienced the rapid discharge you speak of and if you have no apps causing it, you may need to swap it.
I also get a pretty rapid discharge from 100%->98% - takes about 5 minutes to drop that 2 percent. But after that, I am clear sailing for ~15 hours.
Oh so the rapid discharge thing isn't uncommon then? Hmm
tmotechsupport said:
Oh so the rapid discharge thing isn't uncommon then? Hmm
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know if it's the same as the og evo and the 3d but when it hit 100% try unplugging it then plug it back in for a few. That may give you the true full charge and stop the quick 2% drop
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
Yea I'm kind of torn on exchanging it. I may just do it. Of course it would be my luck to get a phone with issues if I did.
That's normal. If this is like the OG Evo (and it probably is), the phone will charge to 100%, then let the battery discharge to 95% before charging back to 100% again. This is primarily to protect the battery and prolong its life. So while the phone may claim to be at 100%, it could be as low as 95% when you unplug from the charger. The rapid discharge you're experiencing is really just the phone adjusting to the actual battery level.
Also, there's no need to "train" the battery. I seem to recall that it's generally not healthy to discharge a Li-Po battery to 0%, and can shorten the life of the battery.
The battery percentage drop you guys are seeing is perfectly normal. No need to exchange your phone. As soon as the kernel source is released by HTC, then the great devs here will be able to bless our phones with some SBC goodness and you will not have that problem anymore
You guys don't think I did any noticeable damage by fully discharching it twice do you? I'm going to charge it and see what happens I don't have any immediate thoughts of exchanging it based off of what you guys are saying. I'm going to charge it up and post results. If its not like what you guys are getting life wise I may exchange it as I still have like 5 days left.
Minor update 7 hours 27 minutes 52% left.
tmotechsupport said:
You guys don't think I did any noticeable damage by fully discharching it twice do you? I'm going to charge it and see what happens I don't have any immediate thoughts of exchanging it based off of what you guys are saying. I'm going to charge it up and post results. If its not like what you guys are getting life wise I may exchange it as I still have like 5 days left.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, it's fine.
Fully discharging it just reduces the number of cycles left you have. Most li-ion batteries have 1000 charge cycles. Battery charge is not an exact science. Do not look at it like you are not getting the full charge.
So at the end of the day it looks like roughly 8 to 9 hours of moderate to heavy use on my phone moderate for the first 7 hours heavy for the last 2 and some change. Does that sound about right?
tmotechsupport said:
Minor update 7 hours 27 minutes 52% left.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I get around 15 or 20 hrs also cm9 I get 24+
Sent from my EVO using XDA Premium HD app
Battery is good if u see bad battery just get an extended battery
Hit the thanks button