Using hotspot for a long time while charging - Galaxy S6 Edge Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello,
I don't get proper wifi coverage to my office, and I have a very generous data plan. So I keep my hotspot on while the phone is on the charger for about 5 hours every day. I have a horrible feeling that this may be killing the battery. Normally I wouldn't care if the battery was easily replaceable like before. How bad is this for the battery and how can I minimize the damage?

I don't see this doing any damage. If you keep the battery topped up and not doing too may charge cycles.

Related

[Q] When should I charge my phone?

To get the best battery life, when should I charge my phone? When the phone almost runs out of juice, or whenever I can (below 80%) ? Please help!
Deep discharges are bad, but so is spending lots of time at maximum charge.
I'd consider charging around when you hit 80% if it's convenient, but if you're expecting to be on battery for a while soon, top off whenever you want.
Discharging to 5-15% is bad for your battery longterm.
So to get the best battery, I should charge when it is $80 right?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using XDA App
kvl19 said:
So to get the best battery, I should charge when it is $80 right?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's no hard fast rule about 'exactly' when you should recharge it. Simply try and keep the phone from running < 20% a lot and never keep it always charged at 100%. If you get in the habit of charging in the 30-80% range, that would be best.
Basically throw out the old mentality of always using it as much as possible before recharging as lithium batteries simply don't work like the old nicad batteries from years past.
This phone uses a Li-Ion battery, and these batteries do NOT have any kind of "memory." Charge it whenever you want to. However, it's not really good to always keep it "topped off." (Deep discharges are also not good.)
If you are going to store the battery, drop it to 75%-50% charged first.
There are some things to consider, however:
If the phone's power circuit bypasses the battery when the battery is fully charge (instead of constantly pulling power from the battery while the battery is recharging), then leaving the phone plugged in is better than constant charge/discharge cycles. Based on the fact that this phone will work properly with NO battery attached when plugged in, this is probably a true statement (but I can't know for sure.)
Second, the phone itself might like to see the battery charged/discharged once in a while to calibrate the battery monitoring circuitry. (You never calibrate a li-ion battery - only the circuitry that monitors the battery.)
Here's a link with some interesting information:
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
Take care
Gary
Got it. Thanks for all your information
A small note to add why you shouldn't 'keep' it above 80% (constant top offs and being left on the charger). In general when above 80% it's been found that lithium ion batteries have a 'higher state of activity'.
What that does to the battery is what it sounds like. Higher state of activity means higher wear and overall shorter lifespan.
That wear is easily seen in laptops. Many people have the habit of leaving them always plugged in while using and through the night, so they're always 'ready to go'. People who consistently do this to their laptops usually find after 1 year the battery life is noticeably shorter, 1 1/2 years 50% or so of 'new' capacity, and after 2 years looking at replacing the battery.
And I usually find a cheap deal on eBay for them, plus $50-75 for me. At least phone batteries are a bit cheaper.
Sent from my páhhōniē

keep power cord connected harmful?

Hi
I use my V30 as Hotspot the whole day and this sucks battery quite quick. Is it problematic if I keep the power cord (usb-power-plug) connected all day long? Does the phone still use the battery in that case or does it just draw its power from the power cord and only recharge the battery if it drops volatge by self discharge...
https://www.sciencealert.com/how-to-charge-phone-battery-to-last-longer-advice-science
Sent from my ASUS_Z00A using Tapatalk
I'm not sure I believe that site... I have been a fan of Battery University, but in my experience they got this wrong. My Droid Turbo battery lasted for 4 years before I switched to the V30. I always charged it and left it charging overnight. My laptop that I'm typing this on now, has the original battery from 8 years ago, and it's still working. This laptop stays plugged in almost all the time. Certainly, it doesn't have the life that it would if it was new, but it's been 8 YEARS.
In my case, I keep my devices pretty long, and it doesn't cause a problem. So, I won't bother to unplug at night... it's not worth the hassle. Most people would upgrade their hardware well before these times, so they would notice the problem even less than I do.
The bigger issue I see is when it the phone overheats. My work phone (in my crappy work car) sits on a mount on the vent, which (because of the crappy car) doesn't close completely. So, this winter, it got very hot relatively often. That has hurt the battery life on that phone (a Turbo2)... which now has much less life than my Turbo does. But, it's a company phone, so they're going to replace it... not my problem
The other issue I see is charge cycles. My wife's laptop was often charged, then run on battery, then charged, etc. The battery on that laptop was only about 3 years old when it stopped performing (wouldn't even run the laptop for more than 10 minutes). IMO, charge cycles are, therefore, more important as than overnight charging.
Just my $0.02... feel free to disagree if you want.
Exactly! Charge cycles!
I only charge my V30 every 2nd or 3rd night for that reason, and I still get 7-10 hours SOT after 1.5 years, depending on how much music I play in addition to the SOT.
That said, it's also best to avoid draining the battery too low. The chemistry suffers the most when it's very low or very high.
Keep in mind, with charge cycles, they say it's proportional as well. So, if you charge 25% for 3 days in a row, it's the same as charging 75% every third day. I prefer to keep the phone charged as much as possible, in general.
Also, I neglected to mention, my overnight charger is a slow one (not a QC one). That way, it's slow charging overnight anyway. This speaks to the heat cycling of the battery - QC does heat it up more than a slow charger would. That's also why I don't wireless-charge, as it adds to the heat, too (at least it did on my older phones)...

[App suggestion] Battery Charge Limit

This is app is a must have and thought I'd share. Like everywhere I have read, they say battery should not be charged to 100%, it will hurt the battery somehow. This app "Battery Charge Limit" automatically (with root) stops charging the phone at whatever percent you want and starts charging back up at whatever percent you want. So you can always stop before it hits 100. It can be used without root but it only notifies you and you have to manually unplug the phone to stop charging. Better with root since its automatic.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.slash.batterychargelimit
Ndaoud360 said:
it will hurt the battery somehow.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't charge to 100%
Slow charge only
Don't quick charge
Don't use wireless charger because it heats up the battery
Lower brightness to 10% for best battery life
Disable wifi/lte/nfc/bluetooth for best battery life
...
Enjoy your $1000 phone!
peachpuff said:
Don't charge to 100%
Slow charge only
Don't quick charge
Don't use wireless charger because it heats up the battery
Lower brightness to 10% for best battery life
Disable wifi/lte/nfc/bluetooth for best battery life
...
Enjoy your $1000 phone!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Keep it turned off for a better batter longevity ??
Damn thos people are more preocupied of how to prevent the battery wear than actually enjoying this amazing phone
Well coming from an HTC device where after like what 6 months, my battery starts dying much quicker and hopefully this app and the nature of Samsung makes my phone battery last longer. Never owned a Samsung, so I don't know how the battery lasts over time.
This is a myth, modern phones already prevent damage from overcharging with the charge controller in the phone. Fast charging and slow charging also does not make a difference in battery longevity.
Just use your phone like a phone.
Yeah no
@nukeclears you need to bone up a bit more on battery chemistry before making statements like this. Overcharging is very different from charging to 80%. That's why Apple just implemented a charge limit in ios13 and Tesla strongly recommend charging to 80/90% max for daily use. Samsung just don't want to do this because they haven't felt enough pressure. I'll bet they implement it on the S11 and then for all phones by the end of the year.
Tab S4 has a setting to stop charging at 80%
You guys do need to go through all this? For what?
I have a Note 3 with battery since 2014 or 15, it still gives me the same power, sometimes it's better than it first was.
Charging fast/slow doesn't affect anything, I'm doing so for years.
I really don't think batteries die, if you felt it's weakening, just change OS, not the battery.
Samsung themselves, on the s10 series, suggest to charge from 30% to 80% everytime you need a charge.
In my daily usage, stopping charge to 90% is enough and I have all the juice i need till the next day.
If you are rooted, Battery Charge Limit app can be very useful to optimize the life of your battery (remember: battery is the first hardware component that ages your phone). On my 2015's Sony phone, they wanted me to pay 75 euros for battery replacement...
This thread is full of people who know nothing of batteries.
I bet your phone battery does "feel" the same after years when your os pushed that update that permanently limited your frequencys lmao.
peachpuff said:
Don't charge to 100%
Slow charge only
Don't quick charge
Don't use wireless charger because it heats up the battery
Lower brightness to 10% for best battery life
Disable wifi/lte/nfc/bluetooth for best battery life
...
Enjoy your $1000 phone!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Enjoy replacing it every year because phone batteries are becoming more commonly HARD GLUED into place. So go ahead, switch the whole phone out.

S9 Plus Exynos battery Problem

Hi all! My s9 Plus has been acting weird lately. It's dropping around 40 percent battery during night. It used to drop 10 percent at normal but now it's dropping like crazy. I have tried resetting the phone to factory but it's still the same
Even wiping out cache is not having any effect. This battery drop only happens when display is off.
Any fix please, i don't want to replace the battery! I'd rather sell it than that.
Thanks for your reply!
geez, very useful battery consumption screens you attached here. Maybe you are one of those type of people who leaves charging their phones over night, or charging while using it? If yes-then well in such cases batteries rarely last 2 years without losing 30% of capacity.
Also, it's sufull to FULLY discharge battery, when it turns off itself and then when phone is off connect charger and leave it until it' fully charged, this way os ad real battery "calibration" synchronizes. Sometimes os may show higher % then in reality and boom 15% and your phone turned off by itself.
To battle discharge overnight - put phone into flight mode and see if it still discharges so fast (everybody should put in flight mode at night, to not fry little brain they still left). If this helps-this may be because of cellular signal is weak in your apartment or data (wifi) is weak and phone uses too much power to amplify it. Anyway in android you can easy see what uses most power.
Also i always unlock my phones and root them to install custom roms and kernels, they 99.99% of the time will ALWAYS gets me better battery life then stock. WIth all phones i had -i charge them at most every 3rd day. I have a life so i dont spend my life on phone, this helps too to save batery
Also my DATA or Wifi is always off when i dont need it. I turn it on when i need something from internet, and turning it off when im done (good for security too)
afigienas said:
geez, very useful battery consumption screens you attached here. Maybe you are one of those type of people who leaves charging their phones over night, or charging while using it? If yes-then well in such cases batteries rarely last 2 years without losing 30% of capacity.
Also, it's sufull to FULLY discharge battery, when it turns off itself and then when phone is off connect charger and leave it until it' fully charged, this way os ad real battery "calibration" synchronizes. Sometimes os may show higher % then in reality and boom 15% and your phone turned off by itself.
To battle discharge overnight - put phone into flight mode and see if it still discharges so fast (everybody should put in flight mode at night, to not fry little brain they still left). If this helps-this may be because of cellular signal is weak in your apartment or data (wifi) is weak and phone uses too much power to amplify it. Anyway in android you can easy see what uses most power.
Also i always unlock my phones and root them to install custom roms and kernels, they 99.99% of the time will ALWAYS gets me better battery life then stock. WIth all phones i had -i charge them at most every 3rd day. I have a life so i dont spend my life on phone, this helps too to save batery
Also my DATA or Wifi is always off when i dont need it. I turn it on when i need something from internet, and turning it off when im done (good for security too)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Man! I play games on this phone and when the battery is low I charge and use it at the same time. Does that means that my battery has fried out? Shall i geta new one now... but the battery drain is same when screen is on... only screen iff drain is fast.
Suggest the best battery rom that you use please!
Thanks for your precious reply!
Regards

Question How critical is it to just charge to 80%

I keep reading that you should try and just charge your phone to 80% to help keep the battery healthy, as going to 100% can shotren the life span of the battery.
How ciritcal is this?
I know letting your phone run down to 0% is bad as it takes a fully clylce then to get back too 100% and this is not good for the battery long ter, but i must confess i usually let my battery get to around 50/60% ish then charge back up to 100%
I've always charged my phones fully and never noticed any issues. Maybe if you plan on keeping a device for 10 years, but for the usual lifetime of a phone it's just fine. My OP7 is 2 and a half years old now and still has 86% battery health. I've seen others in Telegram groups say that they never charge to 100% and when they post their battery health it's not much different from mine, sometimes even less.
I think modern batteries are fine being fully charged ... otherwise the OEMs or battery manufacturers would limit them to 80 or 90% by default.
Nimueh said:
I've always charged my phones fully and never noticed any issues. Maybe if you plan on keeping a device for 10 years, but for the usual lifetime of a phone it's just fine. My OP7 is 2 and a half years old now and still has 86% battery health. I've seen others in Telegram groups say that they never charge to 100% and when they post their battery health it's not much different from mine, sometimes even less.
I think modern batteries are fine being fully charged ... otherwise the OEMs or battery manufacturers would limit them to 80 or 90% by default.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess I have some buffer
mosio said:
I guess I have some buffer
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Click to collapse
Hehe yea, I guess they all show 102% then because I have that as well
I like the adaptive charging, set up your bedtime and alarm for getting up (or turning over) After bedtime, phone gets trickle charged to achieve 100% at morning alarm. No excess heat etc. Phone then lasts me all day till bedtime when put on airplane mode, switch off Wi-Fi, & sleep. Works for me.
I'm showing 106%
I always charge to full, using adapting charging over night. Charging slowly and keeping temperature down is more important than keeping it to 80% from my understanding.
I just lay my phone on a slow charge Qi pad every night and when I get up it is at 100%. Nexus 6, Pixel 3, now Pixel 6. Perhaps my battery life went down a bit on my Pixel 3 after 3 years, but not enough to notice. I think 100% charge (at least slow charging) is safe for 3 to 5 years of battery life.
Li's like frequent midrange power cycling; it can extend the lifespan hundreds even thousands more full charge cycles.
Voltage and temperature are the Li's biggest stress factors. Low or high temperature charging can cause Li plating.
The higher the cell voltage, the faster it degrades.
The same is true with temperature.
Personally I just replace them every year or so as a failed Li can severely damage a phone. They tend to swell during a failure which can easily damage the display.
My Samsung S10+ is 27 months old now. I'm charging it to 80% mainly daily. Had maybe max 20 full charges and only once or twice to zero. I'm at 86% battery health (according to 146 sessions). Was 92% six months after buying brand new.
I think it helps. Also since the battery is OK (4100mah), dont need that extra 20%.
EDIT: 15W Samsung "fast" charging. As fast as that is ...
Zakelinho said:
My Samsung S10+ is 27 months old now. I'm charging it to 80% mainly daily. Had maybe max 20 full charges and only once or twice to zero. I'm at 86% battery health (according to 146 sessions). Was 92% six months after buying brand new.
I think it helps. Also since the battery is OK (4100mah), dont need that extra 20%.
EDIT: 15W Samsung "fast" charging. As fast as that is ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A Li is considered degraded when it reaches 80% of it's initial capacity. This signals the end of its useful service life.
Degraded Li's are more likely to fail.
Trust me it's better to replace it before it fails...
I think Better Battery Stats made that reco back in the day.
Charge to 80% and plug in at 10%.
Not so sure that really matters anymore though.
Both my 2 XL and Pixel 5 were plugged in before bed, unplugged when I got up, plugged back in when I hit 10-15% or when I went to bed.
If you plan on keeping your device for a long time (like 3-4 years) doing the unplug at 80% and plug in at 10% might make a diff.
Az Biker said:
I think Better Battery Stats made that reco back in the day.
Charge to 80% and plug in at 10%.
Not so sure that really matters anymore though.
Both my 2 XL and Pixel 5 were plugged in before bed, unplugged when I got up, plugged back in when I hit 10-15% or when I went to bed.
If you plan on keeping your device for a long time (like 3-4 years) doing the unplug at 80% and plug in at 10% might make a diff.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
10% is too low. It causes a lot of stress on the battery as it drops below 20% to charge from that starting point or lower.
Worse there's little usable energy after 20% because of the lower voltage. The phone uses the same wattage which is determined by V×A=W, so as the voltage drops it needs more milliamperes to make the same wattage. The discharge rate increases as the cell voltage drops.
A better low cut off is 30-40% or even higher and a high cutoff of 80% although 62% is optimum.
The Li likes frequent midrange power cycling. Charging beyond those parameters is for your convenience at the cost of battery lifespan.
Batteries are cheap and most are easy to replace... so I don't sweat it.
I expect a service life of 1-2 years on a heavily used N10+ battery.
However charging in the 40-72% range yields the most rapid fast charge in the shortest time so it makes sense to use this whenever convenient.
Well, I know things have been updated within Googles code itself.
"Adaptive Charging" / "Adatptive Connectivity" additions.
This was a real big problem for me with my HTC 10, (2016)
Battery degradation threads starting popping up.
I installed Accubattery after 1.5/2 years of owning the device and the battery was degraded to about 77% capacity at that time, IIRC. I was charging to 100% at that time, also.
So, I began charging stricly to 80%.
Compared to my HTC One M8 that to this day still has 90% capacity, and I used that device from the day Verizon released (3/2014) it until the day Verizon released the HTC 10 (5/2016).
I somehow managed to use the HTC 10 up until I bought the Pixel 5 on release day (10/2020).
I was charging the HTC 10 like 3 times a day just get through, and even went back to the HTC One M8 at one point because I had enough, but was waiting for the P5 to drop.
So to answer the question, I do believe it helps.
I do think that Adaptive charging/connectivity help, as well.
I take the view that if I don't need all the capacity on a particular day I charge no higher than 70%, which lands me around 30% end of day. Otherwise I'll guestimate what I need. Off to take some photo's tonight, so will probably charge it to 90% or so.
If you like fiddling around you can use something like Tasker to switch a smart plug that your charger's plugged into on and off at what you consider appropriate battery levels. Makes it all painless once set up. Or you can buy some extra hardware too. I use this in my car to limit the phone's max charge and temperature as, for me, I think most and fastest damage is done in a hot car float charging the phone at 100%.... https://chargie.org/ Not cheap but ok in my mind to hopefully extend the service life of the phone's battery. Less than the cost and hassle of replacing a battery anyway! (I'm not associated with Chargie other than as a customer)
OK, admittedly off-topic, but, this kind of sounds like a variation of the guidance I use for charging my electric car. Don't charge it unless it drops below 80% (so don't keep topping it up), but don't let it go below 20% regularly either. I mostly plug it in at around 60% and let it fully charge. Given the cost of a replacement battery would be more than the total value of the car, I hope this gives me 10 year of life.
Note10.1Dude said:
OK, admittedly off-topic, but, this kind of sounds like a variation of the guidance I use for charging my electric car. Don't charge it unless it drops below 80% (so don't keep topping it up), but don't let it go below 20% regularly either. I mostly plug it in at around 60% and let it fully charge. Given the cost of a replacement battery would be more than the total value of the car, I hope this gives me 10 year of life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
EV metering is set up differently. What shows as 100% is likely a conservative 80% charge. Research for that variant.
A 35-40% low cut off is probably better as going lower generates more heat causing needless stress... unless you need that capacity.
Just downloaded the accubattery app and then fully charged but it’s estimating 6,401mah. Must be wrong and needs to calibrate over a few days.
I’ve never had any problems charging to 100% before so I’m not stopping now. I’ll be deleting this app if it keeps warning me like it has done.
Andyzurbs said:
Just downloaded the accubattery app and then fully charged but it’s estimating 6,401mah. Must be wrong and needs to calibrate over a few days.
I’ve never had any problems charging to 100% before so I’m not stopping now. I’ll be deleting this app if it keeps warning me like it has done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Turn it off then.
Andyzurbs said:
Just downloaded the accubattery app and then fully charged but it’s estimating 6,401mah. Must be wrong and needs to calibrate over a few days.
I’ve never had any problems charging to 100% before so I’m not stopping now. I’ll be deleting this app if it keeps warning me like it has done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Accubattery just provides a guide. See here:
battery drain
Hello, I'm using a pixel 6 with two cards sim. When I go to sleep the phone is fully charged and internet/wifi is turned off. When i wake up i have 88% battery (I lose 1,5% per hour). In battery use i see Ims Service. I did a test and in...
forum.xda-developers.com
I used to cycle from full to empty on my Pixel 2 before recharging, at about 3 years the battery couldnt last until lunch anymore. This meant more cycling, and I could fully discharge/recharge it 3 or 4 times a day. Within 6 months the battery only lasted 5 minutes, it was stuffed. Phone always hot and needed to stay on a charger 24/7, would turn off if I opened the camera without usb power connected.
Held out about 6 months on a permanent usb battery bank, was such a slog to wait until the Pixel 6 was released.

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