Is Leaving Your Phone Charging Overnight Bad?

The reality of leaving your phone plugged in overnight

A big part of our interconnected, tech-heavy lives is the maintenance of our devices. We back upwardly hard drives, we install updates, and we go on batteries charged. In the instance of your phone, charging might coincide with the time that your own head hits the pillow for a mental recharge. You tin can plug your phone in, prepare it next to you, and not have to worry nearly information technology until morning. Simply is the battery being damaged while you slumber?

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What happens when I go out my phone plugged in overnight?

What happens when I leave my phone plugged in overnight?

For the almost part, leaving your modern telephone plugged into a charger overnight isn't going to exist a problem. Within is most likely a lithium-ion battery, which is partly responsible for how thin phones have become, besides equally how they can last through a twenty-four hour period with life to spare. They also don't come with some of the aforementioned problems as older nickel batteries used to accept, similar losing track of the maximum charge threshold.

Lithium-ion phone batteries are not fabricated to final forever. As soon as you deplete it and charge it — known as a cycle — you've begun a process that will somewhen lead to your phone either needing a replacement battery or you lot in need of an entirely new phone. Bombardment University, in an commodity well-nigh how to prolong the life of lithium-based batteries, claims that on average you can get about 400 cycles out of a device.

Though it usually merely takes a couple of hours to get a full charge, let's say your telephone is plugged in for most seven or eight hours while yous slumber. Once the bombardment hits 100 percentage, it'south going to stop charging cheers to software there to determine when information technology's had enough. Unless there's a breakdown in the process, yous shouldn't expect to see a ballooned battery poking out of the back of your device.

Heat will harm your telephone'southward battery

Your phone is smart enough to not take damage by overcharging, but at that place's withal an issue. Charging a phone causes heat, which — along with cold — can damage a lithium battery. Prolonged periods of elevated heat will degrade a battery faster, every bit can be seen in this chart from Battery Academy.

Temperature charging chart from Battery University Temperature nautical chart courtesy of Bombardment University.

Regular charging shouldn't cause a telephone to reach a harmful temperature, simply if you like to proceed your phone side by side to you in bed while information technology's plugged in, the blankets or pillows probably aren't doing information technology any favors. If possible, leave the charging telephone next to the bed where it has room to breathe. A beefy case will also no doubt contribute to unwanted heat, and so consider removing it as well.

What tin can I do to prolong the life of my phone'south battery?

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Batteries are in a abiding country of degradation, and you can expect to go most 400 accuse cycles earlier you notice a serious hit to performance. In some other chart from Battery University, we tin meet that lowering the maximum charge tin can give a bombardment more cycles, simply will ultimately lower its maximum threshold for stored energy.

Voltage chart courtesy of Battery University.

If you keep your phone's bombardment somewhere betwixt a forty and 80 percent charge, you should be able to become more than life out of information technology in the long run. This doesn't exactly work for those who like to accuse overnight, but it's certainly an option for those who get in a quick accuse here and there over the course of a day.

Those who are frustrated with a device that gets to 30 percent bombardment and powers down tin can effort a calibration to become a more accurate reading. Let your battery bleed completely and recharge to 100 per centum while information technology'south powered downwardly. Once y'all turn it back on, the gauge should give a more than accurate read of the time you have left earlier y'all'll be looking for an outlet.

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