Few things in life are more satisfying than seeing a full green bar of power in your iPhone’s battery box. It makes you feel like everything is right in the world.
On the flip side, the terror of watching that bar slowly pass through darker shades on the color spectrum as it edges ominously toward the left fringe of existence makes even the strongest of us run for our phone chargers (that are hopefully covered with a protective sleeve to extend their lives!).
The worst thing is when there’s barely any time elapsed between the two states of being (talk about a roller coaster). You know what we’re talking about — when your iPhone’s battery is so worn out that the minute you start watching your favorite YouTube video the charger dips from full to empty faster than a diesel truck that’s sprung a leak.
Don’t worry, we’ve got your back. Want to make your battery last longer and hold that oh-so-soothing charge all day? Here are 3 hacks that can do just that.
Stop charging your battery to 100% all of the time
It seems only logical that you’d want your battery as full as it can go. The problem is that lithium ion batteries don’t work that way.
Your battery operates in two different phases:
● Fast charge – this brings your battery to 80% quickly, giving you enough power to do what you’ve got to but not making you sit and wait until 100%.
● Trickle charge – this is the final 20%. It’s like the law of diminishing returns — you wait longer for each % point of battery and get less out of it.
Here’s the kicker: your battery also lasts a certain amount of “lifecycles”, or charges from 0-100%. According to Batteryuniversity.com, the more times you charge it to 100%, the more stress you put on the battery, which in turn reduces the lifecycle. Want to optimize your usage? Keep the battery at about 80% and let it fall down to around 40%. You’ll still have enough battery to get things done, but you won’t put so much stress on it (sorry if this means you can’t watch more Youtube videos on your way to work!).
iPhone charger always breaking? Are you not able to even get your battery close to 100%? Try these 6 tricks to protect your iPhone charger.
Allow your battery to drain to 0% once a month
If you thought never letting your battery reach a full charge was good for extending the life of your iPhone, then this next tip is about to turn your world upside down!
Letting your battery actually drain fully to 0% will actually help “calibrate” it and allow it to last longer. At least according to most manufacturers (and a ton of other geeky tech heads around the web). The verdict is still out on how much it helps, but every little bit is important.
With each charge cycle, the life of your battery diminishes a little. By draining it to 0, you allow the operating system to calibrate how much it has diminished over time. It will help your charge icon be more accurate (you know, like, when you have 90% one minute and then your phone starts begging you to turn on power saver mode? That’s when you should do this).
YOU DON’T NEED TO CLOSE APPS!
Closing apps is almost like giving your phone a bath. There’s something cleansing about the feeling of washing away all of the old apps you “used to” use.
There’s one dirty little secret, though: you don’t need to close apps! We repeat: you do not need to close apps! iOS software will freeze open apps that you are not using (sans location services, music, and recording audio).
In fact, constantly opening and closing apps will use more energy than simply leaving them open. All of this draining of your battery is going to put a lot of stress on it, leading to a shorter lifespan.
That means all of you out there that love the therapeutic feeling of double tapping the home button and swiping up on all of the background pages are going to be sorely disappointed (sorry!).
So there you have it! For those of you out there that are tired of having your battery drain instantly as soon as open up a few apps, there are a few hacks that you can use to make your iPhone battery last a little longer. Now if only there were a way to make your iPhone chargers last that long too….