Our devices are quite important in this digital age. Your gadgets will work better if you keep the battery in your phone, tablet, or smartwatch healthy. If your battery isn’t healthy, your device may shut down unexpectedly, work less well, and need to be charged more often. This tutorial will provide you important suggestions on how to keep your battery healthy so that your gadgets stay charged and ready to use.
1. Learning about battery health
1.1 What does Battery Health mean?
Battery health is the state of a battery and how well it can store and deliver power. Batteries wear down over time because of things like charge cycles, changes in temperature, and how they are used. The first step to keeping your battery healthy is to know how it works.
Modern batteries, especially the lithium-ion ones that most electronics use today, are made to handle a lot of charge cycles. But every cycle, which is a full charge from 0 to 100%, makes the battery’s capacity a little bit less. Because of this natural degradation, the battery will store less charge over time, which means that you will have to charge it more often.
Also, the health of a battery is greatly affected by the temperature. Batteries don’t work well in very hot or very cold conditions. Very hot temperatures can make the battery overheat and wear out quickly, while very cold temperatures can make the battery work less well for a short time. Also, how you use your device affects the battery. Playing games or running heavy apps for a long period will quickly drain the battery and make it hot, all of which are bad for the battery in the long term.
1.2 Things That Affect Battery Health
Battery health is affected by a number of things, such as:
Charge Cycles: Each time the battery is fully discharged and then recharged, its capacity gets a little worse. This indicates that the battery will wear out faster the more you charge your cellphone from 0% to 100%. To make your device last longer, you need to be careful about how often and how much you charge it.
Temperature: Batteries work best when the temperature is temperate. Both very hot and very cold conditions can hurt battery cells. When a battery is exposed to heat for a long time, it can swell and leak. When it is cold, it can give less power and make the gadget work less well.
Patterns of Use: How you use your device can hurt the battery. When you use your phone a lot, such when you play games, edit videos, or use a lot of demanding apps at the same time, the battery can deplete quickly and get too hot. Letting your battery run out fully before charging it again might also make it wear out faster.
2. Useful Advice for Keeping Your Battery Healthy
Taking care of your battery means following good habits and using best practices. Here are some useful tips:
2.1 Stay away from very hot or very cold weather
Batteries work well within a reasonable temperature range. Extreme heat or cold can make batteries last a lot less time. Here’s how to manage temperature:
- Keep Devices Cool: Avoid leaving your device in direct sunlight or heated surroundings. For instance, don’t leave your phone on the dashboard of your car on a sunny day. Heat is one of the fastest ways to impair battery health. High temperatures might cause the battery to overheat, which can lead to swelling and irreparable damage. Ideally, try to store your gadget in a shaded, cool spot when not in use.
- Protect from Cold: In cold weather, keep your device in a warm place to prevent battery strain. Batteries tend to lose their charge more quickly in cold situations and can even cease working completely if they become too cold. If you’re outside in winter, try to keep your phone in an inside pocket close to your body to preserve warmth. Avoid keeping your gadget in a cold car overnight or in situations where the temperature can drop considerably.
2.2 Manage Charging Habits
Proper charging habits might extend your battery’s life. Here’s what you should consider:
- Avoid Overcharging: Disconnect your device once it reaches 100% to prevent battery stress. Keeping a device plugged in after it has fully charged can cause the battery to bulge and other problems. Most modern devices stop charging when they reach 100%, but it’s still a good idea to unplug them just to be cautious.
- Partial Charging: To keep your battery healthy, try to keep it between 20% and 80% charged. Instead of letting your battery die all the way and then charging it all the way up, consider charging it a little bit during the day. Partial charging is a way to charge your phone that is less taxing on the battery and can help it last longer.
- Use the chargers that came with your device: Use only chargers that the manufacturer has approved to make sure your device charges safely and quickly. The quality of third-party chargers might vary, and they can not give your battery the proper amount of power, which could damage it. Using the charger that comes with your smartphone or one that the manufacturer recommends will make sure that your device gets the right voltage and current.
3. Particular Advice for Various Devices
When it comes to battery health, every device has different needs. Here are some device-specific advice, including those for well-known devices like iPhones and other electronics that are used a lot in the UK.
3.1 Android Cell Phones
Although Android phones are popular and multipurpose, if not properly maintained, their batteries may quickly drain. To maintain the health of your Android phone’s battery:
- Limit Background Apps: A lot of apps use battery life when they operate in the background. Limit the number of background processes or manually terminate any apps that aren’t necessary by going to the settings. Controlling background processes can significantly extend battery life because they can be major
- drainers.
Battery Optimisation options: To reduce app activity and save battery, use the integrated battery optimisation options. Usually, this is located in the “Battery” or “Power Management” settings. These settings frequently include choices to limit background data, lower screen brightness, and block programs that use a lot of energy. - Battery Adaptive Feature: If your device has an adaptive battery, turn it on. This function limits battery usage for apps you don’t use often and utilizes machine learning to estimate how much you’ll use them. Your phone can prolong battery life by understanding your usage habits and allocating battery resources more effectively.
To learn more about Android battery performance, go to this Google Support site.
3.2 iPhone models
One of the most widely used gadgets in the UK is the iPhone, which has certain features to support battery health:
- Optimised Battery Charging: This function learns your daily charging schedule and waits until the battery is 80% charged before using it, which helps to slow down battery aging. Make sure this option is turned on in your settings’ Battery Health section.
- Battery Health Monitoring: In the settings, iPhones offer comprehensive data regarding the condition of the battery. To determine your battery’s maximum capacity and peak performance potential, check this frequently.
- Limit Background Activity: You may restrict the amount of time that apps refresh in the background on iPhones, just like on Android. For programs that don’t require background operation, disable the feature by going to Settings > General > Background App Refresh.
- Low Power Mode: When your battery is getting low, switch to Low Power Mode. This reduces background activity and visual effects, helping to extend battery life until you can recharge.
4. The Best Ways to Charge and Use
There are certain general recommended practices for charging and using your devices that can assist preserve battery health across all kinds of devices, in addition to the particular advice for various devices.
4.1 Best Practices for Charging
Your device’s battery health can be greatly impacted by proper charging. The following advice will help you make the most of your charging habits:
- Use Reputable Third-Party Chargers and Cables: Make sure you always use the charger and cord that came with your device or one that satisfies the
- manufacturer’s requirements. Over time, incompatible or subpar chargers might harm your battery. Non-compliant chargers have the potential to overheat your battery or deliver erratic power, which can accelerate battery deterioration.
- It is still best practice to avoid keeping your device plugged in overnight, even if most modern devices are made to shut off charging when they reach 100%. This can lessen the chance of the battery deteriorating due to overheating and extended exposure to a full charge. Use a smart socket or a timer that turns off the power after a predetermined amount of time if you need to charge your device overnight.
- Charge in Quick Flashes: Try charging your battery in shorter spurts rather than letting it run at zero and then charging it to one hundred percent. Maintaining a battery level between 20% and 80% might help your battery last longer and experience less stress. Since lithium-ion batteries are found in the majority of contemporary electronics, this is particularly crucial. Maintaining a mid-level charge is ideal for these batteries’ performance.
- Use a Stable Surface to Charge Your Device: When charging, make sure your device is on a level, hard surface. The gadget may overheat on soft surfaces like couches or mattresses.
4.2 Check the Temperature of the Battery
Maintaining the ideal temperature for your device is essential for the health of the battery. Here are several strategies for efficiently controlling battery temperature:
- Avoid Using Devices in Direct Sunlight: Your device may quickly overheat if you use it in direct sunlight. To keep it cool, try using it indoors or in a shaded spot. Overheating might lower the battery’s total capacity and result in irreversible damage.
- Certain protective cases have the potential to retain heat, therefore remove them while charging. To improve heat dissipation, take off the case if you see your device warming up during charging. By doing this easy action, battery life can be increased and overheating can be avoided.
- Take Breaks from Your Device: Allow your gadget to cool down if you’re using it for demanding activities like gaming or video editing. High-intensity applications that are used for extended periods of time may produce too much heat and damage the battery. Maintaining a safer temperature can be achieved by taking occasional breaks from your activity.
- Steer clear of hot or cold environments when charging because these conditions might harm batteries. To prevent overtaxing the battery, try charging your gadgets in a reasonable temperature.
5. How Battery Management Benefits from Energy Monitoring
With a variety of cutting-edge capabilities, Energy Monitor (EM) is a potent tool made to assist you in controlling and prolonging the life of your device’s battery. EM gives you comprehensive information about how much battery you use, enabling you to make wise choices to preserve battery health across several devices.
5.1 Personalized Alerts
Energy Monitor’s customizable warnings are one of its best features. Low battery levels, ideal charging times, and temperature warnings are just a few of the battery-related events that these notifications might inform you about. You may make sure you take prompt action to preserve the health of your battery by activating these alarms. For example, you can be reminded to charge your battery before it runs too low by receiving an alert when it hits 20%. By keeping your device within a safe working range, temperature notifications can also help you prevent overheating.
5.2 Completely Secured Communication
Energy Monitor guarantees complete end-to-end encryption for all connections between remote devices. This implies that any information sent between your devices and the cloud is safe and only you may access it. If you are keeping an eye on several devices, this feature is very helpful because it lets you control the health of each device’s battery without sacrificing data security. You may use EM to keep your devices operating properly knowing that your data is secure and protected.
Disclaimer
This article’s content is solely intended for general educational and informational purposes. At the time of writing, all information pertaining to battery health, charging habits, temperature control, and device optimization was derived from publicly available technical knowledge and generally recognized best practices. Because outcomes can differ based on the model of the device, operating system version, manufacturer settings, usage patterns, and environmental factors, we cannot promise any particular gains in battery performance, longevity, or device efficiency.
Regular charge cycles, aged parts, and environmental elements like exposure to heat or cold all cause batteries to perform worse over time. The reader assumes all risk and responsibility for any actions taken in response to the advice in this article. Any damage, decreased performance, data loss, overheating problems, or hardware malfunctions that may arise from implementing the aforementioned recommendations are not our responsibility.