1. Does Charging your phone overnight kills the battery?
This tops our list of top 8 questions about smartphone charging. Recent smartphones are smart (of course). They possess built-in smart chips that prevent them from further charging when the battery hits 100%. Consequently, this safeguards the phone from taking in more charge than what it needs. The smartphone battery charges battery charges to 100%, the protection chip inside the phone will stop current from coming in and consequently turn off the charger. Also, many good quality chargers have protection chips in them. This stops the charger from pumping more power into the smartphone than what’s required. So, it’s safe to charge the battery overnight? Not so fast. Although the smarts in the charger and smartphone stop further charging when the battery hits 100%, the charger will turn back on to top off all the lost charge. The battery loses some charge naturally and the charger will continue attempting to fill up these lost bits of charge. This puts your battery in and out of charging, increasing the temperature of the phone and consequently reducing the battery’s capacity to hold charge overtime.
2. Should I wait to charge my phone until it’s completely drained?
NO! Deeply discharging any battery damages it. This is because of the chemical process that happens when a battery is deeply discharged. Therefore, most lithium batteries have chips that disable the battery to protect it from fully discharging. Lithium-Ion batteries that power most of today’s cellphones have a recharging threshold at 40%. It is advisable to have your battery above this figure, but still not always at 100% for optimal performance but fully discharging is not good for any battery.
3. Should I use off-brand chargers?
Most reasons why people use off-brand chargers include loss of the charging equipment that came with the device or trying to top up your battery with a friend’s charger. While these are not optimal, they are mostly fine if you avoid knockoffs. Smartphones are heading towards a uniform form factor and so are the equipment that charges them. However, avoid duplicate charging accessories that disguise as authentic brands. You are better off using off-brand chargers from legitimate brands like Belkin, Xiaomi and KMS.
4. Why does my phone heat up while charging?
Sometimes when charging, the smartphone and/or the charger may heat up. This is especially when you continue to use your smartphone while it is being charged. This continuous discharge and recharge of the battery creates heat and soon the phone will become hot.
5. Why doesn’t my phone have wireless charging?
Firstly, congratulations your phone has one of the newest features in smartphone functionality. Wireless charging is a technology that permits charging over (very) tiny distances without cables. It is quicker, easier and looks neater. Therefore, your phone has wireless charging to enable you charge without the need for cables. If you are a proud owner of the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, you can also use reverse wireless charging to charge other wireless charging enabled devices.
6. Should I use my phone while it’s charging?
Still remember the days of the exploding Galaxy Note 7? This nightmare still haunts many people and it might have validated the myth about not using a phone as it charges. Many people believe that using a phone while it charges put you at risk of it exploding in your face. Maybe you should be worried if you are charging the phone with a sketchy third-party. However, you should be more worried about the heat buildup. You have higher chances of finding Narnia in your closest than having the phone explode in your phone. But there is still a probability of it happening as we saw with the Note 7 so be careful.
7. Does charging phone slowly affect battery life?
Slow charging is great for a lithium battery. Fast charging can potentially cause harm to the battery especially if the battery wasn’t designed for ultra-fast charging. Slow charging reduces on the heat buildup improving battery health. However, slow charging may mean you have to charge the point over night to wake up with a full battery. This might bring in the compilations of overnight charging.
8. Do I need to charge my phone before using it for the first time?
The idea that we should charge fully before first use comes from older battery technologies, like NiCd. Before the first use, you had to “form” NiCd batteries by fully discharging and fully charging. Then they had to be regularly charged to full before using – consistently charging the battery to only 75 percent, for example, would cause the battery to lose capacity. Today’s lithium batteries are just fine whether you give them that initial charge or not.
