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Kendo

macrumors 68020
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Apr 4, 2011
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I'm curious about how people charge their devices. Do you take it off as soon as it hits 100% or do you try and make sure it is completely at 100 by leaving it on the charger for a few more mins?
 
The way charging works on iPhones and iPads (any iDevice really) is that it charges to 100% and then stops charging. When the battery charge drops to a certain percentage it starts charging back to 100% again.

So, your question is really strange because how do you top off a 100% charge, particularly when the circuitry has determined to STOP charging?
 
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The way charging works on iPhones and iPads (any iDevice really) is that it charges to 100% and then stops charging. When the battery charge drops to a certain percentage it starts charging back to 100% again.

So, your question is really strange because how do you top off a 100% charge, particularly when the circuitry has determined to STOP charging?
I’m not sure how iOS works, but on an android phone it is still trickle charging even after it hits 100%. From what I remember, it takes another 10 minutes or so before it completely stops sending tiny amounts of current to the battery. I verified this with Accubattery, which shows in real time how much is going into the battery, as well as the speed and temperature.
 
I’m not sure how iOS works, but on an android phone it is still trickle charging even after it hits 100%. From what I remember, it takes another 10 minutes or so before it completely stops sending tiny amounts of current to the battery. I verified this with Accubattery, which shows in real time how much is going into the battery, as well as the speed and temperature.
I don't mean to sound flip, but…that's Android. We're talking about iPhones in a iPhone section of an Apple oriented site. This is how they work when charging. So, again…'topping off' isn't a thing here.
 
I'm curious about how people charge their devices. Do you take it off as soon as it hits 100% or do you try and make sure it is completely at 100 by leaving it on the charger for a few more mins?

Mine sits on its wireless stand. I charge it when I can and take it off when I need it.
It is a habit I have developed over time to ensure my phone doesn't "run out".
I really don't pay a lot of attention to the "%" especially when they took that away from the home screen 😕
 
I don't mean to sound flip, but…that's Android. We're talking about iPhones in a iPhone section of an Apple oriented site. This is how they work when charging. So, again…'topping off' isn't a thing here.
That’s exactly the point. There is no way to know if they are actually at 100% the second the phone goes from 99% to 100%. Apple does weird stuff with their batteries, like fudging the numbers where 100% on the phone can actually be anywhere from 96-100%. There’s no easy way to tell.
 
That’s exactly the point. There is no way to know if they are actually at 100% the second the phone goes from 99% to 100%. Apple does weird stuff with their batteries, like fudging the numbers where 100% on the phone can actually be anywhere from 96-100%. There’s no easy way to tell.
Assuming charging stops before 100% (and it doesn't, as I've already explained) why does that matter?

Are you in such a situation where one or two seconds or minutes of battery life is a very serious issue?

Honestly, just use your phone and don't overthink it. This whole battery game is really for naught when you consider that your device is going to be old one day and either sold or have the battery replaced. What's the point in getting wrapped up in it?

Just my opinion.
 
I'm curious about how people charge their devices. Do you take it off as soon as it hits 100% or do you try and make sure it is completely at 100 by leaving it on the charger for a few more mins?

I remove the phone off charge when I want to. I plug in when I go to sleep and unplug when I wake up. Never going to play into the whole “battery maintenance” game, it’s just not worth your sanity.

If I do a top up during the day I’ll top upend unplug when I need to use the phone or leave. There’s not technique or anything.
 
Assuming charging stops before 100% (and it doesn't, as I've already explained) why does that matter?

Are you in such a situation where one or two seconds or minutes of battery life is a very serious issue?

Honestly, just use your phone and don't overthink it. This whole battery game is really for naught when you consider that your device is going to be old one day and either sold or have the battery replaced. What's the point in getting wrapped up in it?

Just my opinion.
I'm not wrapped up in anything, just commenting on the other user asking if you should keep it plugged in for a few minutes even after it says 100%.
 
Given battery life on 11 Pro is so good now personally if mine’s near 80%+ i leave it off the charger. Keeping it for long time at 100% is supposed to reduce battery life (read up at Battery University etc), as it very low % too. Hence iOS 13 now has battery optimisation on charging, which will basically only charge it to 80% at first and then top up to 100% only shortly before it thinks you need to start using the phone. This covers the common use case of overnight stand charging or any other regular behaviour - which is figures out itself after a couple of weeks via machine learning. On the other hand, as someone says, so what at the end of the day if your battery degrades too much just get Apple to replace it. Certainly don’t not enjoy your phone how you want worrying too much about battery life.
 
Lmao just forget about it man.

I tried to follow all the steps to preserve good battery health and I think it somehow made it worse 😂 and people that don't care at all about their battery all have 100% health and leave it charging all the time..
 
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Lmao just forget about it man.

I tried to follow all the steps to preserve good battery health and I think it somehow made it worse and people that don't care at all about their battery all have 100% health and leave it charging all the time..

This is literally me! Both my 8 Plus and Xs Max was at 100% when I upgraded after a whole year of usage without worrying about battery life.
 
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This is literally me! Both my 8 Plus and Xs Max was at 100% when I upgraded after a whole year of usage without worrying about battery life.

🤦‍♂️ I'm down to 90% by following all the 'rules' (65-80% charge, no over night charging, etc etc) 😂 Lesson learned, just beat on this phone like it's a tool and not worry about it.
 
Ok, I'll answer the oblique question:

When the charge indicator first hits 100%, like when you're staring at it or checking incessantly, the battery isn't actually filled to the tippy top brim. There's still a tiny bit more juice it can accept. As it sits there with the indicator at 100%, it's actually really at more like 98% and still trickling in a few watts until it hits the real 100% maybe 10-15 minutes later. But the charge indicator will still say 100%.
Then when the battery really hits its maximum, the charge controller in the phone completely turns off charging. No current at all goes into the phone. The charge indicator will still say 100%.
As the phone sits there, doing nothing but staying alive (or fetching emails unattended) the battery of course will slowly discharge because the charger is off (though still plugged in). As the phone slowly discharges off of peak charge voltage, the charge indicator still will show 100%. In fact it will show 100% when discharging off of a full charge until the real charge level gets somewhere down near 96 to 98%. Only then will the charge indicator start to budge. And only then will the charge controller allow the charging to begin again.
 
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Ok, I'll answer the oblique question:

When the charge indicator first hits 100%, like when you're staring at it or checking incessantly, the battery isn't actually filled to the tippy top brim. There's still a tiny bit more juice it can accept. As it sits there with the indicator at 100%, it's actually really at more like 98% and still trickling in a few watts until it hits the real 100% maybe 10-15 minutes later. But the charge indicator will still say 100%.
Then when the battery really hits its maximum, the charge controller in the phone completely turns off charging. No current at all goes into the phone. The charge indicator will still say 100%.
As the phone sits there, doing nothing but staying alive (or fetching emails unattended) the battery of course will slowly discharge because the charger is off (though still plugged in). As the phone slowly discharges off of peak charge voltage, the charge indicator still will show 100%. In fact it will show 100% when discharging off of a full charge until the real charge level gets somewhere down near 96 to 98%. Only then will the charge indicator start to budge. And only then will the charge controller allow the charging to begin again.
Even if that is the case (which it probably is),there’s no way to know if the charger keeps slowly charging the phone for 5 minutes or 5 hours, because we simply don’t know. Sure it’s likely around 10-20 minutes, but we still don’t know. Because of this, even if your phone said 100% and you knew exactly how long it had been at 100%, you have no clue if you’re still slowly charging up to 100%, if the controller has already stopped charging and the battery has started going down, if you’re at the true peak, etc. So really, you have no idea at which point in “top-off” cycle your phone is in, so there’s no way to know you’re not actually getting less battery capacity by letting it charge an extra 10-15 minutes. So really, there’s little to no point in waiting past 100%, because there’s no way to truly known battery capacity without dismantling the device and testing the physical battery.
There really is no meaningful purpose to let your phone keep charging, as it’s just a guessing game at that point for 1-2% extra
 
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This is literally me! Both my 8 Plus and Xs Max was at 100% when I upgraded after a whole year of usage without worrying about battery life.

same here: my XS Max was still at 100% health after a year, and I had it plugged in for CarPlay a ton, sitting on a wireless charger, top it off at night :)
 
I just charge my Pro Max overnight while I'm asleep during the work week, and skip a Friday/Saturday night charge since the battery is so good and I'm not using it nearly as much on the weekends.
 
In the northern hemisphere, electronic interaction with Earth's magnetic field dictates that you should charge during odd hours (i.e., 0700-0800, 0900-1000, 1100-1200, etc.) if the phone is right side up, and the even hours (i.e., 0800-0900, 1000-1100, etc.) if the phone is upside down. Reverse that rule in the southern hemisphere and during times of high solar flare activity.
 
In the northern hemisphere, electronic interaction with Earth's magnetic field dictates that you should charge during odd hours (i.e., 0700-0800, 0900-1000, 1100-1200, etc.) if the phone is right side up, and the even hours (i.e., 0800-0900, 1000-1100, etc.) if the phone is upside down. Reverse that rule in the southern hemisphere and during times of high solar flare activity.
Do you also need to spin 3 times clockwise (or counterclockwise if in the southern hemisphere)?
 
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