Thanks I just ordered one. From reading reviews, seems this one is a very accurate one. I detect that my home chargers are bad, but the chances of 3 bad chargers is very slim as they charge my other devices perfectly fine.
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iPad Pro Is it normal for iPads to take longer to charge the older it gets?
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Thanks I just ordered one. From reading reviews, seems this one is a very accurate one. I detect that my home chargers are bad, but the chances of 3 bad chargers is very slim as they charge my other devices perfectly fine.
Okay, this is a severely abnormal issue. Try visiting an Apple Store's Genius Bar...
I got the tester today and been testing. Using my 30 watt chargers and cables I'm getting 6 watts from it. Using the apple OEM iPad 20 watt chargers and I get 4 watts. I wonder what's causing this
My guess stands, PD pins might be damaged and so only 5v charging is possible. Happened to me on other devices
I've been doing some more testing. I started closing down some apps on the ipad and all of a sudden the wattage immediately jumped as high as 15w. But then after 5 seconds, goes back to 9-10 watts. Better than 6 watts but still not 20-30watts.
Second observation, when the ipad is 100% charged, the wattage drops to 2 watts. Maybe the ipad draws more power when the ipad battery is lower? My Samsung phones are this way. When I charge them with the battery at a higher %, it charges at less power. I never drain my devices so I never pull full power out of my chargers to my phones.
I guess the best way to tell would be to drain the ipad to around 10% but I always avoid that because don't want to use up the battery cycles and it's not good for the battery.
Trickle charging! When the battery reaches 80%, it charges a lot slower. That’s normal. I’ve never measured the wattage, but it’s been a feature from the beginning.
We are missing a crucial information to understand whether power delivery is working or not. You are only mentioning wattage, but are not telling us what the voltage is, that's the key. Doesn't you power meter report the voltage? If the voltage is around 5, that Power Delivery is not working, if the voltage if higher (typically 15v) that PD is working. It doesn't matter if it's full or not. Even full, the amperage will go down but the voltage will remain high.
If the voltage is increasing for very short moments than it's that some pins are damaged.
Oh I see.
Okay on the 30watt wall chargers and my portable charger I get 14.58V-14.85V and it stays in that range. 20watt OEM apple chargers 8V and it stays that number.
That's normal because not all charges have all voltages. That means that power delivery is working but the amperage must be extremely low (0.X%), so the mistery remains
Okay thanks. It can't be bad chargers and cables though. Tried them on my phones and the amperage for them is fine. I've even tried different outlets and power bars and UPS and makes no difference.
For instance right now, my ipad dropped to 90%. I plugged it in with the 30 watt home charger and it's been charging at 16W the entire time. I used the same charger this morning to charge the ipad from 90% to 100% and it only took 20 minutes or so.
Yes — and not just iPads.
Apple said:
Batteries - Why Lithium-ion?
Learn why Apple rechargeable lithium-based technology provides the best performance for your iPhone, iPad, iPod, and MacBook.
www.apple.com
My own footnote: Despite Apple’s note of a single step down at 80%, I’ve only seen a notable charge rate reduction at 90% and higher. Additionally, the marketing since fast-charge became available has been “Fast-charge up to 50% charge in 30/35 minutes” or something very similar, which leads me to assume there’s also a rate step down at 50% state of charge — just not easily noticeable.
iPhone - Compare Models
Compare features and technical specifications for iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone SE, and many more.
www.apple.com
By the way, iOS/iPadOS/macOS does report charge rate, you can view it in apps such as coconutBattery.
Overall and generally, yes. However, “smart” batteries and more sophisticated charging systems break outside this rule, at least somewhat — which I’ll get to soon.
Back to the original question, starting with some background...
I’ve witnessed the behavior -- although, not quite as substantial — but haven’t yet done tests (e.g., logging times, durations, etc). Nevertheless, I am confident my iPhone X, nearing six years old, appears to have a decreasing trickle charge rate associated with age. My best guess, at the moment, is about one hour to complete the final 10-percent of charge.
With that said, I see two reasons the final charge would slow over time:
• (Noted earlier) Well known, batteries get weaker with age and use. This weakness also applies to recharging, even more so when charge levels reach the “extreme” (i.e., no and ful charge). In other words, the battery cells can’t safely withstand as much voltage.
• Calculating/estimating battery health, including how weak the cells have become, is an ongoing process. While I have gripes with portions of each, I commonly reference:
Battery Calibration - iFixit Support
All newly-installed smart batteries should be calibrated as soon as possible. This helps your system get an accurate reading on the battery’s state of charge. W
Recalibration could help, and I do recommend it, at least occasionally. Nevertheless, just keep in mind it’s not gong to change the battery behavior back to new/fresh, of course.
P.S. In part because of OCPD, I don’t like partially charging/discharging batteries. Therefore, whenever feasible, I allow the device/gadget/accessory/etc to auto shutdown/off due to low power then immediately begin recharging and allowing it to reach 100%. My nearly six year old iPhone X reached 1000 cycles before dropping below estimated 80% battery health, and is currently at an estimated 75% battery health with 1125+ full charge cycles. My nearly three year old Apple Watch is at an estimated 84% battery health. My 800+ cycles sixth generation iPad running iPadOS 17 has ~65 to 75% battery health and still lasts several days on a single, full charge.
Doing this is frequently cited as the absolutely worst way to treat a battery. From your numbers you seem to have somehow avoided the consequences.
Yes — and not just iPads.
Batteries - Why Lithium-ion?
Learn why Apple rechargeable lithium-based technology provides the best performance for your iPhone, iPad, iPod, and MacBook.www.apple.com
My own footnote: Despite Apple’s note of a single step down at 80%, I’ve only seen a notable charge rate reduction at 90% and higher. Additionally, the marketing since fast-charge became available has been “Fast-charge up to 50% charge in 30/35 minutes” or something very similar, which leads me to assume there’s also a rate step down at 50% state of charge — just not easily noticeable.
iPhone - Compare Models
Compare features and technical specifications for iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone SE, and many more.www.apple.com
By the way, iOS/iPadOS/macOS does report charge rate, you can view it in apps such as coconutBattery.
Overall and generally, yes. However, “smart” batteries and more sophisticated charging systems break outside this rule, at least somewhat — which I’ll get to soon.
Back to the original question, starting with some background...
I’ve witnessed the behavior -- although, not quite as substantial — but haven’t yet done tests (e.g., logging times, durations, etc). Nevertheless, I am confident my iPhone X, nearing six years old, appears to have a decreasing trickle charge rate associated with age. My best guess, at the moment, is about one hour to complete the final 10-percent of charge.
With that said, I see two reasons the final charge would slow over time:
• (Noted earlier) Well known, batteries get weaker with age and use. This weakness also applies to recharging, even more so when charge levels reach the “extreme” (i.e., no and ful charge). In other words, the battery cells can’t safely withstand as much voltage.
• Calculating/estimating battery health, including how weak the cells have become, is an ongoing process. While I have gripes with portions of each, I commonly reference:
Battery Calibration - iFixit Support
All newly-installed smart batteries should be calibrated as soon as possible. This helps your system get an accurate reading on the battery’s state of charge. Whelp.ifixit.com
Recalibration could help, and I do recommend it, at least occasionally. Nevertheless, just keep in mind it’s not gong to change the battery behavior back to new/fresh, of course.
P.S. In part because of OCPD, I don’t like partially charging/discharging batteries. Therefore, whenever feasible, I allow the device/gadget/accessory/etc to auto shutdown/off due to low power then immediately begin recharging and allowing it to reach 100%. My nearly six year old iPhone X reached 1000 cycles before dropping below estimated 80% battery health, and is currently at an estimated 75% battery health with 1125+ full charge cycles. My nearly three year old Apple Watch is at an estimated 84% battery health. My 800+ cycles sixth generation iPad running iPadOS 17 has ~65 to 75% battery health and still lasts several days on a single, full charge.
Thanks, good to know this. I guess I just don’t run my iPads down like a lot of users do. Last night my iPad somehow managed to get down to 80% though and I plugged it into one of my 30 watt home chargers and right away it charged at 19watts and it stayed that way for a bitand as the battery charged, the wattage dropped more and more. So to get max 30 watts going to the iPad, the iPad battery would likely have to be lower than 20%. But it wouldn’t stay at 30 watts for too long.
So this makes sense now and it seems my iPad is charging properly. I just always thought the iPad would always take in max wattage regardless of how much juice the iPad battery has. I guess trickle charge is done so devices don’t overcharge.
This is partly the reason for which I don’t recommend any battery care. It has some aspects:
-Battery health is irrelevant if the device isn’t updated, so if you update, whatever battery life you gain by doing this, you lose a lot more by updating.
-The method itself has a lot of variability. Many take care of the battery with those charging patterns and lose battery health anyway, many don’t and battery health is fine (their case).
And also, I’ve frequently commented on this: a possible solution to Apple obliterating battery life through iOS updates is increasing battery size. Make it so the initial battery life is so good that it has a whole lot of margin in spite of SOT loss through increased power requirements.
The A10 on the iPad 6th-gen isn’t a whole lot better than the A9X on the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, probably a little more efficient. But it has a battery that’s 20.8% larger (8,827 mAh vs 7,306 mAh). The result? On iOS 12, with the same setting and the same usage, the 6th-gen iPad gets me 13-14 hours and the 9.7-inch iPad Pro struggles to get more than 10... or in other words, a 23% difference. Funnily enough, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro’s battery life on iOS 9 was... 13-14 hours. So if the 9.7-inch iPad Pro’s battery were larger, it would be able to have a decent SOT on iOS 12, too. Yes, it would be like 18 hours on iOS 9, but 13-14 isn’t poor, whereas struggling to get more than 10 with very light use isn’t too good in my opinion. Completely usable, especially compared to iPadOS 16, but not great.
So yesterday it charged fine? That’s a weird glitch. I’d never heard of that happening.
According to the readings I am getting using the USB-C power tester, my ipad has been charging fine all along.