Charging iphone 5 battery

danijoh69 · Oct 15, 2012

Can someone tell me the DEFINITIVE word on how often the battery in iPhone 5 should be charged? I read somewhere lithium ion batteries should be kept charged, like every nite; others say let it run almost flat! What is Apple's advice?
Appreciate your input!!

nick779 · Oct 15, 2012

i charge mine every night regardless

Skull One · Oct 15, 2012

Best advice I can give is try not to let it get below 40% unless you need to, of course, and charge every night even if you are still not below 80%. Because it will never hurt the battery.

notoriousbeast · Oct 15, 2012

if i charge mine when i let it go down to 30-40% it lasts no where near as long as when i let it go down to 10% then fully charge it. its strange but true.

Norbert · Oct 15, 2012

Ok so my advise is when the phone is brand new for the first 3 cycle run the batt below 20%
After that just charge the iPhone normally anytime you like but I wouldn't recommend to leave you phone plugged all night ;(( that's a no!! and by the way I got this tricks from someone that works for apple.

I do this tricks with every new iPhone and I can tell you my iPhone batt last long time very good juice.And then once a month I completely go down to like 5% and then full charge after that this keeps you battery calibrated

hookbill · Oct 15, 2012

Skull One said:
Best advice I can give is try not to let it get below 40% unless you need to, of course, and charge every night even if you are still not below 80%. Because it will never hurt the battery.

Skull I'm not with you on that. While I don't believe in discharging totally and think there is nothing wrong with charging at 40%, I don't think it does any harm to go to 20.

Personally I just charge mine at night no matter where it is. I don't believe you can do anything special to make the battery last longer off a single charge. I have heard that it's a good idea every once in a while to let it discharge completely but that is to help the overall battery life, not a charge. AndI can't say that's true because I never have a phone long enough for the battery to die.

hookbill · Oct 15, 2012

Norbert said:
Ok so my advise is when the phone is brand new for the first 3 cycle run the batt below 20%
After that just charge the iPhone normally anytime you like but I wouldn't recommend to leave you phone plugged all night ;(( that's a no!! and by the way I got this tricks from someone that works for apple.
I do this tricks with every new iPhone and I can tell you my iPhone batt last long time very good juice.And then once a month I completely go down to like 5% and then full charge after that this keeps you battery calibrated

If you stand on one foot and point the battery north before removing from charge that helps too.

I'm sorry, I don't subscribe to any of these so called calibrations of a lithium battery. Charge it when you want, if it runs low occasionally it won't hurt it.Lithium batteries power until full then stop powering. How long they last just depends on the amount of use.

thomamon · Oct 15, 2012

For me, the I let the battery drain to 0% for the first 1 or 2 charges with every new phone. Then I charge it normally as needed. Every couple of weeks I let it drain all the way down to 0 again and then let it charge about 1/2 - 1 hour once it reaches 100%. So far I've had great success with it!

Unfortunately I just finished a full service charge so I can't share current results with you. But I can do that tomorrow if ya would like.

notoriousbeast · Oct 15, 2012

I let it go down to around 10% then charge it to full the pic attached is my normal battery life mostly playing games, texting, and forums. Also usually on wifi

Skull One · Oct 15, 2012

Ok, I think we need to get some serious facts injected to this conversation.

1) You DO NOT need to condition a Lithium-Ion Battery EVER.

2) You DO NEED to deplete and then full recharge a Lithium-Ion battery in ANY device that shows the remaining power available. Otherwise the device doesn't know where full and empty is on the battery.

3) Lithium-Ion batteries DO NOT develop a memory. Point 4 will show why.

4) Lithium-Ion batteries are RATED in terms of the FULL 100% discharge and FULL 100% recharge. If the battery is rated for 500 charges, that means it can take 1000 50% charges or 4000 25% charges.

5) There are 4 phases to a Lithium-Ion Battery.

Phase 1 is from 0% to 71% (+/- 2%) and is a full amperage charge.
Phase 2 is from 7x% to 100% and is a decreasing amperage charge.
Phase 3 is where charging it stopped until the battery falls below a preset level. Usually around 96% (+/- 1%).
Phase 4 is a top off charge to get the battery back to 100% and is at the lowest amperage.

6) Lithium-Ion batteries should NEVER be charged with a CORE temperature below 32F and above 140F.

@ 32F the standard 100% amperage isn't sufficient to overcome the chemical reaction slow down.
@ 140F at 100% amperage you can reach thermal runway and the battery becomes self heating and explodes.

7) The average consumer Lithium-Ion battery will last 2 years under moderate to heavy use.

Lets use a run time of 5 hours of use to reach 40% battery remaining in a 22 hour period with a two hour recharge cycle. That means with a battery rated at 500 full recharges you will get...

500 * 100% = 50,000% of power available.

50,000% / 60% of the battery used = 833 charging cycles.

Since we said the period was 22 hour with 2 hours of recharge that is 24 hours or 1 day.

So 833 days is 2 years and 103 day.

Oh and just for fun, a 400 full cycle recharge rating is 400 * 100% / 60% = 1 year and 301 days.

dbplumb · Oct 15, 2012

Skull One said:
Ok, I think we need to get some serious facts injected to this conversation.

1) You DO NOT need to condition a Lithium-Ion Battery EVER.

2) You DO NEED to deplete and then full recharge a Lithium-Ion battery in ANY device that shows the remaining power available. Otherwise the device doesn't know where full and empty is on the battery.

3) Lithium-Ion batteries DO NO develop a memory. Point 4 will show why.

4) Lithium-Ion batteries are RATED in terms of the FULL 100% discharge and FULL 100% recharge. If the battery is rated for 500 charges, that means it can take 1000 50% charges or 4000 25% charges.

5) There are 4 phases to a Lithium-Ion Battery.

Phase 1 is from 0% to 71% (+/- 2%) and is a full amperage charge.
Phase 2 is from 7x% to 100% and is a decreasing amperage charge.
Phase 3 is where charging it stopped until the battery falls below a preset level. Usually around 96% (+/- 1%).
Phase 4 is a top of charge to get the battery back to 100% and is at the lowest amperage.

6) Lithium-Ion batteries should NEVER be charged with a CORE temperature below 32F and above 140F.

@ 32F the standard 100% amperage isn't sufficient to overcome the chemical reaction slow down.
@ 140F at 100% amperage you can reach thermal runway and the battery becomes self heating and explodes.

7) The average consumer Lithium-Ion battery will last 2 years under moderate to heavy use.

Lets use a run time of 5 hours of use to reach 40% battery remaining in a 22 hour period with a two hour recharge cycle. That means with a battery rated at 500 full recharges you will get...

500 * 100% = 50,000% of power available.

50,000% / 60% of the battery used = 833 charging cycles.

Since we said the period was 22 hour with 2 hours of recharge that is 24 hours or 1 day.

So 833 days is 2 years and 103 day.

Oh and just for fun, a 400 full cycle recharge rating is 400 * 100% / 60% = 1 year and 301 days.

At last some facts

danijoh69 · Oct 17, 2012

This came from Apple's web page thus morning. Since they made the iPhone I have to assume they know best how to maintain it:

For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down).
What do you think?

Skull One · Oct 17, 2012

danijoh69 said:
This came from Apple's web page thus morning. Since they made the iPhone I have to assume they know best how to maintain it:

For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down).
What do you think?

I really think they need to stop watering down the truth for the masses.

Their recommendation is SPOT ON. You do need to do it. But it has NOTHING to do with electrons needing to be moved. It has to do with calibrating iOS to understand where the battery is electrically. Lets look at the the overall situation to understand the why.

Every single Lithium-Ion battery made has a limited lifetime of full cycle charges. When you start with a battery that is brand new, it will have 300 to 500 cycles renaming. But the full storage capacity and the actual power that is delivered to the device, from that battery, is NOT maintained over that lifetime. At the end of the batteries rated cycles it will only have 80% of its original potential. So we now know there is going to be a difference over time. For iOS to understand that difference in power level it must be taught what is a FULL charge and what is a DEPLETED charge. By doing that once a month iOS gets the data it needs to properly show what 100% to 0% is on your battery in your device.

But the second you put that in print on the Apple website, people will start screaming "WHAT DO YOU MEAN MY BATTERY WILL ONLY HAVE 80% after I charge it 500 times!". Then Apple will have to explain it is 500 full cycle charges. And then people will have to understand that if you only use the battery till it read 75% left, that means you can charge it 2000 times. Or if you only use it to 50%, you can charge it 1000 times and . IE most people don't think it thru and they see 500 and 80% without doing the full math or understanding the chemistry behind the scenes.