8 Battery Charging Tips to Effortless Extend Your Battery Life

You pay a lot for your phone, and while your battery may last long initially, there’s a certain amount of charges that every phone battery has before it degrades. Lithium ion battery charging tips can help you maximize your battery life by following key practices proven to extend your battery life.

If you just purchased your phone, you can follow first time battery charging tips to boost your battery life, or you can follow these tips even if your phone is a little older.

You can even use the tips that we discuss for all of your media devices, including tablets, laptops and phones.

1. Understand How Your Battery Works

If you want to be a master of battery life, you need to know how your battery works. Everyone knows that when they plug their charger into an outlet, the battery on their device charges. But every charge is a little different.

Batteries have cycles, which can be thought of as a charge from 0 to 100.

After around 400 charges, your battery life is expected to deplete by 20%. If you only charged to 50%, you would effectively have 800 charges before depleting your battery by 20%.

2. Avoid Extreme Temperatures

Heat is the enemy of all electronic devices. If your battery gets too hot, it will degrade faster. You want to avoid:

• High temperatures
• High voltages

For example, if the battery is charged at 86 degrees, it will retain 80% capacity after about a year. If you charge at 104F, your battery life would be just 65%. Keep your phone out in the open, away from heat and allow ample space for heat to dissipate.

3. Don’t Use Fast Charging

I use technologies like Solo Force to help charge my phone. I find that it’s a more convenient method of charging, but you need to be cautious when using chargers. Personally, I prefer fast chargers, but they’re the main reason for my battery on my last phone depleting so rapidly.

The key issue with these chargers is heat.

If you leave a fast charger in all night long, the heat will start to damage the battery. Instead, only use fast chargers sparingly – ideally for 20 minutes or less.

When I need a fast charge in the morning, I’ll hook up my fast charger for 15 to 20 minutes. The fast charge lets me get through the morning without having to keep my phone plugged into the charger all day.

4. Keep Your Phone at 50%

One of the NiMH battery charging tips that I have been following for years is to charge your battery to just 50%. Lithium and NiMH batteries seem to have a “sweet spot” for charging that is around 50%.

When you charge to just about half of your battery capacity, you’ll be able to enjoy 800 cycles instead of 400 cycles before your battery starts depleting.

You’ll also notice that a half charge keeps you more cognizant of your phone usage.

5. Turn Down Your Screen Brightness

Some of the best Samsung battery charging tips that I used to use years ago and still holds true today is to turn down the brightness of your screen. I know a lot of people love the bright, blinding screen, but it’s one of the main reasons your battery is dying so fast.

Whether you’re on a phone, laptop or tablet, lower your screen brightness to save on your battery life. If you follow this simple tip, you’ll save battery life immediately. Auto-brightness settings are available on both iOS and Android that can help you manage screen brightness without lifting a finger.

6. Switch to a Dark Theme

If your device has an AMOLED or OLED screen, a dark theme can help preserve your battery life. Now, this tip will only work if you have one of these screen types. Otherwise, it won’t make much of a difference.

With an AMOLD or OLED screen, the pixels that display black simply don’t turn on. That saves on battery life.

Many people (myself included) find that dark themes are easier on the eyes and help prevent eye strain. If you tend to use your phone at night, darker themes may reduce blue light that can disrupt your sleep patterns.

7. Store it Half Charged

One of Apple’s iPhone battery charging tips is to charge your device to 50% before long-term storage. If you’re not going to use your iPhone or Android phone for a while, it’s best not to store it with the battery fully depleted or fully charged.

• If the battery is fully depleted, there’s a chance that it may go into a deep discharge state, making it impossible to hold a charge.
• If the battery is fully charged, it may lose some of its capacity if it’s stored for an extended period of time.

Make sure that you power down your device before storing it. Store your device in a cool, moisture-free environment.

8. Update Your Software (for iPads)

If you want to keep your iPad battery in good health, make sure that you update your software. This is one of the top Apple iPad battery charging tips from Apple itself.

Make sure that your iPad is running the latest version of iOS. It’s very easy to see if you have the latest version of the operating system. I figured it out when I was doing research on how to save money on laundry. I received a notification that there was an update for iOS available. Here’s how I checked to see if I really needed an update:

• Head to Settings > General > Software Updates
• It should say whether or not you need to update your iOS.

If there is an update available, you can plug your tablet into the wall and update wirelessly, or you can connect it to your computer and update it using iTunes.

Updating your software will optimize your iPad and help make it more efficient.

Healthy battery charging habits will help preserve as much of your battery capacity as possible. No matter what you do, your battery won’t last forever, but if you follow these tips, you can extend its lifespan as much as possible.