1. Keep your battery from going to 0% or 100%
Some of you might think that the best way to keep your battery healthy is to charge it and discharge it fully i.e. to try to charge it to 100% and drain it completely. You might have heard that calibrating your battery makes it work better.
This is a holdover from older battery types: lithium-ion batteries don’t work this way. There is no battery memory to calibrate. On the contrary, you’re stressing your lithium-ion battery more and shortening its lifespan by doing so: discharging your battery fully at 100% compared to 60% can halve the lifespan of your battery .
Because lithium-ion batteries come under the most stress when they’re fully charged or fully drained the best approach is partial charging. Ideally you should charge your battery up to about 80% and avoid having it drop lower than 30%. If this isn’t practical, try to aim for a maximum of 90% and to start charging your phone before it hits 20%.
2. Avoid charging your battery beyond 100%
While leaving your phone to charge overnight is a common habit, it can actually shorten its battery lifespan. When kept at 100% charge your battery not only experiences higher stress from the higher voltage, heat also builds up over time.
While mobile phone batteries wont overheat to the point that it’s dangerous to the user, exposing a battery to high heat is one of the fastest ways to shorten its lifespan.
If you can’t avoid leaving your phone to charge overnight, make sure its in cool or well-ventilated place so the heat can more easily dissipate. For example, not under your pillow.
3. Charge slowly if you can
No one will argue that fast charging technologies are a great time-saver. If you’re intent on maximising your battery’s lifespan, you should probably save them for emergencies as they can stress out and damage your battery, especially if you have an older phone.
On the other hand, charging your battery more slowly is good for it. As such, charging your phone through your computer or laptop can actually be a good thing.
