There’s been a lot of coverage lately about whether you should leave your smartphones plugged in overnight. Is it bad for the phone? Bad for your safety? What’s the right thing to do?
In fact, how much should you charge your phone? When’s the right time to plug in? Should it go down to 0 percent every time? Up to 100 percent? How do you get the longest life out of a battery inside a smartphone? And does it really matter if you’re only going to keep the handset around for a couple of years before an upgrade?
Indeed, the debate goes well beyond the worry of moderate harm to a device, as some people have fears of perhaps “overloading” a smartphone battery. That worry seems relatively justified since it was only a couple of years ago that Samsung’s Note 7s were bursting into flame due to battery issues. But as we’ve explained before, unless a device has some serious manufacturing defects like that phone did, the fire-in-your-pocket (or on the nightstand) aspect is unlikely.
The problem is, some of the research and opinions out there are diametrically opposed. But we’ve narrowed down the right and wrong things to do as best we can. We present to you the myths and truths of iPhone or Android phone charging, in particular for overnight.
Charging My iPhone Overnight Will Overload the Battery: FALSE
The one thing all the experts agree upon is that smartphones are smart enough that they do not let an overload happen. Extra protection chips inside make sure that doesn’t happen in a tablet or smartphone or even a laptop. Once the internal Lithium-ion battery hits 100 percent of its capacity, charging stops. That…
