How can I conserve my battery’s life?
From a laptop battery to a cell phone battery, getting the most out of your battery is important! Luckily, there are some simple things you can do to help ensure your battery stays in good health.
Perform shallow discharges.
You wouldn’t let your care run completely out of gas, and you shouldn’t let your battery run completely out of juice. Discharge your battery to between 40-70% before recharging it and try your best to not let it go below 20%.
With every rule, there is always an exception. When it comes to a laptop, they can get confused by shallow discharges and may show you wrong estimates for how long your battery will last. Laptop manufacturers recommend you perform a full discharge about once per month to help calibrate the battery time estimate.
Keep them cool.
You don’t like to get too hot, and neither does your battery! Keep your battery from overheating by not leaving it in the sun, next to a heater, or in your car. Let’s get technical for a minute: There are liquid electrolytes that fill the gaps between the lithium cobalt oxide and graphite layers and stop the two components from touching. This is what the lithium ions travel through when they’re shuttling between the two layers. At high temperatures, these liquid electrolytes start to break down, causing the battery to degrade.
Don’t leave your device plugged in when at 100%.
So wake up at 2:00 a.m. and unplug your phone. Just kidding, sort of. Your devices will age faster if they’re constantly plugged in while already charged to 100%. The best plan here is to do your best. If you have an iPhone, the new “optimized battery charging” feature understands your daily charging routine so it can wait to finish charging past 80% until you need to use it.
Despite all your best efforts, batteries do have a finate life. If you begin to notice your battery charge is not holding, give us a call at Tech Unlimited! We can replace your cell phone or laptop battery to get you back to optimal performance.