How often do you charge your iPhone? Better question: where do you charge your iPhone and what other charging habits do you have? Asking yourself to reflect on your phone charging habits may seem silly or unimportant because, after all, how difficult can it be to charge a phone? But charging mistakes are responsible for battery degradation — make too many of them and, over time, you can cause your phone to lose its longevity.
Fortunately, charging mistakes are also fairly easy to correct. Apple employees often warn against these seven common charging mistakes that can ruin your phone prematurely.
Using a Charger Not Designed for Your Phone
If you’re using a cheap charger or one that isn’t designed for your iPhone, that charger could be delivering the wrong charge for your device’s needs. If, for example, a charger is charging your phone too fast, this can result in your phone overheating and the battery slowly losing its efficacy as a result. Make sure you’re always using Apple chargers or chargers that are Apple-certified.
Charging in Extreme Temperatures
Extreme temps like a too hot or too cold space are murder on your phone battery. If you’re charging in direct sunlight, let’s say, you’re adding even more heat to an already heated situation, which is bad for your battery.
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Never Cleaning Your Charging Port
Your phone’s charging port can become clogged with dust, dirt, and debris. Make sure you clean it out from time to time using a dry Q-tip or forced air. This will also help your charging sessions be more effective.
Using Damaged Charging Cables
Still holding onto that frayed charging cable? It’s time to let it go and purchase a new one. Not only can damaged cables cause your charging sessions to be less effective, but they are dangerous to use.
Charging to 100 Percent
Charging your phone to 100 percent each time is a way to shorten your battery’s lifespan, plus it isn’t necessary. As long as you’re working to keep your phone in the 40-to-80-percent charges zone, you’ll give it the power needed to perform most of your tasks for a long period of time.
Using Your Phone While it Charges
It’s so tempting to use your phone while it’s charging so that you don’t miss a beat when it comes to work or your social commitments. But when you continue using it while it’s on a charger you are forcing it to work harder, which creates heat and wears down your battery.
Using a Phone Case While Charging
A lot of us charge our phone with the phone case on and nothing ever happens. It’s possible nothing ever will happen. But a bulky phone case can create heat — adding the heat from charging on top of that can lead to a situation where your phone overheats, and this negatively impacts your battery. If you feel your phone getting hotter when it charges, try removing the case.
