What could be more convenient than plugging in your iPhone on your nightstand and charging your device while you sleep? This habit has its obvious pros: you won’t miss any time not being able to use your phone and, when you wake, it will have a battery capacity of 100 percent and be ready to take you through the entire day if you’re lucky.
But overnight charging has always been the subject of discussion among tech experts. In the early days of the smartphone, there were reports of phones catching fire while being charged overnight and cut-and-dry advice followed: stop charging your phone for hours at a time, especially if it is being protected by a case that causes the battery to heat up while you’re charging your phone.
But, considering how smartphone batteries have been upgraded to lithium-ion batteries, is it still unsafe to charge your phone for long blocks of time? Here’s why one tech expert says it’s still recommended not to charge your phone overnight.
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Overnight Charging Makes a Difference
One tech expert explained how he performed a casual experiment at home using two iPhones — one that he purchased for his wife and one of his own. His wife was a habitual overnight phone charger, while he says he rarely if ever put his phone on a charger at night. Even with Optimized Battery Charging settings enabled for both phones, his wife’s phone battery health was at 93 percent, while his was consistently at 100 percent.
Optimized Battery Charging is Important
Enabling Optimized Battery Charging is important because this setting learns your phone’s charging habits so that once it reaches 80 percent charge, the battery than undergoes trickle charging, which means the battery charges very slowly to avoid overcharging. It’s a helpful and effective setting no matter how often you place your phone on a charger. To enable it, go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health & Charging > Enable Optimized Battery Charging > toggle this feature on.
Charging Tips
It’s preferable not to charge your phone overnight, and to instead charge it in shorter bursts of time throughout the day that keep its charge steady between 30 and 80 percent. Whether you charge it overnight or other times, be careful about making sure you aren’t charging it in direct sunlight or extreme heat or cold, as this is damaging to your phone’s battery. Enable Optimized Battery Charging and always use a quality charger and charging cables that are MFI-certified and safe for your iPhone.
