Some smartphone battery-charging myths die-hard.

• One of them is that allowing your phone to charge all night is a good idea. It isn’t
  • [The iPad Guy somewhat disagrees with this one!]
• Frequently charging your phone is also a bad idea, believe it or not.
  • Why? Ions traveling from the electrical outlet to the battery cause wear and tear on the battery, which in the long run reduces your smartphone battery’s lifespan. The New York Times published an article reporting that frequently charging Li-Ion batteries “accelerates corrosion”.
• Another bad battery-charging charging habit? Using the wrong charger, not meant for that phone model, as it will be delivering electricity in the wrong capacitance or voltage, which, again, is hard on your smartphone’s battery.

The iPad Guy FREQUENTLY sees students using the wrong charger for the iPads. DO NOT use one of those cheapie chargers – they miss significant power circuitry that the iPads need so they’ll charge corrrectly.

Below are some battery-charging tricks that will extend your battery life:

1. Only charge when your battery gets to 50%. This will cut down on the frequency with which you charge your smartphone battery, and will also keep you from letting it get too low or die, which is equally as bad for it.
2. Use the correct charger. As already mentioned above, you will want to use the charger that came with your smartphone. Microsoft confirms that using the wrong or faulty hardware for phone charging is a bad idea. [NOTE: Apple says the same thing. No, it’s NOT because they are just trying to make more money. There are excellent engineering reasons behind the statements.]
3. Turn off unused apps or features to save battery life. A good trick for saving smartphone battery power is to turn off those power-draining apps that aren’t being used. On the iPads/iPhones, you can:
   1. Turn off Background App Refresh
   2. Select a NONdynamic wallpaper.
   3. Swipe out of any apps you aren’t using. [Doublick the home button, and swipe away].
   4. Shutdown your device every once in a while.
4. Don’t let your phone overheat, i.e. overcharge. Letting your smartphone get overheated due to overcharging it is also a bad idea. One tip on this point is to seek out a less powerful charger for the same model, as that’s a common cause of smartphones overheating. iOS, Android, and Windows devices have lithium ion batteries which can corrode at a rapid rate if they are charged too frequently and/or overheat. For iPads:
   1. ALWAYS use the Apple Charger – do NOT use an el cheapo knockoff.
5. Restart or reboot your device. Restarting iPhones, in particular, can help to cut down on the battery drain. [Make sure you swipe out of all your running apps first, though.]

Original article is HERE.