People involved in the research and development of smartphones are not from another planet. The engineers involved in the design process of chips and batteries do not belong to an alternate timeline or work in an isolated environment. They live on the same planet as we do and face the same problems we face when it comes to smartphones and electronic devices. Needless to say, when they are at work designing the next best smartphone for their companies, these brilliant people are very well aware of the downsides of an always-connected life.
Smart devices have become essential parts of our digitally integrated lifestyle, meeting our personal as well as professional needs. While we use our smartphone to check work emails, send quick-witted tweets, gossip with WhatsApp buddies, shoot YouTube videos and even make phone calls sometimes, wearable-tech tracks our health and our daily routine.
The "internet of things" makes even mundane devices like coffee makers smart and then connects them to our smartphones. With everything integrated with everything, apps are essentially governing our daily lives.
To meet the power needs of running numerous apps and online services, we try to charge our phones whenever possible. Whether it's a ten-minute quick bump before a long call, an hour with car charger while driving to work, or leaving the phone plugged overnight, we are always trying to avoid running out of juice. But, this 24/7 connected lifestyle puts a lot of pressure on the battery of our mobile devices.
Maintaining the right charging habit has become the topic for discussions and since smartphone users do not consist of engineers and scientists only, imagination and myths have sometimes filled the gap in knowledge. Here are some of the most common misconceptions about battery life and the truth behind them.
'It's dangerous to leave your phone plugged at night'
Shorter charging cycles required a new approach to ease the load on rechargeable batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are the best answer that smartphone manufacturers could come up with to address this issue. Found in virtually any digital device nowadays, these "smart" batteries have a built-in electronic controller to regulate how it is charged, recharged or discharged. In other words, Li-ion batteries have an electronic brain to determine when to stop charging. That's why, unless there's a problem in the manufacturing process (I'm looking at you, Galaxy Note 7), a Li-ion battery will not overcharge, burn or explode. So, you can leave your phone plugged at night without any worries.
'Black background preserves battery in LCD screens'
Using a black background for smartphones, tablets or laptops to reduce power usage is a highly common myth among even the most tech-savvy users. The logic behind this myth is simple: It should take more power to illuminate a brighter color, so leaving most of the pixels on the screen black should improve the battery life, right?
Sadly, it isn't. Modern LCD screens use a backlight, mostly in LED form, to illuminate the whole screen. Each pixel on the screen then modulates this light to display the color accordingly. So, black or white doesn't matter, LCD screens consume the same amount of battery power no matter which color is displayed.
OLED screens, which use a thin, bendable layer of organic light-emitting diodes, are a different story. Popularized with the release of iPhone X, this rather-new tech uses tiny electronic diodes to control the content of each pixel individually. OLED displays cannot only display unprecedented levels of black; they can also understand whether the content of a pixel is entirely black. Thus, OLED displays can actually save battery by not illuminating the fully black pixels.
So if you have a smartphone that sports an OLED display, like the iPhone X, Galaxy Note 8, OnePlus 5T, or Mate 10 Pro, then you can save battery by using a black background. This is also the reason why many low-powered wearables with an OLED screen have full-black backgrounds.
'You can extend your battery life by doing this or that...'Remember those brilliant R&D people working at phone companies? They have another task: To make you buy a new smartphone every two or three years. After all, their main objective is to increase sales and that's where "planned obsolescence" comes into play. It is a technical term used to easily say that your phone will get old without you even realizing it, as long as you use it on a daily basis. And in that case, the battery will probably be the first component to deteriorate.
Tech companies use "the cycle life" to determine when a battery capacity will drop below a certain point. A cycle life describes the number of complete charge/discharge cycles of a battery before its capacity drops below eighty percent. Most phones provide over 400-500 cycles. It doesn't matter how you manage these cycles, which brings us to another myth.
'You should always use up your battery before charging it'
Another myth hailing from the pre-Lithium-ion battery era is that you should always completely run down the power, followed by a full charge to a hundred percent. This way, you can calibrate the battery in every charge.
However, Li-ion batteries are not fond of this type of usage. Sure, you can complete a full cycle once in every month, but that should not become a daily charging habit because this kind of usage puts a lot of stress on the battery.
The bottom line, if you want a more efficient battery just charge your device like you refuel your car: Avoid going completely zero, don't be afraid to fill up in small percentages, and prepare yourself to buy a new model in the future.
