How should I charge my new iPhone 8?

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Level 1

8 points

How should I charge my new iPhone 8?

Hello,

I have heard much about how you should charge phones correctly for the battery, and some other ways how you should not. For example, I have heard that you should NOT let it go down to zero, and you should keep the phone between 40% and 80%. Is this correct? I got my new iPhone 8 for Christmas and we set it up a few days later. I want to charge it correctly, so I do not damage the battery. Should I charge the phone at 40%, and unplug it at 80%? Or should I plug it in at 40% and charge to 100% or is that bad? Or is there something else I should do to charge my phone? Please let me know the correct way to charge it, for the best health of the battery and phone.

Thanks,

Ryan

iPhone 8

Posted on Jan 5, 2020 11:32 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Johnathan Burger

Level 9

70,843 points

Jan 5, 2020 11:35 AM in response to RyanK39

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208387

https://www.apple.com/batteries/maximizing-performance/

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Answer 2

y_p_w

Level 6

17,762 points

Jan 5, 2020 12:55 PM in response to RyanK39

RyanK39 wrote:

So is it okay if I plug it in at 40% and I unplug it at 80% or a bit higher?

There's nothing about doing so that will damage a battery. If you could manage to keep it up, that might extend the battery life. Some think it might even allow multiple times as much totally energy to go through the battery. However, it would be difficult to keep it up unless diligent about stopping use at 40% and constantly monitoring the battery while it's charging. Maybe it's possible with a USB battery pack.

I think the best thing to do is not worry about it. Apple make absolutely no recommendations other than to avoid heat and charge a battery before it goes into deep discharge (which requires being well under "0%"). Most users might go through one battery change even with Apple's specified battery longevity (500 cycles to 80%).

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Answer 3

y_p_w

Level 6

17,762 points

Jan 5, 2020 12:17 PM in response to RyanK39

What's your goal?

Certainly there are theoretical ways to extend ultimate battery longevity. To some degree all lithium rechargeable battery charging systems are built with margins to keep the charge range within a certain band. Some use less of the theoretical charge range to extend battery longevity. Some systems can be programmed to use less of the range. Think Tesla cars or some notebook computers. Apple doesn't give such options.

But in the end trying to manually maintain a battery within a narrow range is difficult to do in practice, and it's easy and reasonably inexpensive to replace the battery. I don't worry about such things. I've taken it down to 0% where it's shut off and connect it to power whenever it's convenient. I'll leave it plugged in (it won't overcharge) and don't worry about it because at a certain point it stops trying to charge the battery unless it gets below a certain point.

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