iPhone SE 2020 battery health

So I went to apple store and he said everything checked out fine but advised me to upgrade to the newest iOS and surprisingly it actually helped my battery performance almost tremendously...

also if need be to completely wipe the phone

start as new iPhone in case there are some corrupted apps messing things up

Exactly the same for me. My 6S was at 87% when I replaced it after 4 years with the SE, which I pre-ordered. Now, 10 month later, the SE is down to 91%. I just had a chat with the Apple Support and they offered me a battery replacement. They also run a diagnosis test which seems to be ok. This means either Apple is aware of the degrading 'problem' or the SE consumes too much energy for the build in battery which would be a failure by design.

It is not possible to overcharge an iPhone. The internal charger stops charging at 100%. It is actually BETTER for the battery to leave the phone plugged in when it reaches 100%, because then the phone is powered by the external power source, and not the battery. This means the battery needs to be charged less frequently. Batteries are consumables; they lose a little capacity every time they are discharged, then recharged. On average this works out to about a 1% loss for every 25 “full charge cycles” ( some will be a little more, others a little less). As one example, if you charge the phone overnight, every night (and that is what you should do; it is a best practice), it starts the day at 100%. If it drops to 20% by the end of the day before you charge it again overnight that counts as 0.8 full charge cycles (20% to 100%), or about 24 full charge cycles per month of use. For this example your battery capacity will lose about 1% per month. Of course, if the end-of-day level is higher than 20% the capacity loss will be a little less, and if it is lower than 20%, or you charge it during the day, the capacity loss will be higher.

The absolute best way to improve the life of your battery long term is to enable Optimized Battery Charging (Settings/Battery/Battery Health) and charge the device overnight, every night. The battery will fast charge to 80%, then pause. During the night the phone will use mains power instead of battery power, allowing the battery to “rest”, and thus reducing the need to charge the battery quite as often. The phone will resume charging to reach 100% when you are ready to use your phone; it will “learn” your usage pattern.

I got my iphone se in october of 2020. I used it for a total of about 6 months. On saturday, in a freak accident, it flew out the window of my car on the highway. I was able to retrieve it using find my iphone. Shockingly, it still functions 100% despite cracks and damage on both sides of device, thanks to the case and the screen protector. I got an "express" replacement through apple care+, which arrived last night. This morning, i finished transferring my files and reset the phone for return. before i reset, i checked the battery health and its still at 97%. I don't know if I'm just lucky or what, but i can tell you this. I am rigorous at preserving battery health in my phones. because i understand how lithium batteries function, i know that discharging a battery past 20% charge severely degrades the battery health and "duty cycle" of a battery. i have maybe let it get past 20% a handful of times, and only completely dead once. Some of you people are probably running the **** thing to 1 or 2% repeatedly before charging and that is a sure way to destroy your battery health. That's why they give you that warning about running the battery below 20%, its terrible for the battery.

If your post was deleted you were told why it was.

What is abnormal? A decline of 0.5% to 1% a month is normal (based on 500 full charge cycles to 80% capacity, or a 1% drop for every 25 full charge cycles). If you have or had a phone that was better than that you were lucky. Most people don’t, as evidenced by the fact that every iPhone model that has ever been released has seen posts complaining about the rate of decline in battery health, at least since Apple made the mistake of adding a battery health display. And every model, even before that, has had complaints about the life between charges of the battery. And not just iPhones, you will see similar threads in Android forums also. User’s expectations have always exceeded the real life performance of battery technology, and not just for smart phones. I remember when flip phones were the most common devices users complained their phone batteries wouldn’t even go a week without having to be charged. And auto parts retailers devote half their inventory floor space to car batteries for a reason.

If you are just referring to the SE2020, while Apple doesn’t publish sales figures, industry watchers have estimated that Apple sold 15 million SE2020 models last year. So just counting SEs, that still 489 out of 15 million. Some (maybe most) of those are working in the normal range. The ones that aren’t should be taken to an Apple store for evaluation. But these numbers don’t demonstrate a significant problem for the model.

Akshat777 wrote:

Mine is at 87% too. This is definitely a problem. At this rate, it will hit <80% before the 2 year mark. I’m certain that we will no longer get answers here.

You got answers here. You just don’t like the answers. That doesn’t make them wrong. And most iPhones go below 80% before the 2 year mark unless they are very lightly used; it’s happened to almost all iPhones for the past 14 years. Fortunately, you can get the battery replaced for $49 while you wait at an Apple store or other authorized Apple service provider, such as Best Buy, if you don’t decide to get a new phone after 2 years (as many people do).

Akshat777 wrote:

It’s not that I don’t like the answers given, the reason why many of us are posting here regarding the battery health issue is that it does not match in line with our experience of using an iPhone prior to SE2020. My usage patterns have remained the same and I would imagine that is the case for most people.

No, it is not the case for most people. If you go back in time in the forum you will find lots of posts of people posting about their experience of battery health declining what they think is excessively for every model iPhone since Apple started including the battery health display. This isn’t a new experience for the SE 2020, or the 12; those are just the newest models, so those are the posts you see. But a search will find lots of iPhone 11 users saying their battery capacity is declining shortly after the model was released, and X, XR and XS users, and iPhone 8 users, etc.

Battery manufacturing is not precise; Initial capacity will vary from battery to battery; some will have higher capacity than their specification, some will have lower. Thats why some users report that the capacity when they first turned on the phone was less than 100%; at 99%, or sometimes 98%. But the gauge does not go above 100%, so if by chance a battery’s capacity is 110% that is still displayed as 100%, and the battery performance will appear to be perfect until the capacity has dropped by 10%, which will typically take a year.

So the fact is that your SE is acting normally, and if a previous model had better numbers, that was because the battery in those phones exceeded manufacturer’s specifications and was better than normal, not that there is anything wrong with your phone.

Apple’s design goal is for the battery to last 2 years and stay above 80% for those 2 years. A lot of people replace their phone after 2 years; for those who want to keep it longer rather than trade it in Apple will replace the battery for $49, giving the phone another 2 years of useful life. And the replacement can be done in the store, usually while you wait. iPhones are designed for long life; currently, phones released in the past 6 years can still be updated to iOS 14. And older phones are still getting security updates of whatever version they have.

If you read the posts most of them are normal, expected rates of battery capacity loss; on average an iPhone will lose anywhere from 0.5% to 1% of capacity a month. And a few are clearly defective batteries.

489 people out of a total iPhone universe of over 1 billion phones doesn’t indicate a significant problem. And many people click “I have this question too” when they really don’t have the same issue.

Regarding previous phones, you don’t have any idea how many users have previous phones that did not have great battery life, but it’s a lot, because there are plenty of threads about every model ever released. And there are also no posts from people who are not unhappy with their battery life, which is probably the vast majority of users. Support forums suffer from the “hospital syndrome” - If you go to a hospital and observe all of the sick people, then extrapolate that to the general population you will conclude that almost everyone is sick. Only people who have problems post in a support forum; people who are happy with their products don’t even know support forums exist.

I don’t know if I have posted on this subject in this thread yet, but if I have a repeat won’t hurt:

I’ll tell you a little secret about battery capacity in previous phones, using an XS Max as an example. (Well, not a secret, but an observation from another forum regular, SergZak). All iPhones have a specification for the battery. For the XS Max that is 3174 milliampere-hours (MaH). So the battery monitor is calibrated for 100% at that value. But there are variations in manufacturing, so some batteries will have less capacity, and some will have more. Suppose your battery had, say, 3474 MaH capacity (10% over standard). That would still show as 100% (even though it was actually 110%), but as it aged the health would stay at 100% until it fell below 3174 MaH. This would appear to you as if your battery had fabulous life. The only way to determine this is with a 3rd party app, and then only if you check the battery capacity when the phone is new.

87% after a year is in the normal range, which is about 1% per month. Consider the possibility that your 7 and 8 had better than average batteries, and your SE only has average batteries. If you check old forum posts you will find that many users with older iPhones, including the 7 and 8, complained about losing battery capacity "too fast."

Kenny_S45 wrote:

I bought iPhone SE 2020 last year in August, along with me my girlfriend also bought iphone 11 pro. We purchased it at the same store and same time. We have been using the phones since then and have always updated to the latest iOS updates. Fast forward today, hers is still at 96% and mine is at 81%. Why? both of our phones are lightly used, we don't play games just social media, youtube and calls.

You are in the rare position of a phone with a defective battery. Make a genius bar appointment to have it checked out.

Once again, not normal. Here is a link that might help you understand how to stop it from draining health: https://www.apple.com/batteries/maximizing-performance/

Most of us feel that there is something wrong with the new SE. mine wasn’t a month old when it dropped to 99%. Yours has the biggest decline that I’ve read about for a phone so new. Despite what one person keeps saying even a 1% decline in a new phone is not acceptable. Your phone does have a 1 year warranty but what I was told was that they would only cover the defect if it goes under 80%. One thing that will help the most and is the easiest to do is to put your phone in low power mode once you unplug it. This will sometimes enable your phone to last all day long without a afternoon charge. I have a friend who has one of the newer iPhones and her battery health has shown a significant decline and her phone is less than 6 months old. If Apple management is reading these please help us and find a cause of this defect.

Heat is the main killer of batteries, not charge cycles. My SE1 still had 75% battery health after 1,700 charge cycles. I have used it for 5 years and it was still running iOS 10 till I retired it last month. And because it was still running iOS 10, the phone never heated up randomly. I don't game. I use whatspp, calls, web browsing, facebook and youtube, and with my usage the phone never heated up. Had I updated to iOS 11,12,13 and 14 over the years, the phone would have heated up even on light usage. And this HEAT my friend, is what kills the batteries. How do I know ? I have my fair share of experience with iPhone 4, 4S, 5 and 5S.

Lilimoon2020 wrote:

I think iPhoneSE users who commented here want an answer from Apple and not from you. We want an explanation and why not, a solution.

You will NEVER get an answer from Apple in this user-to-user forum, so if that’s what you expect you are wasting your time posting here. If you want an answer from Apple you have to contact Apple directly. Here are several ways to Contact Apple:

• https://apple.com/feedback - they will record your feedback, but not reply
• Click the Get Support link at the top of this page
• Use the Apple Support app on your phone
• DM @AppleSupport on Twitter
• Call Apple support using your regional phone number: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201232

"Battery manufacturing is not precise; Initial capacity will vary from battery to battery; some will have higher capacity than their specification, some will have lower. Thats why some users report that the capacity when they first turned on the phone was less than 100%; at 99%, or sometimes 98%. But the gauge does not go above 100%, so if by chance a battery’s capacity is 110% that is still displayed as 100%, and the battery performance will appear to be perfect until the capacity has dropped by 10%, which will typically take a year."

In other words, luck of the draw. Definitely appears as if most SE2020 users got the lower end of spectrum. I am aware of the design goal (500 complete charge cycles).

On a side note, my theory is that Apple had manufactured excess batteries for the iPhone 7/8 and these excess batteries, likely those with lower capacities (Not used in 7/8) were repackaged and sold to us in the form of SE2020. Let's not forget the Batterygate issue where Apple had to pay out $500 million. Anyway, hoping we can move on from Li-ion batteries in the future.