Does charging your iPhone to 100% degrades battery life?

I watched one of the videos that talks about this topic on YouTube, and it was advised to just charge it around 40-80%. Is this fallacious or is there a reasoning behind this statement? I would like to have an answer from the professionals that actually have knowledge regarding this.

iPhone 12 Pro Max, iOS 15

Posted on May 22, 2022 9:33 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 22, 2022 10:03 AM

Bob Timmons wrote:
It is frightening to realize how much bad advice is available on YouTube and on other similar sites. If you consider Apple to be "professionals", charge the iPhone to 100%.


There's certainly enough to suggest that limiting the charge range will increase ultimate battery longevity. And to some degree that's what Apple already does in its choice of what to set 0% and 100% at, along with Optimized Charging to limit the time spent over 80%. They could set the floor lower and the ceiling higher to get maybe double the useful charge (when new), and deal with the fallout when the battery is dead after 50 cycles. It's pretty obvious that with Macs and iPads, the 1000 cycle rated life is because they just use less of the charge range with a slightly oversized battery. That sort of thing is pretty well understood in the electronics industry. Heck - to get even better longevity it might take active cooling like what's used in EVs.


As to the old 20-80/40-80 "rules" I'd say it's just so unworkable as to be useless with an iPhone that doesn't have any programmable battery charge settings other than Optimized Charging. Who really wants to sit over a phone monitoring the charge level? There are some devices that can be programmed to limit the charge range (think electric vehicles) but why bother for something where the battery replacement costs $50-$70? I've got a laptop at home that can be programmed to reduce the battery charge range in order to boost longevity. Still - when I'm worried about battery longevity with my iPhone, I carry around an 8000 mAh USB power pack.

5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 22, 2022 10:03 AM in response to Bob Timmons

Bob Timmons wrote:
It is frightening to realize how much bad advice is available on YouTube and on other similar sites. If you consider Apple to be "professionals", charge the iPhone to 100%.


There's certainly enough to suggest that limiting the charge range will increase ultimate battery longevity. And to some degree that's what Apple already does in its choice of what to set 0% and 100% at, along with Optimized Charging to limit the time spent over 80%. They could set the floor lower and the ceiling higher to get maybe double the useful charge (when new), and deal with the fallout when the battery is dead after 50 cycles. It's pretty obvious that with Macs and iPads, the 1000 cycle rated life is because they just use less of the charge range with a slightly oversized battery. That sort of thing is pretty well understood in the electronics industry. Heck - to get even better longevity it might take active cooling like what's used in EVs.


As to the old 20-80/40-80 "rules" I'd say it's just so unworkable as to be useless with an iPhone that doesn't have any programmable battery charge settings other than Optimized Charging. Who really wants to sit over a phone monitoring the charge level? There are some devices that can be programmed to limit the charge range (think electric vehicles) but why bother for something where the battery replacement costs $50-$70? I've got a laptop at home that can be programmed to reduce the battery charge range in order to boost longevity. Still - when I'm worried about battery longevity with my iPhone, I carry around an 8000 mAh USB power pack.

May 23, 2022 10:17 AM in response to yuhly

yuhly wrote:

I watched one of the videos that talks about this topic on YouTube, and it was advised to just charge it around 40-80%. Is this fallacious or is there a reasoning behind this statement? I would like to have an answer from the professionals that actually have knowledge regarding this.

I think this is probably the best advice I know of:


When to charge your iPhone or iPad - Apple Community


Lawrence is a long-time forum member with an engineering background.

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Does charging your iPhone to 100% degrades battery life?

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