iPhone 6 battery dies in cold weather

I have an iPhone 6 almost two years old.

this winter (and it have not really been that cold) the phone is shutting down so quickly when outside. 1-2 photos and dead. When I plug it into power it turns on with plenty of power.

It seems like the phone is getting the temperature wrong! it was for sure not like this any of the other winters.

This problem has a very simple explaination.

If you look at older posts in this thread I explain what happens to a iPhone6 battery when it gets older/more charge cycles. The capacity drops dramatically in colder environments.

Apple are smart.

There is a huge problem with the battery in iPhone6 (and 6S).

But how do you prove this technically?

Yes, we can provide some personal experiences here at the forum but that has no

"proof-value" for Apple.

To prove this you need to create an App that measure the battery temperature and capacity over time

and then send the information to a central server to compare it to other ppls measurements.

This way there would be enough proof to make Apple intrested.

(when 100 people complain here at forums Apple does not care, but if there are very detailed and compareable data from 1000+ users they cant ignore it)

The problem is that: If you want to create an App that do this, it will be rejected on Appstore since you

need to use Private API´s (which Apple does not allow).

Still, I see some apps at Appstore that the Apple crew must have missed, like Battery Life.

If the developer of Battery Life could rewrite the app and add a background measurement of the battery temperature and capacity (over time) then we would probably see Apple do something about the problem (or removing the App).

very interesting chart, thx. But the risk here is the warranty. If those are not OEM, and replaced by licensed Apple partners, Apple will clearly deny any warranty on overheating or other unexpected problems. On top of that I already paid 800$ for my iPhone, why should I even pay more if I can get an Android for 300$ with all top features. Wondering if I'm not riding the wrong horse here.

When did you buy your phone?

If its more than 1 year old the warranty is gone.

How many charge cycles does it have?

(Download Battery Life from Appstore and check)

If the battery have 200+ charge cycles you will most likely have alot of problem in cold weather.

And I agree with you, regardless if there is warranty or not, the phone should work just fine efter 1 or 2 years.

I have been testing iPhone5 batteries as well and they are ALOT better than iPhone 6 batteries.

After posting my problem on social media a few weeks ago, it seems EVERYONE I KNOW is having the same problem if their phone is in its second winter. I got my phone replaced as 'an exception' two days before my warranty ran out although they could find nothing wrong in the diagnostics. It seems the charts on battery life/ temp are quite accurate since I haven't had the problem since. Would be nice if Apple did their own tests before selling faulty batteries. (6s plus running 10.2)

They said, "it seems EVERYONE I KNOW is having the same problem if their phone is in its second winter", which in common English has the implication that a lot of people the OP knows is having the same issue. Seemed reasonable to me yet you chose to nitpick without adding anything of value. That's what you missed.

Holy bleep, thanks for this, mine qualifies, taking in to Apple Store Monday.

FWIW my device is 14 months old, and tests at 82% (good range) in the battery testing app. I have seen it die, with the phone in my pocket in out temperatures of 45°F, mostly it dies when I use the camera app. But I was also outside when it was 33°F and it worked. Not very consistent, but it definitely fails within the stated operating temperatures for the battery.

And thanks Visualo for the testing graphs

So i have this same problem too and so does my friend and she has told me the reason for this is that when your phone shuts off is because it is to cold outside and it is a way of protecting the phone. So that is why your phone will shut off when its too cold for the phone.

Hope this was helpful to all of you that have the same problem.

Oh, it's a feature?!?

No, it's not.

The battery is unable to provide the current necessary at the cold temperature without the voltage sagging. It's a classic symptom of (low quality) lithium batteries. When the voltage sags/drops, the phone reads that as, "my battery is dead" and shuts off, telling you to plug in. We have the same issue in the RC hobby area - cold lithium batteries generally don't perform as well, but some are definitely better than others. (i.e., my Samsung is fine in the cold)

Froggercn47 wrote:

Can I ask you a question? Why did it take them an hour and a half to replace your battery? What did they have to do to replace it? Thx

Probably because there were a lot of devices to work on before they started on his. Actually changing the battery takes about 15 minutes at most.

My 13 month old 6S started to lose power very quickly just after christmas. This was indoors and out. Never had a problem with it before and have been in -12 degrees without any issues.

I Just got my battery changed under the free apple exchange program and it made no difference at all, so i dont think its a hardware issue.

Next on the list of things to do is a restore, which is always a pain to do and really shouldn't be needed.

The name Apple doesnt seem to stand for what it used to IMO.

iPhones have an operating temperature ambient situated between 32° and 95° Fahrenheit, that's 0° and 35° Celsius. The manufacturer also provides information about a non-operating temperature interval ranging between -4° to 113° F, that's -20° to 45° C.Nov 29, 2014

I have been following this thread since my original post - a few things:

Clearly the iphone 6 batteries work well in cold weather when NEW - myself and others posting here had no problems with them last winter, even when using them near or slightly below the temperature range apple has available for the product.

It seems that after a while the batteries wear out, but only to the point where they are affected by 'cold' weather - even ABOVE the lower limits posted by apple. Lithium batteries wear out with repeated use/charge cycles - this is annoying, but is no surprise to people who understand these things better than myself.

It will be very difficult to know if the batteries wear out faster than they should, because the issue is only realized in colder temperatures often well after the warranty expires. in retrospect, i should have got my phone near (but not lower than) the acceptable lower use temperature limit before the warranty expired to see if the battery could handle it, but i and others obviously did not do this - and why would we, we had nothing to suspect? Especially for those of us who have had multiple older iphone models that survived many years/winters without this issue. We have come to depend on, and even praise, the reliability of iphones through years of experience using them. i can no longer depend on my iphone battery and will need to get a new one. I will be very closely monitoring it with scheduled testing afterwards and will report back.

Be aware - in my case they replaced the iphone 6 with a new one. Not just the battery!

So the problem can be with the phone not with the battery..

There are -18 deg. Celsius here now.

Except for a lag in the screen (which is to be expected) the battery is holding up just fine!