iPhones may shut down in cold weather | Hacker News Reader

iPhones may shut down in cold weather

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29 pointsfiveFeet44 comments

iPhones, Android phones, music players, and other electronic things, if the weather is cold enough. Are we just trying to find anything bad to say about Apple so we can say it? Why is this on the front page?

The instructions on this page offer "Use iOS devices where the ambient temperature is between 0º and 35º C (32º to 95º F)."

Hopefully Apple is just being cautious and giving a range where they're confident no one will have problems. But if not, that's a pretty narrow range. I've had problems with music players and Android phones down at <5F, certainly, but <32F is the one part of this that looks like an Apple-specific issue.

If you look at the manual the other devices probably have similar specifications.

It's not just phones.

The Toyota Prius is also vulnerable at extremely low temps. From the owner's manual: "When the hybrid battery (traction battery) is extremely cold (below approximately minus 22 degrees Farenheit [minus 30 degrees Celsius]) under the influence of the outside temperature, it may not be possible to start the hybrid system. In this case, try to start the hybrid system again after the temperature of the hybrid battery increases due to the outside temperature increase, etc."

edit: of course, gasoline-only cars have a similar problem. Oil gets THICK at -22F and without an electric engine block heater, the starter may not be powerful enough to turn that engine over.

At least you can put a phone inside your jacked to warm it up. Not so easy with an automobile.

My understanding is automobiles will use some battery power to simply keep the battery in an ideal temperature range. Maybe phones could have the ability to burn a bit of energy in cold weather to simply keep the battery warm, if desired by user.

I've never had a problem with my phone when it's been below freezing out.

This may be obvious, but when it's cold out, it helps to keep the phone in a warm pocket close to the body (e.g. on the inside of your coat) rather than a bag or so. I've never had any issues with iPhones that way; using it for more than a short period of time when it's very cold is unpleasant anyway, so it never gets the chance to cool down too much. (I can confirm this works even at -40°, although you've got to be very careful with charging cables at that sort of temperature. Don't try to bend them, they'll snap.)

I had a lot of problems with my 4S spontaneously shutting down when snowboarding (when it was still pretty new) until it occurred to me to store it inside of my jacket rather than an outer pocket.

So not Canada, half of the year?

iPhone from 6 and up are notoriously bad at cold weather. Previously people talked about reduced battery life in cold weather, but it was never really a big problem (I guess the batteries were thicker). But with the iphone it drops from 80% to 5% then dies in a matter of minutes. People I know have been talking about it and I dont go out on a cold day with the battery at less than 50%. Which was never the case before, even with iphone 5.

Edit: now we are talking temperatures below -10c

I've seen people with 30, 40% batteries iphones die for no apparent reason. My samsung in the same temperature not shutting down. Theres plenty bad things to say about apple. This one i can confirm

Everyone I've ever skied with knows this already...

Anecdotally, my phone (LG) doesn't whinge until it's at least -15C outside.

I've got an S8 and had no problems this winter using it while skiing.

The lowest temperature I was out in was -25C, I think keeping it on your body is the best way to combat the temperature issue.

I'd be surprised if all phones don't have thermal range protection. At the very least the battery almost certainly does, not having it would be dangerous. Going into a partially operating state and giving warnings rather than just cutting off the battery is actually a nice feature that I doubt many phones have.

That's common knowledge here in Canada :)

Indeed. In earlier iOS versions the warning message was 'it's too hot' even when it was too cold. I always thought that might be from developers in California maybe not considering the cold-case.

I know right? Back in the day my iPhone 4s would almost always shut down on my way to university in winter. It was a 30 minute walk in cold, windy Quebec weather, but my S7 does not have this problem. Why is this news?

How frequent is it? I've seen it happen to a couple of friends this year and the temperature was barely below 0 Celsius. It must be worse up there.

When it's -30, I don't even try to use my phone. I keep it in my pocket close to my body with the hopes that my body heat will keep it warm enough for it to work if I need it.

That's common knowledge even in Texas.

Yup, that's what I came to add. Have seen it too many times here.

This is nothing new right? I learned the first day I went snowboarding with my iphone that it was useless to bring with me... at least without some thick rubber case.

Yeah I went skiing with my new Pixel 2 last Christmas and couldn't get it to stay on long enough to record a video. Doesn't seem very deveice specific. My sister had better luck on her older iPhone, but on the coldest day neither of us could use our phones outside for very long.

Same here. Depending on the temperature, I have to move it to a more internal pocket to keep the battery warm. Lithium batteries do not like cold.

Just put your phone in an inside jacket pocket, it'll be fine.

Just as an addendum to this, I learned an expensive lesson about temperature changes in computers a few years ago.

I had a fancy Dell XPS gaming laptop and was at a LAN party with my friends, playing the latest and greatest. The computer was very hot to the touch. Well, it was time to pack up and leave, so I put my laptop in my flimsy backpack and took a 20min walk home in the freezing cold.

I get home and lo, the computer, ice cold to the touch, wouldn't boot. Took it to the shop and the tech said that a few of the components were cracked and i'd need to replace them or get a new laptop.

That's when it hit me; of course when you take something very hot and put it in something very cold, it's going to break. Should've waited like 5 minutes instead of rushing out...

If you lived in a cold temperature with an iPhone for long enough, you learn to keep it close to your body when wrapping up for the outdoors. Sure, you need to pull it out for some functions and that's awkward, but the gloves you are wearing get in the way of that too. These are general challenges of navigating the cold. I can see the irritation, but I'm in agreement with other Canadians here that this isn't really news :)

I noticed last winter in Seoul. I could barely use my iPhone 6S Plus outside. I had to regularly walk in stores and blow on its back to warm it up. Super annoying when it turned off at the peak of a mountain and I couldn't turn it on until I was half-way down.

It doesn't tell you why it turns off either, I thought the battery was dead when it started regularly turning off around 20-40%

Isn't this one of the primary reasons they were undervolting iphones? I thought this was already common knowledge.

It probably is, but a thing being common knowledge is not the same as apple confirming it.

This has been happening already for at least the past 4 winters. This was pretty common knowledge, right?

Also in hot weather. I don't store my phone in my car, but I've brought it into my car when my car is above 95F (say, when it's been parked and I get back to it) and had it shut down on me.

(I probably shouldn't have bought a black car - that doesn't help.)

We had -20C the other day. My samsung S8 was perfectly fine while in my pocket. At one point i placed it on my outdoor table and within a minute it showed a warning and then closed down (correctly closing down - not dying/crashing).

Not too surprising. Definitely happened to me on the summit of a 14er in the Colorado Rockies last year. I was glad I had my DSLR as well as my iPhone 7...the Canon had no problems (it was only about 30F).

Same goes for Android. Got stuck hiking on a mountain once in windy 15F weather. Neither my friend's iPhone nor my Android would stay turned on for more than a minute.

Of Course they do. My iPhoneX dies often these days to NYC weather. Was planning to go the Apple store to find out why.

Since I started Wim Hof method, I'm more immune to cold than my HTCOne. ( I have an old phone, I know )

I live in Canada, and this is not news.

iPhone also turns off it gets too hot. I left my black iPhone in my car's cup holder once while the sun roof wasn't being blocked and I picked it up and after it cooled down a bit turned right back on.

12 °F / -11 °C.

On my bike.

Listening to Gorillaz on my Powerbeats 3.

They shut down after 5 minutes every time.

My iPhone stopped doing this when I had the battery changed

California has snow.

Not the "California" that Apple means.

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