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Comment by skellera | Hacker News Reader

Does that have an effect on battery life though? Constant micro charges?

It should have a positive effect, because you're avoiding larger charges and keeping your battery at optimal levels.

i've found what I believe to be the heat generated by wireless chargers to have a negative effect on my battery longevity. Personally, I avoid them now after being a huge advocate from them. The reality is, Battery life on phones have improved to the point that I also rarely need to charge my phone anymore other than what I'm about to go to sleep anyway.

» The reality is, Battery life on phones have improved to the point that I also rarely need to charge my phone anymore other than what I'm about to go to sleep anyway.

On the Android side, batteries have gotten bigger with phones but more importantly the OS is getting better at battery management. With lineage 16 (Android pie), I can choose to enable battery saver at 75% battery.

I'm still on a Nexus 6. What has changed in battery technology recently?

>What has changed in battery technology recently?

I have no idea. I imagine most of the improvements in battery life stem from them being able to fit larger batteries in smaller packages along with hardware and software optimizations as well as improvements in cell reception. It could also be my usage. I listen to a lot of music during the day and perhaps the larger batteries are just able to accommodate me longer than the smaller ones.

I loved my Nexus 6 but I doubt I could still be using it still today so I am impressed. Can I ask what your reasons are for not having upgraded it? I generally upgrade my phones bc of the battery but this time I hope to just get it swapped out in a year or two.

» I loved my Nexus 6 but I doubt I could still be using it still today so I am impressed. Can I ask what your reasons are for not having upgraded it? I generally upgrade my phones bc of the battery but this time I hope to just get it swapped out in a year or two.

My main excuse is I got it a year after it was launched on a black Friday sake so I want it to last one more year.

On top of that I got to use a Samsung Galaxy s7e for almost a year in 2017.

Mainly, it was probably that I didn't want to spend the money. I can make the excuse that I an saving money toward a new desktop computer but I've been giving myself that excuse since before ryzen launched so I know it is just an excuse in telling myself.

My main use apps at the moment k9 mail, Google voice, slide for Reddit, and Mozilla Firefox. The camera on the Nexus 6 is horrible for current year. Perhaps I'll finally get a new phone this year. Perhaps if xiaomi releases the poco phone F2? 4Ah battery sounds nice.

Not sure on the camera or rest of the specs, but the moto G7 power is pretty cheap I think and has a 5Ah battery. Haven't got around to reading reviews since it launched the other month.

I would not consider "enabling battery saver" as the OS getting better. I would if it battery saver was by default on, at which point it's not a "battery saver" mode, it's just normal mode.

Yes, this is a reason I avoided wireless as well, but Samsung have a wireless charger with a fan in it which pumps the heat out. I've used it over a year and never felt my phone even being warm when charging.

It's the EP-NG930

It's not the heat, it's the increased use. when you're hardwired, you get enough power that your phone just bypasses the battery. If you use a charging mat, you still 'run' from battery. This means increased cycles which reduces battery life.

How is that?

If the battery is charging then logically there must be enough residual power to run the phone. If there wasn’t then the battery would not charge at all unless you turned off the phone first, but it obviously does.

Also a phone on a charging mat cannot easily be used and the screen will be off most of the time lowering power requirements.

I'm pretty sure the point is that you are likely picking up the phone to use it, so during that time it's not charging.

All battery myths should be accompanied by a verifiable source.

Possible positive? If it keeps it in the 20-70% range I'm told we are supposed to keep our devices in.

The things that kill smartphone batteries today are age and power cycles. It doesn’t matter if you charge from 0% to 100% in one go or from 90% to 100% ten times. Both add up to one power cycle.

To keep your battery fresh for as long as possible, always keep the phone connected to a charger. No battery cycles. It will get worse after a few years anyway.

I dunno. All the EV manufacturers still recommend not charging to 100% daily.

Thanks. Updated my post to say smartphones - I have no idea about what EV batteries are exposed to.

EV batteries cost $5000+ to replace and are expected to last 7-10 years, maybe more if you push it. And they are a huge pain to recharge in the middle of the day if you suddenly need to. How many years do you plan to keep your phone for? Who cares if the battery only has 70% of original capacity after 3 years and on some days you need to find 20minutess in the middle of the day to leave it plugged in to recharge?

Age, cycles and heat. Inductive charging loops are going to generate a ton of waste heat, and worse yet a good chunk of that is going to be coming from the coil inside the phone.

Yeah, but a battery gets hot when charging fast. Keeping it connected at 100%, the phone stays cool in my experience. And charging often makes the window where it generates heat from charging smaller

The act of charging the battery does itself generate some heat, as does the charging circuitry within the phone. This will happen with either method of charging. Wireless inductive charging will also generate significantly larger amounts of waste heat.

Fundamentally, wireless charging is less efficient. Theoretically you could be putting 16w of heat into the phone but only getting 8w of charging.

> It doesn’t matter if you charge from 0% to 100% in one go or from 90% to 100% ten times.

This isn't really true, as far as I know. If you avoid fully charging or deeply discharging a lithium-ion battery, the wear per unit of energy extracted is smaller.

There are some statistics quoted here (https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_l...) showing that if you, say, halve the amount of energy you retrieve from a battery in each cycle, the battery lasts for more than twice as many cycles.

This paper arrives at a similar conclusion (see figure 4): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318292540_Analysis_...

Thanks for the links!

Also, I want to add that what I wrote above is only regarding smartphones. I don’t know how much stress/extra heat etc that EV batteries are subject to, but I imagine they drain/charge at more intense rates relatively.

The principle applies for smartphone batteries too. Full discharges will degrade your battery significantly faster.

The sole reason I rooted my pixel 2 was to install a simple app which disables charging when I reach 80%. I get all the wins of not killing the battery by constantly saturating it, together with being able to leave it plugged in whenever I am at at my desk.

I so wish manufacturers would offer this option, for those primarily deskbound who do not relish ungluing their battery after a year

I think it is a built in (but configurable) option on newer Sony models.

Edit: they call it Qnovo Adaptive Charging and they get another minus from me [0] for making it impossible to select text on tye page by long-pressing it.

[0]: they got a huge minus from me back when they added "sponsored links" to my flagship Z3 or what it was.

Is it this one? https://f-droid.org/packages/com.slash.batterychargelimit/

Thanks for making me aware that such a thing exists.

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