As the author of Battery University, I get many interesting inquiries from battery users. One battery user writes, “Hi, I am looking for an answer to a perplexing question. A co-worker and I have identical mobile phones from the same provider. Moving into a new house, she complained that her battery life has shortened. I told her she was out of her mind, but then I noticed my battery behaving differently when I travel. Is there some mysterious force that’s draining the battery?”
Yes, there is a hidden force that drains the battery, but it’s not mystical. In standby mode, a mobile phone is in constant communication with the tower, transmitting small bursts of power every second or so to check for incoming calls. To save energy, the transmit power adjusts according to signal strength. Being close to a repeater tower lowers the power; moving away or entering an area with high electrical noise, such as a shopping mall, hospital or factory, boosts the power. An analogy is having to raise your voice in a noisy restaurant.
Living in sight of a tower has advantages and your battery will run longer between charges. Where you park your mobile phone in the house also affects runtime. A manager of a large cellular provider in the UK said that his son experienced shorter standby times after moving from the upstairs bedroom to the basement. If possible, leave your mobile phone in an upstairs room facing a tower. When traveling by car, place the phone near a window rather than on the floor, but avoid direct exposure to the sun.
Similar rules apply to TETRA and P25 radio systems, cordless telephones, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices. A wireless headset communicating with the cell phone from belt to ear provides longer runtimes than when placing the handset on the dining-room table while cooking in the kitchen. Although the quality of communication does not change, the Bluetooth headset needs to work harder when placed farther away from the user.
When the mobile phone is “off,” the load on the battery is very low and only provides power for housekeeping to maintain the clock and monitor low-level commands. These consumptions, including self-discharge, amount to 5–10 percent of the available battery energy per month.
Laptop batteries fare badly in terms of life span. Laptops are demanding bosses that request a steady stream of power under poor working conditions, toiling in a warm climate. In addition, the battery is exposed to a high charge voltage when connected to the AC main. Warm temperature and full state-of-charge are the cause of short battery life in laptops, not cycling.
Modern laptops run cooler, so do tablets and smartphones. Circuits have become more efficient and the battery capacity is increasing but these improvements are being offset by added features. The two major gas-guzzlers are the display and the transmitter. Data transfer consumes about twice the energy to simply talking on the phone.
Simple Guidelines to Prolong Lithium-ion Batteries
- Do not discharge Li-ion too low; charge more often. A random or partial charge is fine. Li-ion does not need to be fully full charged as with lead acid.
- Heat the battery to room temperature before charging. Do not charge below freezing.
- Limit the time the battery resides at 4.2V/cell (full charge), especially when warm.
- Moderate the charge current to between 0.5C and 0.8C for cobalt-blended lithium-ion. Avoid ultra-fast charging and harsh loading.
- When possible, lower the charge voltage limit to prolong battery life.
- Keep the battery cool. Move it away from heat-generating environments. Avoid hot cars and windowsills that are exposed to the sun.
- It is not necessary to unplug the laptop from the power grid when not in use. The charger stops charging when the battery is fully charged.
- When the SoC fuel gauge becomes inaccurate, calibrate smart batteries by applying a deliberate full discharge and charge.
- Add some charge before a long storage. The charge level is not as critical as cool storage.
Last Updated: 4-Nov-2021
Batteries In A Portable World
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On January 18, 2017, Mark Coomber wrote:
I have a Canon DSLR camera that uses L-ion rechargeable battery packs. When I am outside in the winter the capacity drops very significantly when the temperature is less than -10C. As soon as I warm them up the capacity is back, no need to recharge. As soon as they get cold even when fully charged they stop working and my camera indicates low power.
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On October 22, 2015, manfred held wrote:
hallo what is the charging procedure of a li-ion battery to maintain 40-80%, if there are no figures but only 3 bars showing. rgds m.held
On September 21, 2015, Daniel Shamailov wrote:
My friend is crazy with his phones and one thing he always does is wait till the phone reaches 10% then charges it to 100%, unplugs it, and repeats the cycle. He says that plugging it in above 10% is bad. Is he right or wrong?
On March 31, 2015, Michal Bittsansky wrote:
I believe it is not true that the phone broadcasts all the time to the tower. According to my observations and measurements, the phone only registers at the tower, so that the tower "knows" that the phone is within its reach. Then, the phone only CHECKS the tower signal and it is the tower, that broadcasts permanently. Only when the phone realizes that the tower signal decreases, it solves the situation by checking other available towers. I believe that checking the tower transmission is much less costly in terms of energy then broadcasting to the tower.
On November 9, 2013, Boris wrote:
@aamair lenovo offers Energy Management software in downloads through their website where you can reset your battery's gauge. That's what I did when my battery dropped suddenly from 80% to 10% and it fixed the problem.
On November 9, 2013, aamair wrote:
Hi guys i am using a lenovo laptop the problem is that the battery level suddenly drops from 20% to 6 % can anyone tell me what might be the problem. this laptop is 8 months old and i madly used it day and night on batteries and in plugged in state also thank you
On November 29, 2012, Boris C. wrote:
What if a person lives in area with power outages and uses his laptop with lithium-ion battery as a backup method to warrant system from turning off in power outage situation? There are 2 options but according to this article, both will shorten battery's life because while performing short charges to battery and leaving it unplugged from mains while maintaining healthy charge between 40-50%, it will use charge cycles which I know are limited in lithium-ions. Another option would be to constantly keeping battery plugged to mains and although it will not perform many charge cycles, it will constantly keep battery under 100% which is not good for lithium-ion battery.
On April 9, 2012, Chris B wrote:
In my experience the most important factor is not letting the battery get overheated, either by the device itself overheating or by leaving it somewhere hot like a car or windows in full sunlight. Doing that can kill the battery almost instantly.
On February 5, 2012, Nick wrote:
my laptop battery is old, so is my computer. I will charge my battery (li-ion 5400 MaH) to 100% then when the battery gets down to 80% it just dies. When I plug the computer back in, the battery is suddenly at 0%, then it charges to like 40% then jumps instantly to 100%. Is this normal? I plan to buy a new battery soon. How can I avoid this from happening again? Please Respond! Thanks.
On December 17, 2011, Kyle Souza wrote:
Is it bad for the battery to be charging and using the device at the same time? For example, is it best to have my cell phone off while it is charging?
On December 13, 2011, Guillaume wrote:
@mekong_nam I don't want to go in too much details so I'll make my explanation brief. A battery does not respond to a linear model. For instance, a 8AH battery with a given charge at 25°C might last 10 hours. In the same conditions, a 16AH battery will give you more than 20 hours. (maybe 25 hours - it depends on many parameters)
On October 23, 2011, mekong_nam wrote:
My cellphone, commtiva x1, with 1200mah original battery run for 24 hours after full-charged.I add 2 cell-batteries more, each cell 1200 mah Totally. my cellphone run with 3 batteries the same time, 3600 mah, and last for 96 hours after charged. Why does 3600 mah battery keep commtiva x1 cellphone run 96 hours in compare with 24 hours of 1200 mah battery? can some one help me explain?
On September 25, 2011, Bob wrote:
I forgot to mention that the battery is 1500mah. Thank you.
On September 25, 2011, Bob wrote:
This is kind of related to what Dan wrote. I just purchased a smartphone and the instructions say to fully charge before first use. 1) Is this really necessary? Nothing I read on this site indicates that this is necessary or beneficial for a LIB. In my excitement to play with the phone I skipped the charging and ran the phone until it shutoff by itself from a depleted battery. 2) This is ok right? I assume the battery and phone has safeguards to shut off before the battery is actually fully discharged. As long as I charge it soon it should be ok, right? USB vs wall charger. Reading the text here mentions voltages and heat, etc, but nothing about current. The text on my wall charger says it's output is 1.0A at 4.8V. 3) Will charging it through the USB port on my computer prolong my battery's life? It really takes a long time to charge on USB :( but if it's going to help my battery in the long run, I'll charge it through the USB port.
On August 28, 2011, ABHINANDAN wrote:
My lithium 18650 2500 mah Thrustfire batteries take about 6 hours to attain full state of charge on a computerised programed charger. Is this normal?
On July 26, 2011, Sandeep wrote:
I have a laptop running on Li-Ion battery. What would be the energy wastage for the following cases running the same applications. 1. Laptop is running on a battery from which energy is being used. Once the battery level falls to 30%, it is charged until it reaches 100% and then discharge once again. 2. Laptop is continuously running on a charger but the battery is still in the laptop(100% attained). Data Available - The application uses X Whr of energy Charger converts 240V, 1.6A AC to 18.5V, 3.5A DC
On July 15, 2011, Dan Saint-Andre wrote:
I am technical enough to understand the voltage and current and charge details in your white (blue) paper. However, I am at a loss to use this paper as a protocol for using my (1) laptop battery, and (2) mobile phone battery. Just today, I bought and installed an new battery into my laptop. The papers told me that I should "... charge and discharge three to five times ... before full capacity ..." I interpret this to mean: 1. connect to power grid 2. wait for "full charge" 3. disconnect from the grid 4. use to "full discharge" 5. repeat 3-5 times I have no idea what "full charge" and "full discharge" mean in practical operational terms. While my laptop has software that will report some numbers about the state of my battery, I will need to guess when things reach the above conditions. Similarly, routine operation and use with the battery have details that remain obscure. I did learn to remove the battery if running for long periods connected to the grid. It also seems that the battery should not be at "full charge" but at some lower level (80% ?) for storage during this interval. How am I supposed to know that the battery is in the proper state before I remove it? I know the answers, but "Why don't laptop battery chargers and batteries have built-in condition indicators?" Similarly, "Why don't laptop batteries have temperature indicators?" Thanks for the article, ~~~ 0;-Dan
On June 29, 2011, Niels-Erik Jensen wrote:
I have enjoyed reading your informations & instructions. Especially interesting (for me) was the information that batteries should not be charged to the full 4.2 volt especially if the battery is stored in a hot enclosure like e.g. an electric car. The battery should not be discharged to below 40% of full 4.2 V. How many kWh is used to fully charge a 100 kWh battery that has been 100% discharged. There must be some loss as the battery gets very warm during charging Discharging a fully charged 100 kWh battery to 50% will not deliver 50% to the electric motor as some heating of the battery occurs. How big is the loss