TL;DR: Fast charging over 2 years only degraded the battery an extra 0.5%, even on extremely fast charging Android phones using 120W.
And with that, hopefully we can put this argument to rest.
Tl;DW: No
Is Fast Charging Killing the Battery? A 2-Year Test on 40 Phones
Submitted 10 hours ago by popcar2@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLS5Cg_yNdM
Comments
PostaL@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Sims@lemmy.ml 7 hours ago
“And with that, hopefully we can put this argument to rest.”
That’s not how the internet works, but nice try though ;-)
PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
I disagree!
DacoTaco@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Ok, before i watch the video, no damage is not what great scott found from his testings… ( youtu.be/iMn2yVoEqPs ).
so i have no idea what to believe anymore, but my (based) experience is that it does damage it. Ill have to watch later.
BlackLaZoR@fedia.io 9 hours ago
It's as if engineers knew what they're doing.
QuadratureSurfer@piefed.social 9 hours ago
Granted, with all the planned obsolescence happening, you could also argue that engineers “knew” what they were doing.
BlackLaZoR@fedia.io 9 hours ago
Planned obsolescence happens but it's not as common as most people think it is.
RightEdofer@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
I’m sure this happens but with batteries the companies really are just desperately trying to get more capacity and life out of them. The chemistry just isn’t at all where they want to be.
amorpheus@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
If engineers were the ones in control that would mean something.
As I see it, phone manufacturers have zero reasons to keep the battery degradation low, but many reasons to push advertised capacity and charging speed. If you were cynical, you could also assume that they’re trying to make sure the battery doesn’t last too long because they want to keep selling new phones.
binarytobis@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
I think we all know that if an engineer went to upper management and said “I can charge these batteries faster, but it degrades the battery life by 20% over a year.” they would have said “Do it! We won’t mention that last part.”
FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Engineers have the best of intentions. The Bean counters have very different intentions and they’re the ones that corporate listens to.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
Yep. I’m gonna miss real engineering with the coming Ai-driven Idiocracy.
frongt@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
Well, except for the engineers on the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. They put the battery terminals too close together, making it really easy for a short to occur.
BlackLaZoR@fedia.io 6 hours ago
Samsung notoriously fucks up something up in their phones - from shitty interface changes, to excessive battery drain. Just buy Pixel instead
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 6 hours ago
You say that like batteries don’t need replaced every few years or that they didn’t design the Samsung Note 8 phone that kept catching on fire.
Engineers get told to make the phone charge as quickly as possible, while still lasting 2 years. After that, the company with those engineers pretty much wants the battery to fail, so they can sell a new device.
The one thing I wanted to see from that video, was also just testing the batteries until they went below like 75% capacity. The initial degradation may start off similar for capacity, but that doesn’t mean it will stay that way.
plz1@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
That’s a great TL:DW;
Now I want an iPhone that can charge in 20 minutes. :)
cley_faye@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
I hadn’t watched the video yet, but my phone’s going the opposite way. It run slow charge overnight when it feels like it’s going to be enough for it to be fully charged the next morning.
We really should let electronics and tight software take care of these little things.
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 8 hours ago
My phone tells me every night that it’s slow charging and it will be full by <the time I have my alarm set for>.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
iPhones do this as well, I assume both will also do it without the alarm as mine has simply learned what time I take it off the charger normally.
realitista@lemmus.org 7 hours ago
If you’d watch the video you may realize it’s not needed.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
No need to wait aeons for someone who enjoys the sound of their own voice to slowly and laboriously explain it like astronomy to a dog. Someone wrote 15 words and I read it in about a half-second.
cley_faye@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
The point is that I never had to care about battery management for years. I just leave the phone doing its thing. Not that it’s useful or not useful to do so.
The whole point is that I leave that in the hand of people that know.
Doomsider@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
This is the type of scientific method that can put all this nonsense to rest. I really appreciate their work proving that the difference between fast/slow/30-80% is insignificant to the majority of people.
Thanks!
MangoCats@feddit.it 1 hour ago
Battery lore has been cargo-cult woo since the NiMH days… most of it feels like manufacturers saying “oh, I’m sorry you didn’t get our advertised life, you must have done something wrong.”
Ibuthyr@lemmy.wtf 7 hours ago
I always thought that charging beyond 85% or so is what degrades batteries. The LiPos of my quadcopter actually actively reduce their charge if left sitting somewhere for a longer period of time. To prevent them from going up in flames.
frongt@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
It does, but the battery charge controller in your phone already does that. What it shows you as 0-100 is 20-80 of the actual battery. Others may or may not.
stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca 1 hour ago
What you call 0% or 100% on a battery is an arbitrary number anyway. Absolutely never do this for safety reasons, but back when I worked for a battery lab I did experiments where I discharged cells to below 0V.
Bazoogle@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
The idea with fast charging is it’s going to generate more heat. That extra heat is what damages the batteries life
MurrayL@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Non-magnetically-aligned wireless chargers are far worse than fast charging.
aBundleOfFerrets@sh.itjust.works 9 hours ago
Far worse at what? Wasting energy? That isn’t what the video is testing.
MurrayL@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
At killing batteries faster - the wasted energy creates heat, which degrades the battery.
BlackLaZoR@fedia.io 9 hours ago
Wireless charging is a gimmick like 3D TV was. There's only one use case, and it's car use. But it doesn't need to be fast. In every other case it's worse than cable in every aspect
shyguyblue@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
A phone with wireless charging is a bit niche, but if only all my little devices had wireless charging; earbuds, vape, tablet, controller, remote, etc. I’d set a charging mat in the middle of the coffee table and have all my devices just be charged and ready to go. Now it’s just a mess of wires, with the only thing I keep glued to my hand featuring wireless charging!?
sexy_peach@feddit.org 9 hours ago
yup, the chinese brand have it right. Fast charging is amazing, just put the phone on charge for like 10-20 minutes and you can forget about your battery for another day. It’s great.
warm@kbin.earth 7 hours ago
Wireless charging sucks. It costs significantly more energy to charge the same battery to full.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 5 hours ago
Magnetic portable battery packs are fantastic too.
KingOfSuede@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
[citation needed]
warm@kbin.earth 7 hours ago
https://www.ifixit.com/News/94409/wireless-charging-trading-efficiency-for-convenience
It's true, but wireless charging is still inefficient and should be avoided.
14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 7 hours ago
And with that, hopefully we can put this argument to rest.
wow… the idea that the anecdotal evidence of some youtuber should be the proof, not the engineering and chemistry knowledge of people who designed the battery and charging system and know how it works, is on par with the belief that global warming is caused by farts of the turtles carrying the earth. sad noises.
onoki@reddthat.com 6 hours ago
Which part contradicts what the engineers or scientists think?
warm@kbin.earth 7 hours ago
This isn't a fair like-to-like test though. They used iPhones, which use one battery and then for their 120W test they used iQOO 7, which has two batteries that charge in parallel. They aren't testing the charge rate effects on a single battery, but just how different phones behave.
While it's an okay test to see how certain models of phones hold up, it's not a test for longevity of a single battery using fast and and not-as-fast charging.
So the title, as it often is these days on YouTube, is misleading.
BritishJ@lemmy.world 58 minutes ago
No they did a fast and slow charging group for iPhone, and also did a fast and slow charging group for Androids. Did you not pay attention.
goatinspace@feddit.org 5 hours ago
OhVenus_Baby@lemmy.ml 7 hours ago
I think this accurate or close to it for phones but my laptop battery a Dell has degraded very quickly through 50 plus or more cycles of battery like 15 percent. It went from 59wh down to 50wh and it ebbs and flows. Runs Linux mint and installed power top and some other low power mods to help dumb things down to conserve. I feel like arm processors vs x86 are wildly different.
cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 4 hours ago
What kills the batteries is keeping them at 100% charge all the time, especially when the laptop is hot. Some laptops do have the ability to limit the maximum charge. Setting the maximum charge to 60-80% when the laptop is going to be plugged in for a while will extend the battery life. It is necessary to occasionally do a full charge to keep the capacity sensor calibrated though.
LoafedBurrito@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Just what I wanted to know. Thanks!!
Engywuck@lemmy.zip 7 hours ago
Yeah, but it’s my 0.5% /s
erotador@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 hours ago
are we not going to see results of the half cycle vs the full cycle? unless im dumb and missed something (its possible)
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
I would rather see another two years before I call this totally an over argument. Most people are keeping phones for a few years now.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 hours ago
In fairness, that’s another 2 year commitment.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 11 minutes ago
Betteridge’s law of headlines: “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”