when we started working on this video it was supposed to be a psa about the
dangers of using fast charging and wireless charging
and we had this whole plan worked out where we were going to use a thermal camera to measure how hot our devices
were getting discuss the detrimental effects of heat on phone batteries
complain that they're not user replaceable etc etc but as it turns out
if you're using a modern charger like these ones from anker that they
unwittingly sent over for us to crucify it's basically a non-issue
but don't stop watching yet because your
non-replaceable phone battery is still at risk of a premature death and
strategically applied wireless or fast
charging could actually help prevent that death
and i'm going to tell you how as long as you've got enough juice to
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growing up i was always taught that when my rechargeable discman and game gear
batteries died i should charge them all the way
and then discharge them all the way because if i didn't they might not last
as long the next time because they would remember the lower capacity so
fast forward you know what forget how many years it
is fast forward to today and generally speaking i charge my phone with the same
mentality leaving it plugged in overnight so that i have a hundred
percent when i start my day and then only plugging in again when it is almost
dead that evening but here's the problem as your phone
charges its battery's acceptance of ions
actually becomes more and more labored
as the battery gets close to a full charge
kind of like how packing in passengers is easy at the start but as a car gets
more and more full it takes a lot of pressure to get the last couple of
people in and it's a slow process so in the world
of electricity voltage is a lot like
pressure and the last five percent charge from 95 to 100 takes
significantly more of it but with very
little current actually flowing in that's why it's so slow and it's not by
choice if you go too fast towards the end you'll end up with a
unwanted gases that can cause the battery to swell and b an effect called
polarization that makes your phone think that the battery is full when it's not
well okay so i'm asleep the phone's fully charged
well everyone knows that it can't overcharge what's the big deal going back to our
car analogy sitting at a hundred percent capacity is really uncomfortable for
your battery and well everyone so if you want your battery to
stay healthy for years and years you should only allow it to charge to its
less stressful voltage about 3.9 volts
which means stopping charging once your phone reaches 60 to 65
which isn't nearly enough for me to get through a whole day so this is where
fast charging and the wireless chargers that we mentioned before come in
this might seem counter-intuitive because fast charging works by forcing
in a ton of electrons at high voltages i mean we're talking 14 and a half volts
on the iphone 10 when the battery is near empty
but that is why fast charging is only
activated while your battery is under 50 or 70 percent
that's while it is still accepting ions very readily rather than turning them
into wasted heat so what do you do
if you're the type of person who needs as much screen time as possible each day
and you plan on upgrading every one or two years anyway
then charge it overnight you'll be reducing
your battery's health but i guess that's whoever buys it on
ebay's problem however if you're the type of person who wants their phone to
last three four or even five years then you
want to charge your battery in a way that preserves its health and this is
where it gets tricky because even the act of discharging your battery ages it
according to the depth of discharge
therefore if you really want to optimize its longevity you should only let it
drain down to say 50 before charging it up to just 60
a depth of discharge of only 10 percent
now that sounds like a gigantic hassle
but lots of people do try to stay between 25 and 80 percent and fast
wireless chargers like the ones we were planning to tell you not to use are
actually really helpful for that you just set your phone down on the pad
whenever you're at your desk and let your battery graze rather than gorge and
that's without the inconvenience of messing with a power cable
just make sure that you put your phone down correctly
so i like this design in particular because
it's actively cooled for faster power delivery and it forces you to line up
the phone correctly for maximum efficiency less wasted electricity means
less heat which is better for your battery
just don't leave it on the pad for too long because as of right now only
Android phones and only rooted ones in
particular support apps that let you avoid the discomfort of a 100 percent
charge speaking of discomfort it can be a
pretty uncomfortable feeling when you drop your phone and break your screen
and that's where ifixit comes in they are leading the charge in the
electronics repair industry with both their guides on their website and their
tools including their iconic black and blue protect tool kit and it's now only
60 bucks it stores in a nice compact little roll it comes with their 64-bit
driver kit a wide variety of plastic opening tools spudgers and picks so you
can safely poke and pry a suction cup with a fancy handle to remove display
assemblies their own jimmy pry tool esd safe tweezers and more and it's all
backed by ifixit's lifetime warranty so why pay someone else to fix your devices
when you can check out their free repair resources over at ifixit.com and go to
ifixit.com Linus to snag your own fully loaded protech toolkit again it's now
only 60 bucks so thanks for watching guys if this
video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to
where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description also down there is
our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum
which you should totally join