How to Charge Your Cell Phone to Extend Your Battery Life

The E-Waste Monitor 2020 report leaves us ashamed and, hopefully, on the alert: in all of Latin America, Chile is the country that produced the most technological waste in 2019: exactly 168,000 tons.

If the responsibility were strictly individual, which is of course not the case, it is as if each Chilean had generated 9 kilos of waste. Technology in twelve months, which is equivalent to something like seven notebook and a cell phone. However, there is another interesting figure.

According to the company to recycle dedicated to the management of electronic, electrical and industrial surpluses, an impressive number of 3 million mobile phones are thrown in the trash every year in Chile.

This has a lot to do with the concept of “planned obsolescence”. The story goes that in 1924, a group of industrial entrepreneurs met in Geneva to collude and agree to reduce the useful life of light bulbs. The reason was simple: if they lasted forever, the company would collapse.

Mothers or grandmothers, perhaps without handling this evidence, had already discovered this plot a long time ago: surely you have already heard them say “that now they make everything disposable”, then tell you the story of a refrigerator that has all but disappeared from one generation to the next compared to one that now hopefully lasts a few years.

There’s a bit of this and a bit of that, especially when it comes to cellphones. Indeed and without a doubt, today a mobile phone is much better and has infinitely more functions and uses than an old one, but the classic Nokia could fall from a second floor and nothing would happen to it, so that today if you fall out of bed and you are unlucky, you can die.

But there is also a factor of personal responsibility. Sometimes it’s important to stop wondering what your phone can do for you and look at what you can do for your phone.

With a hand on your heart: How much do you care about protecting the useful life of your device? Do you even know what you do or don’t have to do to maximize the durability of your beloved cell phone?

We consulted experts to tell us what to do and what not to be responsible both with your pocket – and not having to change your phone every two years – and with the environment.

The first seems to be obvious, but it’s not so much the case. In fact, it’s almost a rule of life that when you lose your mobile phone charger, you rush to buy the first —almost always a pirate— you find on the street, with the promise of acquiring the official few time later. . Time passes and we simply keep it.

Luis Ignacio López, electronics expert and co-founder of Cellumania assures that this is the most common of the errors he sees concerning the maintenance of the cell phone battery.

“Purchasing peripheral items such as extended memory, Micro SD or a charger that is not compatible or certified by the manufacturer is a very common mistake. It is bad because the performance of the equipment can vary considerably”, warns Fernando González, marketing manager OPPO Chile .

What is the most typical thing that happens with ditch or mess loaders? Mainly that it doesn’t charge properly, has fast “phantom” charges, or the product powers up very slowly. But the greatest risk arises when the AC charger delivers more amperage than needed, which could cause irreversible damage to the product’s battery.

If original accessories are out of your budget, especially now that many phones don’t include chargers in their luxurious packaginghere we have compiled a list of interesting and cheap alternatives — from recognized and certified brands — to charge your devices with confidence.

But if you have official or certified chargers, it happens that the battery, after a little more than a year, begins to weaken. Can we do something about it or is it part of the machiavellian plan of planned obsolescence?

There are several very simple recommendations to ensure that the cell phone battery does not drain excessively. You don’t have to be an expert, just be a bit more aware and maybe “considerable” with this poor little machine that we use from the time we get up until we go to to sleep.

Amidst all the hustle and bustle, it’s common to forget the importance of maintaining what’s called “digital hygiene”: taking the time to make the updates the team proposes to make; delete applications that are not used, use “energy saving” mode when possible, do not expose it to extreme temperatures – not very cold or direct sunlight in summer -, remember to turn off Wi-Fi when not in use, don’t use the display at maximum brightness with strict exceptions, and perhaps most importantly, charge it properly.

“The recommendation for the battery to last is to complete charge cycles,” says López. What does it mean? Unplug the phone or device once it reaches 100% battery, as these have a useful life depending on the number of charge cycles.

There are two streams of thought here (yes, I did say streams): there are those, like López, who suggest that it is better to charge the cell phone until it is at 100% , a line he also shares Daniel Steinart professor at Princeton University and aerospace mechanical engineer, who says it’s best to keep it fully charged for as long as possible.

But there are others who follow the ideology of “between 20% and 80%” . This trend ensures that the cell phone will never reach its maximum or minimum charge, but rather stay in the healthy balance of the 20s and 80s. Venkat Srinivasan director of the Storage Collaborative Energy Institute located in Argonne, France, assures that charging the mobile phone up to 100% puts a lot of strain on the battery and ends up damaging it.

The same thing happens if it stays below 20%: the battery takes a lot of work to keep working with such a low charge and this could shorten its lifespan. In fact, a few years ago, Elon Musk himself tweeted how far the batteries of his famous Tesla electric cars should be kept charged: between 30% and 80%.

Where the two schools agree is that it is not recommended to use the mobile phone while it is charging and that it is good, at least once a month, to leave it discharge completely and then recharge it completely.

Another point on which there is a lot of consensus is that the habit of leaving the mobile phone on charge overnight is not entirely recommended: even if it will not necessarily cause immediate damage to the equipment – the news lithium batteries only disconnect the input stream when they are at 100%—the time required for a full charge is never more than 2-3 hours.

Finally, the Aristotelian asks: Why? Why should I worry about something as insignificant as a cell phone battery when there are so many more important things in life going on that need my full attention?

The first thing is that surely 95% of the relevant things that need your attention also need your cellphone to be on, so the contradiction is obvious.

Then, explains Luis Ignacio López of Celumania, “the importance of taking care of the devices instead of changing them is above all to avoid continuing to promote electronic waste. We are in a critical period of climate crisis and this is a good way to reduce this pollutant,” he adds. In his business, for example, he receives used and damaged phones for partial payment, then repairs them and sells them as refurbished phones.

In this sense, it is important to be concerned with this point from the beginning. In other words, choosing a team that, as Fernando González says about Oppo , to be both a companion and an all-terrain resource. “It is very important to consider aspects of operation or design that extend not only its functional life but also its appearance.”