Around 10-15%. I don’t know, maybe charging too often is less of an issue these days but my phone seems to have decent battery capacity after four years. Usually only need to plug it in every couple of weeks.
I charge my phone in the morning while I’m drinking coffee and before getting ready for work. Or, at work.
I stopped charging my phone every night after getting one of my monthly Energy Consumption Breakdowns for our household from our electric company. It said that our household spent $100 of electricity on electronics. Now, I AM curious about how they are able to categorize our energy use by (maybe it’s about the number of watts it uses??). I dunno. But when you figure it takes what, an hour to charge your phone and it’s plugged in all night long? That’s a bunch of wasted energy for one person, let alone the number of devices in a household. Plus, they say it ruins your battery life, too, which I have a hunch fewer people care about.
@lasdeauna Friend, I don’t think it’s your phone charger that’s costing you that much energy. They only use about .15 kilowatt-hours per month if you charge your phone once a day. Which is about 2 cents a month. Obviously, it goes up if you use “fast” charging ones, but the difference is only by a small amount. Also, my state has “time-of-day” rates for electricity, so it’s cheaper to use electricity during off-peak hours, like overnight. (Source: https://www.energysage.com/electricity/house-watts/how-many-watts-does-a-phone-charger-use/)
Now, it is true that your battery does wear down faster if you charge it above 80% or use fast charging. Apple actually has a feature in place that stops charging your phone at 80% and resumes it at a different time to reduce wear (like if you plug it in overnight, it won’t finish charging until it’s closer to the time you usually start using your phone in the morning). https://support.apple.com/en-us/108055
TL;DR I’d look into alternate reasons why your electronics bill is so high, cuz it’s likely not from charging your phone.
@lasdeauna@madqueeen Yup, obvious answers are A/C (which we all are using more as we have increasingly hot Summers most places). Next is your refrigerators/freezers. Old ones are way less efficient (and also annoyingly loud to me). Many times people buy a new refrigerator but put the old one in the garage or something – so it’s still using the same high amount of power it used when it was in your kitchen.
I don’t really trust your electric company’s assessment of usage. Unless you have a very advanced power system that tracks usage on each circuit – which are available now but not common.
@madqueeen I appreciate that. I used to have Hourly Pricing and LOVED it. Did everything between 5:00 and 8:00 when kW were like 1.7¢. But then, I switched to one of those third party electric companies and when I switched back, I couldn’t join Hourly Pricing right away.
Anyway, yeah. That’s all really useful to know. Thanks for your insight.
@madqueeen@pmarin I remembered that there were a few different categories. One of em was specifically electronics, so I went to back to the email and there are separate categories for cooling, refrigeration, and lighting. I’ll see if I can post a picture of a screenshot I took.
There is also a blurb about how they are able to determine usage with their NEW Smart Meters.
Phone is three years old. I usually charge at night, but not every night, on a light usage day I’ll leave it for a second day. Phone three+ years old and still going strong.
My last phone after about a year I would have to charge it multiple times a day to not run out of power. I’d get to like 15% after an hours usage, then if I got a text message when at 15% or lower it would cause my phone to turn off… Lol.
@OnionSoup I have a phone with its original battery going on 5 years now. I installed a 3rd party battery monitor and have learned to trust neither numerical values (as the % can jump from 2% to 86% in both directions immediately).
I understand that on idle, connected via WiFi, my phone probably lasts 15 minutes; if anything else happens (call, internet browser opens, etc.) to spike power usage, that “100%” battery immediately drops to 0% and the phone powers off. Plugging in the charger while the phone is off, the phone may then read anywhere from 0% to 90%. (But shouldn’t be powered on, another power draw spike, without being plugged in.)
I have Qi chargers in multiple rooms and in my car. The phone gets set on them whenever not being used. Battery life? Wouldn’t know, But the phones only last 6-7 years before being obsolete
@olperfesser “obsolete” is a broad term these days.
A 4-year-old model can probably run modern apps reasonably well (until security updates stop). The battery life may be suspect though.
If you manage to get unofficial updates, and perform diligent maintenance of the hardware (including battery replacements), you could theoretically use an 8yo model for things like email or even video conferencing.
And in Europe, they have a strong lineup of modular phones that reduce waste by upgrading parts of the phone gradually than an “everything at once” business model (though being modular, things are bigger, heavier, and more prone to falling apart after a drop compared to a tightly glued shut all-in-one).
The battery is the biggest hurdle though, as technology/industry standards suggest the lifespan of each to be no more than 4 years.
My phone is only 2.5 years old and the battery has sucked for easily a year. The EU has stated that all phones sold there after 2025 have to have replaceable batteries. I hope we get those in the US as well. I am looking at new phones.
A lot of the wisdom/old-wives-tales about battery life management are really no longer that important, at least for recent well-designed products. Yeah this stuff used to be a lot worse, and undoubtedly there might still be products out there that benefit from those 20-80% strategies and stuff.
For my phone and iPads I’ll charge whenever convenient but don’t worry about how frequently or charging to 100%. Same as for my Tesla vehicle; I know it has advanced battery management including heating and cooling batteries if needed, so I assume it can handle it. Tesla does suggest charging to 100% once a week if not in heavy use. My friend got a Nissan Leaf (electric) and based on watching old YouTube videos he is terrified about ever violating the 80% rule. But apparently it does not have very good battery management.
@Kyeh@pmarin I often wonder what the major consensus is these days as to what constitutes an ‘old’ phone. My Galaxy S10+ came out in 2019, so about 5 years old now. I’m sure many would consider my phone ‘too old’.
It charges overnight on a trickle charger and is placed on charge during the day as needed. (It’s a used Galaxy S10+ so the battery isn’t the best anymore, but still gets through the day.)
Every night and whenever it’s draining fast.
Around 10-15%. I don’t know, maybe charging too often is less of an issue these days but my phone seems to have decent battery capacity after four years. Usually only need to plug it in every couple of weeks.
When it gets to 21% (it tells me to!) and unplug it at 80-ish%.
@Kyeh yep that is the best!
When it gets hungry.
Multiple times a day.
I charge my phone in the morning while I’m drinking coffee and before getting ready for work. Or, at work.
I stopped charging my phone every night after getting one of my monthly Energy Consumption Breakdowns for our household from our electric company. It said that our household spent $100 of electricity on electronics. Now, I AM curious about how they are able to categorize our energy use by (maybe it’s about the number of watts it uses??). I dunno. But when you figure it takes what, an hour to charge your phone and it’s plugged in all night long? That’s a bunch of wasted energy for one person, let alone the number of devices in a household. Plus, they say it ruins your battery life, too, which I have a hunch fewer people care about.
@lasdeauna Friend, I don’t think it’s your phone charger that’s costing you that much energy. They only use about .15 kilowatt-hours per month if you charge your phone once a day. Which is about 2 cents a month. Obviously, it goes up if you use “fast” charging ones, but the difference is only by a small amount. Also, my state has “time-of-day” rates for electricity, so it’s cheaper to use electricity during off-peak hours, like overnight. (Source: https://www.energysage.com/electricity/house-watts/how-many-watts-does-a-phone-charger-use/)
Now, it is true that your battery does wear down faster if you charge it above 80% or use fast charging. Apple actually has a feature in place that stops charging your phone at 80% and resumes it at a different time to reduce wear (like if you plug it in overnight, it won’t finish charging until it’s closer to the time you usually start using your phone in the morning). https://support.apple.com/en-us/108055
TL;DR I’d look into alternate reasons why your electronics bill is so high, cuz it’s likely not from charging your phone.
@lasdeauna @madqueeen Yup, obvious answers are A/C (which we all are using more as we have increasingly hot Summers most places). Next is your refrigerators/freezers. Old ones are way less efficient (and also annoyingly loud to me). Many times people buy a new refrigerator but put the old one in the garage or something – so it’s still using the same high amount of power it used when it was in your kitchen.
I don’t really trust your electric company’s assessment of usage. Unless you have a very advanced power system that tracks usage on each circuit – which are available now but not common.
@madqueeen I appreciate that. I used to have Hourly Pricing and LOVED it. Did everything between 5:00 and 8:00 when kW were like 1.7¢. But then, I switched to one of those third party electric companies and when I switched back, I couldn’t join Hourly Pricing right away.
Anyway, yeah. That’s all really useful to know. Thanks for your insight.
@madqueeen @pmarin I remembered that there were a few different categories. One of em was specifically electronics, so I went to back to the email and there are separate categories for cooling, refrigeration, and lighting. I’ll see if I can post a picture of a screenshot I took.
There is also a blurb about how they are able to determine usage with their NEW Smart Meters.
Phone is three years old. I usually charge at night, but not every night, on a light usage day I’ll leave it for a second day. Phone three+ years old and still going strong.
My last phone after about a year I would have to charge it multiple times a day to not run out of power. I’d get to like 15% after an hours usage, then if I got a text message when at 15% or lower it would cause my phone to turn off… Lol.
@OnionSoup I have a phone with its original battery going on 5 years now. I installed a 3rd party battery monitor and have learned to trust neither numerical values (as the % can jump from 2% to 86% in both directions immediately).
I understand that on idle, connected via WiFi, my phone probably lasts 15 minutes; if anything else happens (call, internet browser opens, etc.) to spike power usage, that “100%” battery immediately drops to 0% and the phone powers off. Plugging in the charger while the phone is off, the phone may then read anywhere from 0% to 90%. (But shouldn’t be powered on, another power draw spike, without being plugged in.)
I have Qi chargers in multiple rooms and in my car. The phone gets set on them whenever not being used. Battery life? Wouldn’t know, But the phones only last 6-7 years before being obsolete
@olperfesser “obsolete” is a broad term these days.
A 4-year-old model can probably run modern apps reasonably well (until security updates stop). The battery life may be suspect though.
If you manage to get unofficial updates, and perform diligent maintenance of the hardware (including battery replacements), you could theoretically use an 8yo model for things like email or even video conferencing.
And in Europe, they have a strong lineup of modular phones that reduce waste by upgrading parts of the phone gradually than an “everything at once” business model (though being modular, things are bigger, heavier, and more prone to falling apart after a drop compared to a tightly glued shut all-in-one).
The battery is the biggest hurdle though, as technology/industry standards suggest the lifespan of each to be no more than 4 years.
My phone is only 2.5 years old and the battery has sucked for easily a year. The EU has stated that all phones sold there after 2025 have to have replaceable batteries. I hope we get those in the US as well. I am looking at new phones.
A lot of the wisdom/old-wives-tales about battery life management are really no longer that important, at least for recent well-designed products. Yeah this stuff used to be a lot worse, and undoubtedly there might still be products out there that benefit from those 20-80% strategies and stuff.
For my phone and iPads I’ll charge whenever convenient but don’t worry about how frequently or charging to 100%. Same as for my Tesla vehicle; I know it has advanced battery management including heating and cooling batteries if needed, so I assume it can handle it. Tesla does suggest charging to 100% once a week if not in heavy use. My friend got a Nissan Leaf (electric) and based on watching old YouTube videos he is terrified about ever violating the 80% rule. But apparently it does not have very good battery management.
@pmarin Well, my phone is old, so it’s 20-80 for me.
@Kyeh @pmarin I often wonder what the major consensus is these days as to what constitutes an ‘old’ phone. My Galaxy S10+ came out in 2019, so about 5 years old now. I’m sure many would consider my phone ‘too old’.
@pmarin @PooltoyWolf Mine is an iPhone 7 Plus; they came out in 2016 and I got mine in 2017. So pretty ancient by a lot of peoples’ standards.
It charges overnight on a trickle charger and is placed on charge during the day as needed. (It’s a used Galaxy S10+ so the battery isn’t the best anymore, but still gets through the day.)