Does Fast Charging Kill Your Phone’s Battery Faster? Yes and No

If you look at the latest smartphones on the market, you will find that most if not all of them support fast charging, including the iPhone 11 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 10. From 7W to 25W, charging is getting faster and who doesn’t want to charge their phone in a matter of minutes?

However, some users are still very cautious when it comes to fast charging. If you visit any of the popular forums such as Reddit, Quora or android central, you will quickly see that there are plenty of threads around the topic of fast charging: Is it bad for your battery? Does it shorten the life of your cell phone battery? Doesn't it ruin the battery?

Look further and you will find that people are divided, some think ‘yes’ whilst others think ‘no’.

Are you curious about the answer and want to understand more about fast charging technology? Grab your favourite drink, a tasty snack and join us on our fast charging adventure, stay till the end to see why high-quality fast chargers are worthwhile.

The first thing that thinks about is –

1. What would accelerate the aging of a phone battery?

This is a really interesting question. If you answered with any of the following, overloading, discharging, overheating or high current then you would be absolutely right. Good work! These three key factors will significantly shorten your phone’s battery life faster than anything else.

-Overcharging

Overcharging your phone can generate a lot of unnecessary heat. Non-standard battery chargers can continue to charge the battery even after it is full, this will definitely damage the battery. However, this is not normally a problem if you use the original phone charger. When the battery is fully charged, the power supply disconnects the charging circuit, so that does not charge the loaded battery anymore.

-Overheating

Our environment is important to the health of all human beings, and also the life of our electronics including phone batteries. When a battery’s temperature is too high, whether this is from overcharging/discharging, or from the outside temperature, your phone’s performance and it’s battery’s performance will be greatly reduced. Under certain circumstances, the battery can swell up or even explode.

-High current

High current can occur when you use an improper power adapter, or when you charge your phone too fast. In extreme situations, it can cause a short circuit or even an explosion. Most modern batteries now have built-in controllers to protect them from serious damage, although it is hard to prevent high current from shortening a battery’s life.

Now that you understand what attributes can cause premature aging in your phone’s battery, you might be curious to know –

2. What’s fast charging is?

Quick charge, or fast charge, is a technology originally established in Qualcomm's SoCs, in devices such as Samsung phones, tablets etc. Since the first version was released in 2013, Quick Charge has continued to evolve and now QC 4+ is the latest standard.

The other main standard is USB-PD, developed by the USB Implementers Forum and mainly used by Apple.

The term "fast charge" is used to describe ‘the completion of the battery from 0% to 100%’ in a shorter period. It provides the power required for the battery much quicker and in a shorter time than the traditional hardware load. Usually the charge controller inside the battery will control the current flow to protect against dangerous sudden spikes. With fast charging, the controller within the battery measures the battery’s cell current and voltage in a different way. It lets more current in, in a similar way to if a door were to become wider for the current to flow in, so it’s faster to fill up the space.

Are you still reading this blog? It is awesome, isn’t it! Well, now I want you all to take a break and think again –

3. Does fast charging kill your phone’s battery life faster?

If you think so, then the main reasons will probably be:

• Because fast charging means that you use charge cycles (from 0% to 100%) faster, which in turn reduces the life of the battery.
• Because the fast charging generates more heat which is bad for the battery.

Intelligent technologies used in our devices ensure that the charger switches to the appropriate amount of power for your phone. This ensures that your phone will not receive more energy than it can absorb. Fast charging is safe. However, the heat generated during rapid charging is the main cause of reducing a battery’s life. Heat is unavoidable even for slow charging. You may argue that slow charging doesn’t generate as much heat as fast charging. Ok, that’s true, but fast charging has more advantages than disadvantages, and if you follow the tips below, you can minimize the aging of your phone’s battery life.

Hopefully, you now understand the key concepts of this wireless technology. Now, I want to go through several tips you can use to make your smartphone’s battery lasts as long as possible.

4. Tips to slow down the aging of cell phone battery

Avoid extreme temperatures

Temperature changes can be very unpredictable, exposing an iPhone to extreme temperatures will certainly affect the life of the battery. The best way to avoid it is to keep your phone out of the kitchen while you are cooking, avoid carrying when you're outside in hot weather, keep it in the shade whilst driving, and don’t leave in your car when the weather is hot.

Avoid letting the battery fall to 0%

“I let my smartphone drain to 0%, then charge it back to 100%”. If you are doing this, please stop, because the battery technology in today’s smartphones now works very differently. The battery in your iPhone is at it’s most effective when kept between 20% and 90%. Keeping it within this range as much as possible will help to preserve the battery life.

The use of certified iPhone chargers is your best bet!

Finally, the charger you use can have a significant impact on the performance of your iPhone’s battery. A defective charger or a cheap quality charger can shorten the life of your battery, affect the performance of your phone and charge your phone inefficiently.

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In Conclusion

OK, so the overall view is that, yes, fast charging can shorten the life of your phone battery due to more heat generated; although you can also preserve the life of your phone battery when using fast wireless charging as long as you follow the tips above.

All things considered, fast charging is more beneficial and that outweighs the potential risks involved. If you look after your phone, keep the battery in between the optimum levels and use a certified charger, it will continue to have a long and healthy life.