iPhone battery and Standby

[M915 Driver]

I bought a new iPhone 14 from the Apple on line store shortly after the iPhone 15 came out. I use the Standby feature every night and love it.

My question is how does Standby affect the battery? I only use about 5% to 10% of the battery during the day, and it charges all night on Standby using the Apple MagSafe charger. My understand is that it is better for the battery to be kept between 40% and 80%. If this is, in fact, correct how does one maintain this??

Thanks in advance for any responses!

Ken

 

[RadDave]

I bought a new iPhone 14 from the Apple on line store shortly after the iPhone 15 came out. I use the Standby feature every night and love it.

My question is how does Standby affect the battery? I only use about 5% to 10% of the battery during the day, and it charges all night on Standby using the Apple MagSafe charger. My understand is that it is better for the battery to be kept between 40% and 80%. If this is, in fact, correct how does one maintain this??

Thanks in advance for any responses!

Ken

Hi Ken - still trying to figure out Apple's optimizing battery algorithms myself - just bought a M2 Air laptop which I'm using at the moment; the MagSafe charger is plugged in and the battery in the menu bar is showing 'On Hold: 80%' (first pic below), so seems to be working as advertised.

However, also have an iPhone 14 - when not charging the battery gradually loses power since I usually have Wi-Fi & BT on (and of course GPS) - I typically charge with an Anker Qi device which allows iCloud backup but takes the phone to 100% (not sure if it stops at 80% for a while). Here's Apple's Article which is not completely helpful but useful; another one HERE - in the second pic my 'Battery Optimization' setting is ON, so hopefully prolonging the battery's life? Suspect that others will 'chime in' with further comments. Dave
.

 

[JesseMorrison]

You can also put a limit on the phone to not charge it more than 80%. If you are really interested I will search for it because I had a good video showing how to do it and will send it. Also it's good for the battery to be kept between 25-80%, but it's not mandatory, if you intend to switch your iPhone every 2-3 years you won't meet with any battery problems regardless of the way you charge it.

 

[Rod]

This has been a "hot topic" for ages. Here is a pretty good article on the subject, note the part on Significant Locations

About Optimized Battery Charging on your iPhone - Apple Support

In iOS 13, your iPhone learns from your daily charging habits to improve the lifespan of your battery.

support.apple.com

 

[Rod]

Just recently I swapped my iPhone SE 2 for my wife's iPhone 13 Pro Max. The battery life of the Pro Max is amazing compared to my old SE even though I had the battery replaced in the SE around a year ago.
It led me to wonder about the value of the Optimised Battery Charging system because my wife and I had completely different charging habits.
For starters I hadn't noticed any difference in the way the 13 Pro Max was charging after two weeks of use. My habit has always been to charge o/night on a Qi bedside charger.
As a result I checked all my settings, in particular "Significant Locations" because Optimised Charging only works in a recognised location after 2 weeks but to no avail, the phone continued to charge to 100% as far as I could tell no matter what time I woke up.
Then I noticed that on my wife's new iPhone 15 charging can be limited to 80% manually in Battery settings, this is new.
This suggests to me that Apple would really like us to only charge to 80% and with the screen time of the latest phones 80% charge is more than enough for a day, or more, even with heavy use.
I also noticed that the condition of my wife's old iPhone 13 battery when we swapped was better than my old SE (despite battery change) 93% compared to 86%.

I mentioned we had very different charging habits. While I charged mine o/night my wife tended to charge hers when time allowed or whenever it got down to about 25% and usually not to 100% because that took too long. So, frequent short charges in the car, while watching TV, maybe plugged in while cooking or showering in the morning ect, ect.

Now while her new iPhone 15 Pro Max can be limited to 80% (a new feature) mine can't but it's clear that her old intermittent, partial charging habits certainly did no harm.

As a result I have changed my charging habits, I downloaded Battery Alarm from the App Store which I have set to 80%, it also displays on my watch.
I charge my iPhone during the day and remove it when at 80% or less. It's to be hoped that Apple will allow the manual limiting of charge in settings for earlier models some time soon but that may not be possible.
In the mean time intermittent charging for me.

 

[IWT]

A very interesting post, Rod.

My wife charges her iPhone 14 Pro when she remembers. This has always been her "policy" for several years and several iPhones.

The damnable thing is that her battery rating/health is every bit as good as mine, or better even; and I follow the "rules" as suggested by Apple and mentioned by you above.

I have friends who do the same as my wife and I just wonder sometimes if the battery advice we get from Apple and other sources is really that relevant in everyday practice?

Ian

 

[Jimmysb]

So I only charge my iPhone (and iPad) when down to 10 - 15%, unless I consider the charge will not last whilst I am out, and charge to 100%. My iPhone 13 mini is about 2 years old and the health is 97%, my iPad (6th Gen) was bought in 2018 does not have a battery health indicator, but lasts 7 - 8 day between charging.

 

[Rod]

It's clear that there is a wide variation in battery duration and charging habits across iPhone models and year.
What does seem to be clear is that Apple believes there is need to provide a way of consistently limiting charging to 80%.
I believe that is because Optimised Charging takes so long to kick in ie. Two weeks or 9 consecutive charges to over 80% in the same location. This never really worked for me because of regular o/seas and local travel.
It fits their suggestion of best practice for battery levels to sustain maximum health ie. 20-80%.
Honestly, I think for those who change/upgrade their iPhone every year or two it doesn't matter what charging habits they have but if like me it's more like 4 years it does.
With my old SE 2 I used to charge over night on a bedside Qi charger and again for about an hour in the afternoon but with this iPhone 13 starting off the day with around 60% is plenty so charging o/night is unnecessary, I just top it up around dinner time.
I originally downloaded an app for the purpose of notifying me when the charge reached 80% but I found it's pretty east to create an Automation in the Short Cuts app to do the same. Create a new personal automation in Shortcuts on iPhone or iPad

 

[Jimmysb]

If this 80% was so important to Apple, why didn't they just make it the norm, i.e. phone automatically charged only to 80% and the user had to push to charge past that, and on that if it is so important, why not just limit it to 80%.

 

[IWT]

If this 80% was so important to Apple, why didn't they just make it the norm, i.e. phone automatically charged only to 80% and the user had to push to charge past that, and on that if it is so important, why not just limit it to 80%.

Because too many folks want to be the "master" of their product

I think Rod got it right when he said that people who change their iPhones every couple of years (or yearly) will not notice any deterioration in Battery life; whereas those keeping theirs longer should follow Apple's advice.

Ian

 

[Rod]

Apparently even with the setting switched on the phone will still charge to 100% occasionally in order to calibrate the battery.

It's important to Apple or they wouldn't have gone to the trouble of writing the program, the question is why is it important to Apple? And why just the iPhone 15? I think that question pretty much answers itself.