The Bottom Line on Whether to Charge Your Phone Overnight
Spoiler alert, the answer is yes: if the battery needs recharging, recharge it overnight while you sleep. The reason this is even a question has to do with outdated battery technologies, old concerns being addressed by modern smartphones, and other issues that this Android Authority video is addressing in due course.
The video above tells the story, but the shorter version here says that concerns about your battery having “cyclic memory” or “only a certain amount of charges” are remnants of old nickel batteries that most modern devices no longer use. (although there are some rechargeable batteries, like our beloved Eneloops .) The Android Authority explains:
Nickel-based batteries tend to have a cyclic memory. If they weren’t given a full charge between cycles, they could “forget” their full capacity and remember the point to which they were last charged as their maximum capacity. Many of us have never used nickel batteries in our mobile devices since the switch to lithium-ion in the early 2000s.
The issue you should be worried about lithium ion batteries, however, is their temperature sensitivity. Their charging and output efficiency can vary widely depending on their operating temperature. While most are capable of being charged and discharged at normal temperatures, by their nature, lithium-ion batteries cannot handle the additional input current other than dissipating energy as heat, which means the batteries can get very hot. Fortunately, most modern smartphones solve this problem by disconnecting the battery from power after charging it and using the incoming current as the main power source instead, keeping your battery charged, happy, and cool without the risk of overheating.
As we discussed above, the main danger of leaving your smartphone plugged in overnight is allowing your device’s battery to heat up and stay hot for the rest of the night. However, our mobile devices have become much smarter. They can stop charging when the battery reaches full capacity and start using the plugged-in charger as their main power source, allowing you to wake up with a fully charged battery while your phone stays on overnight.
And this is something like this. The Android Authority offers some best practices and tips for keeping your smartphone battery at peak performance in the full article linked below. You can also hear some of them in the video above, so hit the play button for a full explanation.
Should I leave my phone on overnight? | Android Control via Digg