However the Battery Saver mode on Androids that only charges the battery up to 80% DOES extend battery life. Substantial evidence shows that a high State of Charge accelerates degradation through: solid electrolyte interphase growth, loss of lithium inventory, and loss of active materials. (See: mdpi.com)
this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2025
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Here’s a fun fact: phone manufacturers know this. So what they call “100%” is not actually 100%. Your phone will not charge your battery to full. Battery charging is already designed around this.
Got proof? I've not cracked open a phone for a while to see if the component labelling matches the interface, let alone tested capacity of an extracted battery directly.
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That depends on the manufacturer, some do, some don't. My phone has a setting to control the max charge, so I set it to 80% when I got it.
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I always find the same study referenced, which was good science but also almost 30 years old. I wonder if this is still true for modern batteries?
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It's as if engineers knew what they're doing.
Granted, with all the planned obsolescence happening, you could also argue that engineers "knew" what they were doing.
Planned obsolescence happens but it's not as common as most people think it is.
And probably not as intentional as most people think it is vs just laziness and maybe a lack of planning.
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If engineers were the ones in control that would mean something.
As I see it, phone manufacturers have zero reasons to keep the battery degradation low, but many reasons to push advertised capacity and charging speed. If you were cynical, you could also assume that they're trying to make sure the battery doesn't last too long because they want to keep selling new phones.
I think we all know that if an engineer went to upper management and said “I can charge these batteries faster, but it degrades the battery life by 20% over a year.” they would have said “Do it! We won’t mention that last part.”
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Betteridge's law of headlines: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
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TL;DW: No
Ok, before i watch the video, no damage is not what great scott found from his testings.. ( https://youtu.be/iMn2yVoEqPs ).
so i have no idea what to believe anymore, but my (based) experience is that it does damage it. Ill have to watch later.
Yea, but that wasn't a great rest. I love Great Scott, but a lot of comments fairly call out his conclusion.
Most (all?)phones don't charge at full speed to 100% charge, they fast charge when the battery is almoast empty, and charge slower the more full it gets.
Right, so basically he removed the software aspect in his tests which removes systems to protect the battery. I assume without them, it is damaging, like what great scott found.
Ye, he should have continued his experiments then!
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Those circuits he made up doesn't take into account that the phones have built in protections that alternate the input based on charge level.
I hadn't watched the video yet, but my phone's going the opposite way. It run slow charge overnight when it feels like it's going to be enough for it to be fully charged the next morning.
We really should let electronics and tight software take care of these little things.
My phone tells me every night that it's slow charging and it will be full by [the time I have my alarm set for].
Pixel 8 Pro.
iPhones do this as well, I assume both will also do it without the alarm as mine has simply learned what time I take it off the charger normally.
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I’ve got some devices I’ve been fast charging for 8 years; it seems to be more of a problem as the device ages; but that’s offset by having it ready to use again quickly.
Non-magnetically-aligned wireless chargers are far worse than fast charging.
Far worse at what? Wasting energy? That isn’t what the video is testing.
At killing batteries faster - the wasted energy creates heat, which degrades the battery.
That makes sense but has it actually been tested?
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I always thought that charging beyond 85% or so is what degrades batteries. The LiPos of my quadcopter actually actively reduce their charge if left sitting somewhere for a longer period of time. To prevent them from going up in flames.
The idea with fast charging is it's going to generate more heat. That extra heat is what damages the batteries life
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This is the type of scientific method that can put all this nonsense to rest. I really appreciate their work proving that the difference between fast/slow/30-80% is insignificant to the majority of people.
Thanks!
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