Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, How-tos, Odds and ends, Apple
Treat your batteries right
Ars Technica has a short guide up to treating your iPhone, laptop, and iPod batteries right. Contrary to popular belief, it seems the best way to wear out a battery before its time isn't spending too many charge cycles-- it's heat. Charge cycles are equivalent to normal wear and tear on batteries-- it's better to charge your batteries up from partial charge rather than let them run all the way out, and then charge them fully. But heat is a much bigger factor, and considering that most laptops (or "notebooks," as Apple likes to say) run hot, batteries lose their capacity comparatively fast.The best way to store a battery, says Ars, is partially charged and in the fridge. In fact, one of their batteries still had a 95% charge after 2.5 years, just because most of that time was spent in about 40 degree temperatures at half charge.
Of course, I buy batteries not to keep them in the fridge, but to use them, so I'd like to see (and have seen, don't get me wrong) progress in lifespan and capacity rather than a battery next to my Guinness in the fridge. But if squeezing every little bit of your battery counts, it sounds like you can't go wrong by being cool.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
harsh said 7:24PM on 8-08-2007
You're saying that it had a 95% charge after being stored at a half charge? How does that make sense? The fridge charged up the battery from 50% to 95%? I think not.
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Ruben said 11:18AM on 8-09-2007
lol. what i think he meant is that the battery had 95% capacity after being stored in the fridge at 50% charge..
;)
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ytrozs said 1:07AM on 8-10-2007
Hmmm. Now I'm worried. My iPod runs very hot when I use it in my car (Kensington charger/transmitter). I keep it in the center console in the front seats, and sometimes if it's been in there a while, it becomes uncomfortable to the touch. I imagine part of that is the charging (the charger seems to keep trying even after the battery is apparently at 100%). And part of it is because I live in Phoenix.
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mark said 8:31PM on 8-08-2007
@harsh
I think they meant the battery maintained 95% of its CAPACITY after 2.5 years because it was kept in the fridge with ~50% charge
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Reg Muffet said 9:08PM on 8-08-2007
Er, TUAW, there are people around the world reading the blog and the US is one of the few countries still using the archaic Fahrenheit temperature scale.
It's also not scientific and likely to lead to polar landers crashing onto Mars.
At least write 40°F (4.5°C) to make it clear.
PS Metric countries rarely translate Ray Bradbury's book into "Celsisus 232" ;)
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Reg Muffet said 9:10PM on 8-08-2007
Typo: Celsius
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Peter said 6:39AM on 8-09-2007
The fact that the unused battery stored in the fridge still had most of its capacity does not refute the charge cycle claims. It was kept cool AND it didn't have many charge cycles so it could have been either factor.
A very poorly constructed experiment.
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Babacrash said 1:39AM on 8-09-2007
A battery is a chemical assembly where a chemical reaction is happening and provide current (small particles travel from a point to another). If you put it in the fridge, you decrease the cinetic, meaning the speed, of the reaction: particles travel a lot slower. This is why the charge is kept for such a long time.
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NotAwesome said 11:31PM on 8-08-2007
Do you think condensation and moisture are hidden gotchas?
About 27 years ago, I first heard that storing batteries in the fridge extended their life. I had a radio controlled jeep that would was a battery hog.
I kept a bunch of D cells in the fridge (prolly Duracell) and they ended up rusted with even shorter lives than the non-refrigerated ones.
My almost 5-year old TiBook runs hot ALL the time and my battery is crap now. But I think I'll hold off on refrigerating my new battery until I hear more evidence that rust won't set in.
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Swampash said 9:09PM on 8-09-2007
Dunno what planet you guys are on, but here on Earth 40 degrees is uncomfortably hot as an ambient temperature.
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