Power Off or Standby?

[iJoeTime]

In terms of Battery Life, what is best specifically at night?

Should the iphone be powered off nightly or put on standby? Or is it healthier to leave it on all the time with occasional reboots?

[Dean C]

Great question. I'd like to know this too.

[deftdrummer1]

iphone has to be in standby to charge. If you turn the phone off and put it on the charger it will put itself in standby mode. This is the best way to charge because there is always a slight power draw when in standby. Lithium batteries benefit greatly from keeping power levels in the 1/2 to 3/4 range where it is optimal. Also:

Charge nightly, do not try to go every other day.
Do not let the levels get lower than 25% if it can be avoided.
keep the iphone away from heat as much as possible.

Following these steps will enable your battery to last 1 to 2 years longer.

[iJoeTime]

iphone has to be in standby to charge. If you turn the phone off and put it on the charger it will put itself in standby mode. This is the best way to charge because there is always a slight power draw when in standby. Lithium batteries benefit greatly from keeping power levels in the 1/2 to 3/4 range where it is optimal. Also:

Charge nightly, do not try to go every other day.
Do not let the levels get lower than 25% if it can be avoided.
keep the iphone away from heat as much as possible.

Following these steps will enable your battery to last 1 to 2 years longer.


I think you may be wrong and heres why:

If the phone is OFF and I plug in the charger, it auto turns it on and puts on standby..

But if you plug in the charger and then turn the phone off.. the phone is unusable but still recieving a charge...

Am I wrong?

[Dean C]

iphone has to be in standby to charge. If you turn the phone off and put it on the charger it will put itself in standby mode. This is the best way to charge because there is always a slight power draw when in standby. Lithium batteries benefit greatly from keeping power levels in the 1/2 to 3/4 range where it is optimal. Also:

Charge nightly, do not try to go every other day.
Do not let the levels get lower than 25% if it can be avoided.
keep the iphone away from heat as much as possible.

Following these steps will enable your battery to last 1 to 2 years longer.

I thought completely the opposite was true. Let it drain fully and charge fully in repeated cycles. If I'm wrong provide empirical evidence ;)

[deftdrummer1]

well I didn't check that but it probably does work. For the reasons I outlined above however, it is proably best to charge in standby mode.since Software in the iPhone turns it on when off (after being put into the dock) I would think that apple intended it to be this way.

[studogvetmed]

I thought completely the opposite was true. Let it drain fully and charge fully in repeated cycles. If I'm wrong provide empirical evidence ;)

www.batteryuniversity.com

Has some scientific thoughts on why it is best to keep a lithium ion battery topped off instead of doing deep discharges.

[deftdrummer1]

while the battery does benefit from a full charge and a full discharge, it is still wise to keep some charge in the phone, preferabally above 25%

[Dean C]

www.batteryuniversity.com

Has some scientific thoughts on why it is best to keep a lithium ion battery topped off instead of doing deep discharges.

Many thanks! Going to give that a read on the way to work, ironically enough on my iPhone ;)

So to conclude this thread:


Physically turn the iPhone off
Plug in the charger (not putting it on the dock)
Leave to charge overnight


Is that right? Would there be any drawbacks to charging it in unlocked state via the dock every night?

[deftdrummer1]

I wouldn't turn it all the way off for reasons I already mentioned, and because well...its a phone and dont like to miss calls.

[Dean C]

Okay so leave it in locked mode overnight, but not in dock. Right? Just want to make sure I'm getting the best out of it :)!

[hammockjockey]

I constantly charge mine, for no good reason other than to have as much power as possible when I have to venture with out power. Charge as I'm using in the car, charge while listening to it at my pc. Charge overnight on my bedside. But I never turn it off to charge. I do turn it off once a day & turn it back on tho.

[jhollington]

I leave my iPhone in the dock pretty much all the time when I'm at my desk or overnight (same goes for my iPods).

There is no risk of "Overcharging" the iPhone since the charging circuit simply shuts off once it's fully charged. If you leave the phone features on (WiFi/cellular) then obviously there's going to be a slight power drain, but the iPhone is powered at this point by the external power source, and not by the battery.

In essence, you're probably best to leave it in the dock, since this way the battery is not being used at all. Unlike an iPod, the iPhone will consume power whenever it's not in Airplane Mode, as the transceivers are always chatting away with either your WiFi access point or the cellular network. The power drain is relatively small, but it exists nonetheless.

The only real caveat is that you should not leave it powered ALL the time over a period of weeks, since the battery needs to get some use (if it's always being powered from external power, the battery is dormant, and will therefore be weakened). However, with a device like the iPhone, I would strongly suspect that normal reasonable use would prevent this from being an issue.

So basically, the bottom line is that there's really nothing wrong with plugging it in whenever you're not using it, leaving it plugged in, and topping it up on a reasonably regular basis. As the Battery University site that Stu linked to points out, Lithium Ion (LiOn) batteries are very different in their behaviour from the older Nickel Cadmium (NiCad) batteries, and unfortunately many people are still used to the older NiCad rechargeables and don't understand this.

Leaving it on or turning it off during charging is really not particularly relevant, and you can do whatever you like in this regard. If you're not charging it, turning it off completely will of course save power, but in reality you'll probably save almost as much simply by enabling Airplane Mode.

[deftdrummer1]

Yea like Johllington said, a lot of people are used to Nicad batteries where memory effects play a major role. For these types of batteries, it is absolutely necessary to fully discharge the battery before charging again. This is so your battery does not acquire "memory" affects and discharge at a faster rate.