I read somewhere that you can expand a battery’s life by trying to hold the condition between 30 and 70 % and once a month you should discharge it completely and after that load it completely.
Is that right?
Or do you have any other recommendations?
And by the way, is there any possibility to see the battery condition in % on home screen?
Yes, as far as I know your information is correct in general.
Lithium Ion batteries get strained if they are charged at extreme conditions (I think due to corrosion). “Extreme conditions” include low and high battery levels. So keeping the charge between 40 and 80 percent helps to increase lifespan of the battery.
However I’m not sure about the monthly discharge. That sounds like a trick to avoid a memory effect. Lithium Ion batteries don’t suffer from memory effect, though. So I don’t know why that would be necessary.
I’m not expert, though, and there are several (contradicting) guides floating around the internet.
Regarding your last question:
Yes, there is. You can either download widgets from the play store, that display battery percentage, or you can even have the percentage displayed in the notification bar.
From a blog post:
Fairphone OS has that option built in. Just go to “Settings” >
“Battery” and tick the first entry. Now a big bold number appears next
to the battery symbol in the status bar.
Thank you for your fast response.
What widgets for battery usage would you recommend?
Anyone? Need a good app for free.
There are a lot of semi-professional guides floating around. I have decided for myself not to follow them except for one that has proven true for my: Do not store you phone battery completly discharged. If i leave electronic devices alone for a while, i always try to remember charging them before.
The tip with complete discharge is nonsense in my opionon, actually it contradicts the first tips. As @jftr said this might only be useful to recalibrate the battery if condition reportings are wrong.
As the Fairphone’s battery is easily replaced, simply use the phone as it makes sense and do not make your live more complicated.
Only had the Fairphone for a short time and I was disappointed with battery life initially so I ordered a 2nd battery. The new battery seems to last a lot longer than the first one for some reason. I get about 36 hours out of it in normal use, between charges. I try and run it down to at least 10% before charging. And I’m not sure the built-in % is calibrated correctly as it lasts for ages on 2%, even when playing YouTube.
Two more things to extend battery life: Keep heat away from your battery as elevated temperatures speed up ageing of the cells. But don’t operate it in the cold: Charging or discharging the battery well below -10 C might cause non-reversable damage to the electrodes.
I’ve tried no end of the tricks… never fully discharging, always fully discharging, always pointing the phone towards Amsterdam when charging (well, maybe not the last one 
)
Only the obvious stuff seems to have any effect… keep the screen brightness around 30-40%; turn off data, wi-fi and GPS when not in use; use dark-coloured backgrounds, screen-savers, etc.
I’ve been impressed with the Fairphone’s battery life… I’m getting around 72 hours per charge, which is pretty much the same as my old HTC Desire (a phone with a far less hungry processor) on a new battery.
I think this thread was meant to be about the overall life size of the battery (before it starts losing performance), not how long a single charge lasts.
With my last phones I just let them drain completeley then charge them full. They still hold as long as when they were new.
2002: Sagem MyX-5m (dumb phone, brick, states Li-Ion) still held for about a week though I’ve experienced some “calibration” failures. (That feature probably wasn’t far-spread but sometimes battery icon blinks then it’s okay again. It even failed me while talking with 1 of 4 bars.)
2008: Sony-Ericsson W595 (feature phone, slider, states Li-Poly) still held one week if not used. (Undergone several repairs, broken, wontfix)
2009: Sony-Ericsson W995 (feature phone, slider, states Li-Poly) still holds one week if not used and about 2 (maybe 3) days if extensively used. (Undergone several repairs, the case is broken, shuts down from time to time …) I’ve experienced something strange with behaviour when letting this lying around shutdown for some time. Percentage was frozen like there was still a memory effect …
Since complete drainage is no option anymore I let it recharge over night (after shutdown). But only after percentage has dropped to about 5% (that’s also when it will complain).
TL;DR
It probably doesn’t matter. It’s pretty foolproof now. As others have said before just don’t put it under thermal stress - below 0°C, above 40°C. Gauge Battery Widget will also give you the temperature. Used this with my tablet which I’ve broken since I’ve used the wrong charger … …
I would like to know if the FP charger stops charging if the battery is full. The battery of the companies S3 mini died after being one week on the charger. Dying means starting an app with 87% full leads to a reboot of the phone.
Lenovo was able to handle notebook batteries more friendly even years ago.
Hi.
So I’ve been looking for guidance on how I should charge my fairphone battery for optimal health.
Some while ago I remember reading that different kinds of batteries needed different handling on charging for best health.
I’ve noticed that my phone changes colour when the battery gets lower, and I think at about 15% or 19% it starts to say that I should put it in a charger.
At what percentage should I charge it, below 20%? should it not go below 10 or 5% before I plug it in? Or should I aim to let it die before I plug it in? And does it make a difference if I charge it all the way to 100% percent or can I patch charge it without loosing performance capacity from the battery?
Thanks for any help and tips.
Hi Anna,
in my opinion you should charge your phone in the way that’s most convenient for you. Personally I charge it over night every second day. My battery indicator then often shows 15-30 % capacity, and charging it to 100 % means that I can be sure that my phone is functionable the next day.
There are a lot of ‘urban myths’ on charging and battery maintenance floating around the www, and a bit of confusion due to the fact that older battery types (Ni-Cd, Ni-Mh) acted differently from today’s Li-ion batteries.
A battery of good quality should be able to be fully charged constantly (e.g. in a laptop that almost always is connected to an AC socket) or continuously dicharged to almost 0 % and then recharged to 100 %. It should still last two-three years or so before needing replacement (and then only because it discharges a little faster than before).
For long-term storage it is said that a Li-ion battery should be charged to about 40 % and stored in a cooled space, but that’s not anything that the ordinary end user should have to think about.
Don’t think that you have to wait for the battery to reach a certain percentage or even fully discharge before you can plug it in.
Manufacturers give charging cycles which say how often we can theoretically charge our battery without loosing capacity.
A charging cycle is counted as a full charge and discharge.
Consequently a charge from 50 percent to 100 percent makes only half a charging cycle and will wear your battery only half as much as a full cycle.
So you can’t “save” on charging cycles if you wait for your battery to fully discharge.
There is also no memory effect with Li - ion batteries.
What will hurt your battery, though, is a very deep discharge, so don’t hesitate to charge it when you have the time.
You’re right, and I ought to have stressed that in my previous post.
MMore exhaustive information here: BU-808: How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University
which also reminds us that there are other things besides charging that may reduce battery life, such as high temperatures (e…g. a hot car in the summer).
Can I ask a related question here? Will it hurt the battery in anyway to have the phone connected to the charger for prolonged periods of time? I want to leave the phone connected on my desk for 8 hours, every day, but the charge would be at 100% for all that time.
… Would that be bad for the Fairphone battery?
I can only offer you my own experience: I usually keep my FP plugged in overnight and not just when it’s discharged below 50% or whatever. My battery runtime is still as good as new.
I have no idea if it’s true but it seems to me as if the battery is fully charged and the Phone still plugged in the phone simply runs on the charger and not on the battery. This could be total humbug though.
I am pretty sure it that does not hurt the battery.