Best practices for battery life and efficiency

[jan4321]

Hi,
I just ordered FP6.
My old phone suffers badly from degraded battery efficiency, and it is not possible to replace it.
I read some places that charging at 20% and stopping at 80% improves battery file.
Also, one should not fast charge when using heavy stuff (gaming?) to avoid extra heat.
That probably rules out as well use of the phone as GPS navigation when driving in hot summer, and charging during drive?
What general guidance are expected to follow to improve battery efficiency and it’s lifetime? Especially in the context of FP6.
Thank you

[gekooktei]

Just my two cents: I know that technically lithium batteries are happiest between 20% and 80%. Fast charging would be a bit less healthy than slow charging. Fairphone has settings to handle both.

I had my previous phone for 4 years without changing the batteries, all I did was not charging it for 8 hours nightly, but use a timer instead to charge it the 2 hours before I wake up.

I now have a FP5, I still charge it the same way, and I have slow charging on. I switch it when I’m in a hurry.

I’m not sure about charging when hot, but I wouldn’t say don’t use GPS because of this. FP6 has a variable refresh rate so that could really help with battery use when driving! Perhaps others can say more about this.

[yvmuell]

I would say your charging habits should fit your life and not the other way round.

So I, as @gekooktei, dont let my phone charge over night and try to avoid deep discharge, thats the most harmful in my eyes.

From time to time I still let it go down to 0 and shut down to charge it from 0 to 100 in one step, thats kind of a reset of the battery and often helpef when I have the feeling battery is discharging too quickly.

Overall the FP6 Battery will not be really different and all the previous discussions here still count.

I think the most recent discussion is this one

FP5 - Battery Life

I have just realized that ifixit suggests calibrating the battery in the beginning and repeating it once a month, Battery Calibration - iFixit Honestly, I thought that to be an outdated procedure and potentially decreasing the battery life if repeated to often. Especially this part Charge it to 100%, and keep charging it for at least two more hours. Any thoughts?

[deedee]

I cycle between 70% and 40%.

AccuBattery says battery health is 91% for my FP3, which is nearly 5 years old and still with the original battery it came with.

I have the phone enter battery save mode at 40%, this indicates me to charge.
Set up AccuBattery to alarm at 70%, this indicates me to pull out the charging cable.

YMMV of course, maybe I just got lucky with the battery lottery or the health estimation might be wrong but I do not charge very often.
Of course charge sometimes drops to 10% or goes up to 85% but I can avoid the extremes with these thresholds and I never charge overnight.

[qaluya75]

Heat is definitely killer for battery degradation everything you can do to avoid as much heat as possible is key. I’ve also read about don’t let it drop below 20% and don’t charge over 80% as it helps to preserve the battery life of the battery, but the fact that the FP have replaceable batteries I just look forward to being able to just buy an extra battery and when I need more juice I just swap it out! I also too just ordered a FP6 myself

Every once in a while I’ve read that its recommended to occasionally perform a full charge and a full discharge every once in a while to calibrate your battery if you care to do that.