Again the battery menu is not counting the charge cycles. Thus the numbers are not accurate. There used to be a line graph on Android 13 that displayed the charge status. And the screen time is the way it is because of screen saver. Plus i used a side app to force the screen to be on with this new update that somehow removed the always on display feature from Android 14. Android 13 and older versions had this feature in display settings. The devolper options only enables this for charging only. I missed this feature so much. I sideloaded an app to fix it. I clearly have it on the charger. Yet it still has screensaver mode and display active. After taking it off and opening settings. You can clearly see the issue here. The usefullnes of this menu is more worthless because it doesnt display the devices charged state. I’ll include a picture from Android 13 to show how useful it was in finding out the problem. The line graph in the included screenshot is old but clearly more useful in finding out the problem. You see where Im getting at here.
Yes I’ve stated i’m slow charging & leaving it at 80%. Apparently giving it a full charge and fast charging hurts the battery. It takes forever and multiple charges to get by a day. Even with apps disabled. They still seem to run background tasks even when you don’t use them. I found that out as of lately. They seem to wake up out of the blue on my device. Even with permissions disabled; it still has to phone home to the servers. Funny how in battery usage. I’ve used the apps for less than one minute. I didn’t even open them.
I dont think the 100% charge is what really destroys a battery.
I like the Shiftphones thoughts on this.
If the battery is discharged to 0%, it may become deeply discharged. This is harmful to the battery and not conducive to the longevity of the battery. The battery should be charged at an early stage from approx. 15%-20%.
We recommend regular charging to 100%.
Full charging is very important for correct charge level detection of the Android operating system.
Modern battery and charging technologies are already designed in such a way that a battery is no longer charged above 80%, or is charged very gently. Our batteries charge up to 80% while the battery level displays 100%.
In addition, short charging times should be avoided. It is better to fully charge the battery twice a day. If you use a charger with intelligent charging electronics, you can also charge your SHIFT overnight. Chargers with these charging electronics stop charging as soon as the battery is fully charged to prevent overcharging.
Interesting, as this contradicts many things that one typically hears when it comes to modern batteries. Usually it is said that you should rather charge more often as those small charges don’t count as full charging cycles. Also this thing about 80%… If the charging technology used in Fairphones also doesn’t charge the battery to 100% when it shows 100% then this whole 80% feature that we have as battery saver wouldn’t make sense (and together with the according to Shift recommended “full charge” method even shorten the lifetime of the battery).
They are also talking about intelligent chargers that stop charging when the battery is full. Do those charges really exist? Isn’t that the task of the charging electronics in the phone to stop the current running into the battery? When the FP5 is full it hardly takes any more current (the power meter shows about 0.2W or even less if I recall correctly, 40mA thus), but the charger (the thing that sits in the power outlet) keeps up 5V because it doesn’t know what the device is doing.
But no matter what, we came from the calibration of the battery scale, and there I can very well imagine that doing a full charge from time to time can help improving the accuracy.
At least their 65w charger claims to have inteligent charging technology (without defining in the description of the charger, what this is).
Well I’m always wondering if this was introduced as many user requested this…
Overall I dont know if there really is a 100% accurate, up to date, study or similar dealing with with charging cycle topic, covering all technology options and I personally think 100% doesnt harm that much. I let it charge to 100% regularly, still I normally dont let it charge overnight and def I try to avoid 0%.
Its funny how its one thing or another in this thread. I was charging mine to 100% before being told to change it to 80% with slow charging enabled. Its funny that i was told to do one thing over another. Apparently I was already doing the right thing in the first place. I’m going to switch back to the previous method with just leaving slow charging enabled. I’m still loosing my batteries charge by an hour or two just using both methods. I must have a bad battery. It should last more than a year before being degraded by age.
I’m just as clueless about what should be the right thing to do, so I decided to just not care about it. I bought a 65w charger shorty after getting my FP5, and fast charging is the greatest shizz ever. I love the quick burst from near nothing to 50%, hot phone be damned. And I do charge to 100% over night because I have severe range anxiety for no reason, so leaving the house with 100% battery makes me feel better.
Closing in on one whole year of owning this phone, I’d say battery life is the same as ever.
And this may sound counter productive, but the peace of mind of being able to just order a new battery and replace it, makes me care that much less about the longevity of my current one. It’s one small weight off my shoulders.
I agree with you. You can just get a replacement with Fairphone. Most phones don’t offer that option and prefer to just glue it in to the device making it harder to repair if anything goes wrong. Having a device that makes the phone last longer by just replacing a wear part when it goes bad is a great thing for the environment. Companies would just want you to upgrade to the newest model usually at a cost to you and the environment. There is no point other than greed. It always comes down to those dollar bills in the end. Devices should always last years. My windows 95 is way over 25 years old and is still works today by just taking care of it. I love going back and playing games that can’t be played on modern hardware. It still works today proving that it can be done after all.
They could have solved that with less engineering effort by just writing a blog post that one could always refer to when it comes to the topic again - if it was really only snake oil…
Sure, however thats not how they solve things as we could see several times already…there would not have been a FP3+camera Module, there would still be AoD, we would not have a flashlight shutting off after 4 Minutes, we would officially know about Ghost touch reasons and why the software fix brings other trouble for everyone, and so on…
However thats not the topic here and sure I could be wrong with my opinion about why it was implemented. At the end everyone has to decide on its own what to believe reg charging, as there is not that one truth, else there would be not different out opinions out there.
@Meaghan before I just answered based on the citation. Reg Calibration: when I feel my battery is going wonky, I let it discharge completely and then charge in one step to 100% amd always had the feeling it helps to reset battery stats.
Hi, sorry for creating the confusion here. The reason I brought up ifixit post is I value their work but also it was a bit contradictory to what I have learnt before.
Now what is my take on that at this moment? It can obviously change once I get more information.
It seems pretty possible that most modern manufacturers limit charging so that the phone does not reach 100% (as that is causing the strain on the battery). But my reasonable guess is that most manufacturers do not go as far Shiftphone in the passage quoted by @yvmuell . So the general rule of thumb would be to follow the guidance of the manufacturer.
Modern battery and charging technologies are already designed in such a way that a battery is no longer charged above 80%, or is charged very gently. Our batteries charge up to 80% while the battery level displays 100%.
Quite often when the degradation of the battery is mentioned, people bring up the idea of cycles. Like charging your battery from 0 to 100% is one cycle, and the battery life is 300-500 cycles. I am hopeful that if AccuBattery says that me charging only from 20 to 80% results in 0.3 cycles a day, that means something for my battery life. Obviously I cannot be sure but I would rather follow this and be wrong than ignore it and learn my lesson afterwards.
I know batteries in fairphones are extremely easy to swap. But given all the minerals used for their production I am motivated to keep my battery as long as possible even if that induces some inconvenience in terms of charging habits
Ifixit, shiftphones, accubattery and some sources I found seem to imply that not-complete charging cycles are interfering with the phone’s ability of measuring the battery power. That was the effect @yvmuell mentioned as well. I think that these are two similar but not identical phenomena - A. it is better for your battery to be running half cycles with slow power as it limits the strain (especially charging from 0%), but B. it is better for the phone software to manage the battery if the full battery capacity is known - that is why it might be advised to repeat the calibration but not every day, but once a month.
on a more personal note, I find it fascinating - given the importance of batteries in everyday life - there are so few clear cut evidence based mechanisms implemented by the industry. I remember the old days of not worrying so much about the battery but it was also connected with just having less electronics;-) I think there is much improvement in the technology in this field coming pretty soon.
PS. Edited to add that some sources are less concerned with the battery efficiency but the energy waste connected to people leaving the phones plugged in hours after they are fully charged. For an individual user it is a minimal value, but when millions are taken into account, it can be impressive
I also agree with you on that keeping the battery as long as possible is also important. I found fully depleting the battery causes it to not charge anymore after few cycles. Every once and a great while is what’s really recommended. There were a lot of devices in my lifetime I’ve went through that after letting the battery get depleted has caused damage and wear and tear on the battery itself. And I’m not just talking of lithium here. But other standards of batteries such as nickel hydride rechargeable batteries. I found it doesn’t seem to hold a charge anymore of either standard. Sometimes it just doesn’t even charge from completely Depleted after a while. If I can go back and tell my former self not to fully discharge any devices with rechargable batteries. Maybe I wouldn’t have went through so many of them through the years. Or devices in question as well. Even if its recommended to fully deplete the battery once in a while. I found by not doing so made the battery last a whole lot longer, but at the cost of degradation of the battery. I made them last about three times longer in my tech over the years; that even going against the norm of storing batteries at 50% just leads to expansion of the battery making them less safe in the end. I leave most of my tech at only a 5% charge when storing them. That I can even go back to them and still have it hold a charge and work many years later is a blessing in disguise. I have had many memories on old gaming hardware. Having them work past their expiration date just to further prove that planned obsolescence is brainwashing a future generation of people of throwing away their tech away. Thus contributing to all the e-waste we see in landfills. We should reuse and recycle what we can so that maybe we show our kids what life used to be like long ago. I enjoy seeing the react channel show kids a Nintendo Entertainment System and having them figure out how to turn it on to play a game on YouTube. Same with a VCR and so on. We should be able to preserve what we have and not the the other way around.
I’ve always been curious about the battery life of the FP5. My FP4 can chew up around 40 percent over night with no obvious indication as to why. Quite annoying.
