In lithium-ion batteries, that’s now not the case. Modern batteries are able to studying their state regardless of their stage of cost, and when your system isn’t in use the pressure on the battery is sort of the identical as if it was off altogether, so that you wouldn’t be giving the battery a lot of a break should you turned it off anyway.

Batteries carry out worse after they’re chilly

False (principally)

Actually, the other is true. “Using your battery in cool temperatures and keeping your battery cool is much better for battery life,” says Griffith. Exposing your battery to excessive temperatures is a more likely technique to find yourself decreasing its general life. “You don’t want your battery to be hot. You don’t want it to overheat when it’s charging, you don’t want to leave it in the sun or in your car.”

But why do batteries hate the warmth a lot? The motive has to do with the liquid electrolytes that fill the gaps between the lithium cobalt oxide and graphite layers (bear in mind them?) and cease the 2 elements from touching. This is what the lithium ions journey by means of after they’re shuttling between the 2 layers, so it’s fairly necessary for the battery construction.

At excessive temperatures, these liquid electrolytes begin to break down, inflicting the battery to degrade over the course of just some hundred cost cycles. This is a serious challenge for electrical automobile batteries, which regularly spend a lot of their day sitting out in brilliant daylight—producers have to suit their automobiles with battery-management programs to keep away from heat-related degradation. For your smartphone, nonetheless, so long as you often maintain it at round room temperature you’re doing okay.

It’s attainable that your cellphone may be slightly slower in chilly temperatures, and that’s as a result of these lithium ions transfer barely slower which implies the battery may not have the ability to present as a lot energy to elements if it’s actually chilly outdoors. The change is mostly solely slight, nonetheless, and isn’t linked to any everlasting injury to the battery.

A tool with solely slightly cost left may also generally shut off if it will get chilly, because the lower in energy brought on by the low temperature will trick the system into considering the battery is empty. “No damage is done,” says Griffith, “but the electronics get confused.”

Leaving a charger plugged in on the wall and turned on wastes vitality

False (effectively, possibly a tiny bit)

With cellphone chargers and different “dumb” cables that simply have a wire, they most likely aren’t drawing any vitality in any respect if there’s no system plugged in. When it involves TV or laptop computer cables—or any charger that has an enormous “brick” hooked up to it—these are slightly extra intelligent as they usually draw a small quantity energy whereas they’re primarily ready for the TV or different system in addition out of standby mode. In the previous, the vitality draw of those gadgets was as much as 10 p.c of the typical family’s vitality invoice however latest regulation adjustments imply that these now draw a comparatively tiny quantity of vitality.

You ought to let the battery get all the best way all the way down to 0 p.c earlier than recharging

False

Strangely sufficient, batteries are underneath essentially the most pressure after they’re absolutely charged or utterly empty. The actual candy spot for a battery is 50 p.c cost as that implies that half of its moveable lithium ions are within the lithium cobalt oxide layer and the opposite half are within the graphite layer. This equilibrium places the least quantity of pressure on the battery, and extends the variety of cost cycles it may possibly face up to earlier than degrading.