Smart Battery Case charging slow while on phone, fast when off phone?

[IAmSixNine]

Since day 1 (picked up 6 months ago) my Smart Battery Case that i purchased at an apple store has been charging slow when its on the phone.
Did it on my iPhone 6 and still does it on my 6s.
It didnt bother me till recently when i needed to charge quickly and it didnt. Typically i plug it in at night so slow charging wasnt an issue. I was happy with the extra capacity.

Using a USB tester https://www.amazon.com/X-DRAGON-Mul...ag=hawk-future-20&ascsubtag=UUimUvbUpU2871334 I found that when I charge the case by its self it charges above 1 Amp. usually 1.25Amp. But when i have my phone in the case it rarely goes above 500 to 600mAh.
Tested it with my old iPhone 6 and 6s. Tested it with phone on and off in the case. Still charges slowly.
Tested it with phone at 100% and case at 20% and tested it with case at 0% and phone at 60%.. the ONLY time it charges quickly, aka 1Amp or more is when theres no phone inside.

Can someone else with the same case and hopefully with an amp meter / usb tester see if their unit does the same thing.

Thanks in advance.

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

Same here. When I had a 6S I would put it to charge at night while on the phone. Even after 7 hours of charging the case itself would be at something like eighty-three percent.

Same thing happened when I got a 7 last week. Bought the case, put it to charge while on the phone with a dead battery. Went to sleep about 8:30 PM, woke up at 5:15 AM and case was at 68%

Edit: Just wanted to add that I use the iPad 10W charger with this.

 

[IAmSixNine]

I use an Anker 5 port 40 watt unit that will do up to 2A per port. Testing the port with my meters i can confirm it will go up to 2A with a tablet and most of my android stuff uses 1 to 1.5A when charging, heck the iPhone 6 and 6s charge at 1A with out the case so i know the charger is fine.
Thank you Breaking Kayfabe for the info.
Next time your case runs down disconnect the phone from the case and charge the case by its self, it will charge at 1 to 1.5A with the phone not in it or not connected. Sometimes i will pull my phone half way out just to quickly charge the case.
What was apple thinking when they did this.
If a persons phone and case are dead it would take way to long to charge both to 100% at 500mAh.

 

[doogald]

I do have this case, but I don't have a tester, so I really can't check. However, it's a rare day when my case gets fully discharged, and, even when it does, the lowest my phone has ever dropped is about 90% by the end of the day. I suppose that you could say that Apple built this case for somebody like me - my phone without the case gets pretty low by the end of the day, with the case I just never think or worry about battery levels.

I have no idea why charging rates are slow - perhaps it's because Apple wants to minimize heat build up while charging with the case on, which can be damaging to the battery. I suppose if I were in your situation, knowing what you know, I'd just remove the phone from the case and charge the phone directly if you need an emergency charge. I'd *definitely* do that over charging the case instead - you lose charge capacity when you charge a battery from another battery. And I'd maybe think about a different charging case - one with a larger battery.

The major thing I like about this case, including that it fits my usage case really well, is that it has lightning pass-through, so I can connect by the same cable to my car's audio system, whether I have the case on or not. (I usually spend a day a week without the battery case, just so the phone's battery gets some discharge and charge.)

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

I use an Anker 5 port 40 watt unit that will do up to 2A per port. Testing the port with my meters i can confirm it will go up to 2A with a tablet and most of my android stuff uses 1 to 1.5A when charging, heck the iPhone 6 and 6s charge at 1A with out the case so i know the charger is fine.
Thank you Breaking Kayfabe for the info.
Next time your case runs down disconnect the phone from the case and charge the case by its self, it will charge at 1 to 1.5A with the phone not in it or not connected. Sometimes i will pull my phone half way out just to quickly charge the case.
What was apple thinking when they did this.
If a persons phone and case are dead it would take way to long to charge both to 100% at 500mAh.

Oh, I can tell you for sure without even testing that the case charges quicker when charging on its own.

 

[IAmSixNine]

I blame my battery situation on Marvels Contest of Champions, and now Clash of Clans. LOL Before that i didnt use my phone much.

I will agree that its possible they limit the current while its connected to a phone to reduce heat but i also think 750 or 800mAh would have been a better compromise.
My primary concern was defective unit, but it looks like its operating normally.

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

Funny you say that because I thought I had a defective unit the first time around. Apple replaced it without question and it behaved the same way. It does kinda suck that it's like that because at the end of the day my case is at 0% and I'd rather just plug it in all together with my phone when I sleep.

 

[doogald]

Funny you say that because I thought I had a defective unit the first time around. Apple replaced it without question and it behaved the same way. It does kinda suck that it's like that because at the end of the day my case is at 0% and I'd rather just plug it in all together with my phone when I sleep.

I have never gone through the night when I plugged in the smart batter case when it was drained without both the phone and the case being fully charged when I wake up. (Most nights it is plugged in 6-7 hours, sometimes as little as 5 hours.) It's plugged into the stock Apple 5W charger that comes with the phone.

I'll have to get one of those testers...

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

I have never gone through the night when I plugged in the smart batter case when it was drained without both the phone and the case being fully charged when I wake up. (Most nights it is plugged in 6-7 hours, sometimes as little as 5 hours.) It's plugged into the stock Apple 5W charger that comes with the phone.

I'll have to get one of those testers...

I wonder why the heck I don't get the same result. Maybe if i try it on the 5W charger. I'm gonna try that.

 

[doogald]

Since day 1 (picked up 6 months ago) my Smart Battery Case that i purchased at an apple store has been charging slow when its on the phone.
Did it on my iPhone 6 and still does it on my 6s.
It didnt bother me till recently when i needed to charge quickly and it didnt. Typically i plug it in at night so slow charging wasnt an issue. I was happy with the extra capacity.

Using a USB tester https://www.amazon.com/X-DRAGON-Mul...ag=hawk-future-20&ascsubtag=UUimUvbUpU2874601 I found that when I charge the case by its self it charges above 1 Amp. usually 1.25Amp. But when i have my phone in the case it rarely goes above 500 to 600mAh.
Tested it with my old iPhone 6 and 6s. Tested it with phone on and off in the case. Still charges slowly.
Tested it with phone at 100% and case at 20% and tested it with case at 0% and phone at 60%.. the ONLY time it charges quickly, aka 1Amp or more is when theres no phone inside.

Can someone else with the same case and hopefully with an amp meter / usb tester see if their unit does the same thing.

Thanks in advance.

I just bought the same tester. Phone and case are at about 85% charge.

With the stock Apple 5W charger and lightning cable, the iPhone 6s itself draws about .92 amp. The case itself draws about 0.9 amp. The case with the phone inside draws about 0.9 amp.

I've had the case just over a year, the iPhone 6s just had the battery replaced last month from the battery replacement program.

 

[doogald]

... and in my Anker 2.4 amp charger, the case and phone together drew 1.5 amp. The phone alone, also 1.5 amp (though it jumped all over the place from 0.8 to 1.6.) The case alone, also 1.5 amp.

 

[IAmSixNine]

So some have a faster charge with phone in case and others like me have slow charging.

Going to run my case down and do some more testing tomorrow.,

 

[matthewKY30]

I'm having the same problem with the slow charging. I don't have a meter thingy to measure mah, but I have found that it takes about 30-minutes (27-min to be exact) to charge my phone 10%. That's about 1% every 3-minutes (the phone was at 100% so only the smart battery should have been charging, and the phone was on but locked during this 27-minutes). I'll charge the case disconnected from the phone tonight for 30-min and see how much it goes up and get back with y'all.

 

[matthewKY30]

Oh and I'm using the charging block that came with my iPad. It says 12W with an Output or 5.2V 2.4A. I have no idea what any of that means. I'm also using an iPhone 7 if that makes a difference with the charging while connected to the Apple iPhone smart battery.

 

[matthewKY30]

I've just noticed though the smart battery also dropped a lot quicker after charging when disconnected. Went from 89% to 80% in about 10-minutes, it's dropping at least twice as fast as normal if not faster. Ugh.

 

[matthewKY30]

One of my previous posts isn't showing up for some reason so I'll re-post. I discovered that the smart battery charged almost three times faster when disconnected from the phone, It went up 26% in 27-minutes, so about 1% per minute. But it's also not holding a charge for as long, it seems to be dropping significantly quicker.

 

[doogald]

One of my previous posts isn't showing up for some reason so I'll re-post. I discovered that the smart battery charged almost three times faster when disconnected from the phone, It went up 26% in 27-minutes, so about 1% per minute. But it's also not holding a charge for as long, it seems to be dropping significantly quicker.

A more likely explanation: it is charging slightly faster when not connected to the phone, but the phone's estimate of amount of battery left in the case when you first plug it in is higher than it actually is. There is no meter on a battery - the percentage of charge remaining is estimated based on the amount of current, the level of heat, and other collected statistics. The estimate gets better as more information is gathered. So, what appears to you as the charge dropping faster is the phone recalculating the estimate with more accuracy.

Also, of course the case charges faster than it does when connected to the phone. The phone itself, even if the battery is charged, is accepting some of the supplied current to run the phone on standby.

 

[IAmSixNine]

A more likely explanation: it is charging slightly faster when not connected to the phone, but the phone's estimate of amount of battery left in the case when you first plug it in is higher than it actually is. There is no meter on a battery - the percentage of charge remaining is estimated based on the amount of current, the level of heat, and other collected statistics. The estimate gets better as more information is gathered. So, what appears to you as the charge dropping faster is the phone recalculating the estimate with more accuracy.

Also, of course the case charges faster than it does when connected to the phone. The phone itself, even if the battery is charged, is accepting some of the supplied current to run the phone on standby.

Correct, with a phone attached the phone will draw some power even if its at 100% battery. But as i noted originally i was using a device that shows power output and there is a significant power drop with the phone attached to the case.
Which makes no sense. With a phone attached you now have to charge a phone and the battery case. So you would think more current is needed, not less.
The only logical explanation i can think of is Apple reduced the current input with phone attached to keep the unit from heating up to much.

 

[doogald]

Correct, with a phone attached the phone will draw some power even if its at 100% battery. But as i noted originally i was using a device that shows power output and there is a significant power drop with the phone attached to the case.
Which makes no sense. With a phone attached you now have to charge a phone and the battery case. So you would think more current is needed, not less.
The only logical explanation i can think of is Apple reduced the current input with phone attached to keep the unit from heating up to much.

Well, you can read my results with that same tester in post 10 and 11 above. I did not see a change in current draw when the case was separate from the phone, with two different chargers (stock iPhone charger and an Anker multiport smart charger, which should have the equivalent of using an iPad charger on the iPhone.)