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Battery Usage, am I doing any harm?

I

iMore Question

Battery Usage

When I have my iphone 6+ plugged in to recharge I sometimes also use it for hours at a time non-stop to listen to podcasts.

At the end of listening I see that my iphone battery is showing 100%.

QUESTION #1:
Have I been drawing power:
(1) directly from the electricity source which recharges my battery and bypassing the battery or
(2) from the battery which is being drawn down and continuously recharged to 100%?

QUESTION #2:
Am I harming my battery by doing this often? If I am harming it, can you quantify your answer by estimating the reduction in life of the battery if I do this daily?

Thank you!
 

Rob Phillips

iPhone X & Apple TV Champion, Moderator
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May 1, 2012
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Re: Battery Usage

Welcome to iMore! Your iPhone's battery goes into trickle charge mode once it reaches 80% capacity. From there it will fed power as needed to keep the battery level at or near 100%. You are not harming the battery by doing this, although I would not recommend keeping your iPhone plugged in for days at a time. It's good to let it drain down and recharge on a regular basis.
 

Neil Blumberg

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Jun 14, 2016
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Thank you for your answer!

I do not know what trickle charge is. Would you mind telling me what that is, and how that is different from the type of charge mode when the battery is less than 80% capacity?

When you say I should let it drain down, do you mean completely or just to get below a certain percent? What is that percent? Once it has drained down, do I need to let the battery "rest" for a certain time before recharging it?

Do I understand from your answer that when I use my iphone 6+ while it is being charged from an electric outlet:
(1) the power source remains the battery which is not bypassed by the electric current being fed in from the electric outlet, so that (2) the battery is being discharged (because I'm using the phone) and charged continuously while I am using it

Thank you again for taking the time to explain this!
 

IAmSixNine

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Oct 10, 2011
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Actually i think what he meant was rapid charge up to 80%, then 80% to 9x%it slow charges. Once its 100% it trickle charges.
Trickle charging is when the charger stops charging all together, then at specific interals it might charge for a few seconds. Like a faucet that has a very slow drip. Thats considered trickle charging.
another way to look at it is it will charge at 1A till 80%, then 80% to 9x% it may charge at 500mah then once its full back to trickle charging. These arent exact as they are just an example.
 

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