iPhone 14 Pro 18w vs 5w 1 year later

[imagineadam]

My wife and I both got 14 pros last year and I thought it would be fun to do a little test to see if there would be any differences in battery degradation between her using her 18w charger and me using my 5w charger. We both charge our phones overnight everynight. Here are the results!

Almost identical battery health! I’m actually surprised! Apple reports 97% health on hers and mine literally just ticked down to 98% yesterday. She’s had her phone for about a week or 2 longer than mine but I was surprised to see we had nearly the same cycles and battery health.

This proves to me fast charging doesn’t really have an effect on battery health. At least not in my case on our 14 pros! I’ll continue to use my 5W charger overnight but I also won’t be afraid to fast charge if needed some day!

 

[TotalMacMove]

Great test you did there! I did something similar for almost 3 years with my SE2 work phone and my iphone 12 that i got on the same day.

Charged my iphone 12 via magsafe every night and exclusively used a 5w lightning charge on my SE2. After 3 years both had 84% battery health.

 

[VineRider]

My wife and I both got 14 pros last year and I thought it would be fun to do a little test to see if there would be any differences in battery degradation between her using her 18w charger and me using my 5w charger. We both charge our phones overnight everynight. Here are the results!

Almost identical battery health! I’m actually surprised! Apple reports 97% health on hers and mine literally just ticked down to 98% yesterday. She’s had her phone for about a week or 2 longer than mine but I was surprised to see we had nearly the same cycles and battery health.

This proves to me fast charging doesn’t really have an effect on battery health. At least not in my case on our 14 pros! I’ll continue to use my 5W charger overnight but I also won’t be afraid to fast charge if needed some day!

Interesting…
What does it say on both phones when you check via iOS settings/battery/battery health&charging/maximum capacity?

 

[imagineadam]

Interesting…
What does it say on both phones when you check via iOS settings/battery/battery health&charging/maximum capacity?

It says in my post. In the settings app on hers it reports 97% and mine is 98%.

 

[VineRider]

It says in my post. In the settings app on hers it reports 97% and mine is 98%.

Missed that. I saw the coconut battery photos and didn’t catch that. Thanks!

 

[now i see it]

Interesting and encouraging but inconclusive. It’s only been a year. It’s doubtful battery health can be estimated by anything within 1-2% of 100.

 

[imagineadam]

Interesting and encouraging but inconclusive. It’s only been a year.

I’ll check in again in another year! I doubt our habits will change.

 

[TotalMacMove]

Interesting and encouraging but inconclusive. It’s only been a year. It’s doubtful battery health can be estimated by anything within 1-2% of 100.

I did my test for 3 years and had the same battery percentage on both phones. One using magsafe and other 5w wired charging.

 

[macphoto861]

I did my test for 3 years and had the same battery percentage on both phones. One using magsafe and other 5w wired charging.

I was going to say that the OP was interesting and useful information, but it would also be great to know if there was a difference between battery health with wired vs. wireless charging (since "wireless charging degrades the battery" is commonly heard here and elsewhere). Interesting to see data that points to this not being the case.

 

[imagineadam]

Here’s my SOT yesterday. Ran a half marathon the day before and was a little sore and lazy watching football all day so I was on the couch on Wi-Fi with brightness between 40-70% just doing basic stuff. 6.5 hours SOT with 40% remaining is pretty darn good I think.

 

[imagineadam]

I was going to say that the OP was interesting and useful information, but it would also be great to know if there was a difference between battery health with wired vs. wireless charging (since "wireless charging degrades the battery" is commonly heard here and elsewhere). Interesting to see data that points to this not being the case.

I think it’s also pretty common to see the phrase “fast charging kills batterys” here and plenty of places elsewhere.

 

[TotalMacMove]

I think it’s also pretty common to see the phrase “fast charging kills batterys” here and plenty of places elsewhere.

Yea I'm glad I was able to get a new work phone and personal phone on the same day just to do this long-term test. Now I can let others continue worrying about how they charge their phones since they all disregard my experience.

 

[stumblingfalk]

Purely anecdotal of course.

I fast-charge my 14PM (bought at launch), on a 65w brick and it pulls around 27w at most when charging. I rarely charge it beyond 80-85%, only topping it up when I know I could use the extra chrage. I charge every day, sometimes twice when I use it a lot. But mostly I'll be down to around 30% the next morning from those 80ish percent I started at.

It's still at 100% as per the battery health thingy in the settings.

 

[h.gilbert]

I would think that's because in the grand scheme of things 18W is not really that fast. In fact I think 18W is the slowest of all "fast charging".

 

[christlinah]

I've been using the 140W brick since day one on my 14Pro and the battery health was at 99% after one year. It's completely a non-issue IMO and people on here are way to worried about battery health...

 

[cateye]

Fun experiment, OP, thanks for sharing your results.

It's almost as if the uniquely MacRumors mania to hyperventilate over micro adjustments to battery management, constantly checking Coconut Battery results (and immediately posting in a panic if they differ from the built-in battery readout), endless questions about whether a phone / laptop / watch / anything and everything with a battery should be returned the moment it loses a tenth of a percentage point of battery capacity, is a fool's errand of wasted time and unnecessary handwringing. Huh.

Buy device, use device, charge device. Let the battery do its job.

 

[ignatius345]

This will hit the iPhone Battery Life Hobby community pretty hard.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Pay close attention to the temperatures, as that’s where the actual battery degradation is going to happen.
You’ll quickly notice that… There’s barely a difference

 

[imagineadam]

Pay close attention to the temperatures, as that’s where the actual battery degradation is going to happen.
You’ll quickly notice that… There’s barely a difference

Oh there is a definite difference between charging with a 5W and the 18w and above!

My 14 pro barely gets warm with the 5W but if I plug it into my wife’s 18w or my 61w MacBook charger it heats up real quick if the battery is at a lower state of charge.

 

[Timpetus]

I think it’s also pretty common to see the phrase “fast charging kills batterys” here and plenty of places elsewhere.

It might on some devices if the battery management isn't up to snuff. Probably not a risk on high quality devices from Apple, though!

 

[macphoto861]

I think it’s also pretty common to see the phrase “fast charging kills batterys” here and plenty of places elsewhere.

Yes, absolutely... didn't mean to imply that this wasn't the case.

 

[imagineadam]

I've been using the 140W brick since day one on my 14Pro and the battery health was at 99% after one year. It's completely a non-issue IMO and people on here are way to worried about battery health...

I am one of those people being way too worried about the battery. But after seeing my results I think I’ve changed. I mean my wife is in the “I don’t care at all about my battery health” camp. She uses and abuses her phone compared to my babying and our results after a year are almost identical.

I said in the first post we would both charge overnight and that’s completely true for me but there were plenty of days where she would totally forget to charge then hit that fast charger after she would nearly run her phone dead (cringe) the next day. Plenty of summer days where she’d use that thing in the direct sunlight at 2000 nits brightness and I would have mine hiding in the shade in a plastic bag keeping it cool and away from sand! Lol! So yeah we are complete opposites in how we think of our phones “health” where I’m consciously thinking about it and it never crosses her mind.

So I hope my post will help out some of the other ocd battery health people out there. It’s ok! No it really is! Just use your phone and charge it whenever and however you want! Even to gasp, 100%!

 

[imagineadam]

I would think that's because in the grand scheme of things 18W is not really that fast. In fact I think 18W is the slowest of all "fast charging".

I think the 14 pros when the battery is fully depleted can pull up to 27W (on the max) but it isn’t for a very long time and then in the bulk of the charging time it goes down to about 17W or 18W until close it 80% so I think my test using the 18W for a fast charger is still pretty accurate. Someone else chimed and said they were using a 140W charger for a year and they are at 99% with their 14pro. So I dunno. I think it’s all good.

 

[reppans]

Batt hobbyist here - IMHO, folks should just use the credible/corroborating scientific batt research that’s readily available out there - they test in labs isolating variables, perform extreme stress testing, and over long periods of time/cycles. This test is interesting, but let’s face it, batt health % is a weak estimate, 1yr is a short timeframe/#cycles, and frankly this test is much more likely influenced by the individual’s usage habits.

While charge wattage is one of the stress factors, it’s lower down the totem pole. From everything I’ve seen, time spent at high SoC is worse than heat, and are the #1 and #2 battery stress factors. These are not difficult to automate/manage, but it does take an initial investment to understand what to do and how to automate, for a truly custom optimization. Apple’s optimization & 80% limiter are better than nothing, but are dumbed-down, and miss the low hanging fruit.

As far as fast charging is concerned, Battery University says this:

Charging and discharging Li-ion above 1C reduces service life. Use a slower charge and discharge if possible. This rule applies to most batteries.

1C charge rate for a 3200mah battery is 16W, so 18W is hardly in the danger zone, and if you’re not concerned with charging to 100%… then it’s not worth worrying about the charge heat either. Probably not a significant difference, but I always charge when time doesn’t matter (eg, once/day overnight) so why not just use a 5W?… it’s another one of the many battery stress factors.

The real question is - does batt mgt make any significant difference to batt service life? YMMV but it seems to work well for me, and is less time/effort/money than doing an Apple batt swap. I tend keep my phones longer than Apple will support iOS, not for budget purposes, but rather because 1) I tend to highly customize my toys and find upgrading a time-consuming PITA, and 2) as a batt geek, my phone is by far the heaviest used/cycled batt to use as a ‘test case’. Will soon hop on the e-transport bandwagon (skateboards, bicycles, motorcycles, cars) and want to know the best way to maximize their batts.

 

[glhaynes]

Feels like this makes the opposite argument: hers has degraded 50% more than yours has.

For the record, I wouldn't make that argument — there are way too many variables and way too few samples to say anything valuable here — just pointing it out.