iPhone XS An iPhone battery can last much more than 1000 cycles!!!

[Efficiency-King]

Hi guys,

I want to show you that it is indeed possible that the battery can last much more than the 500 cycles, which are specified by Apple. I bought my iPhone Xs on September 2018 and it has the first battery up to this day. On the attached screenshot of the Mac app "coconutBattery" you can see the cycle count up to this point, and also the remaining capacity, which is still above 100%.

I achieved this by only using the battery between roughly 70% - 30% SoC and taking care of good battery operating conditions in general. For me with the help of shortcuts, that remind me of keeping it charged or end the charging, it is really easy to keep the battery in this range. But I won't recommend it for somebody else😅

 

[Fat_Guy]

Yes, but was that effort worth 100 bucks to just replace the battery?

 

[Andeddu]

It’s a good case study which you’ve provided.

Obviously, as you’ve pointed out, it’s massively impractical and no person should ever do it.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Absolutely amazing. Shows how much of an effect using a lower state of charge affects battery health especially years down the road vs using 100% SoC.

I barely use 20% of my battery per day and even after 2 years I can have 103% of health. However, I do 70-100% instead of 30-70% - and that works for me and my usage because I'm a light user - usually replacing my phones every 1-2 years.

Yes, but was that effort worth 100 bucks to just replace the battery?

Exactly - I venture to guess that vast majority of users don't even care about battery health. And then of that tiny % who do, a good chunk of them have no problem with a $100 battery replacement.

I know my local Apple Stores here in Southern California will refuse to even talk battery replacement unless health is under 80%.

My wife has always gotten the same phone as I have so comparing my usage (very light) to hers (very heavy) - in the 1-2 years that we own our phones, despite her having significantly higher cycles, usually her health is close to mine. However on the 14 Pro Max, her health is dropping faster than any phone we've had previously. Her health has dropped to 94% after 201 cycles. Usually it is similar to mine.

So doing lower state of charge is really only worth it for people who keep their phones for a really long time (3+ years) and for those who care or people like me who barely use their phones so it's easy to do that.

 

[addamas]

Congrats you charged 2x often as used only 40% of capacity to save some bucks.

But from science experiment view - nice to see real example how battery age process happens if not hitting ToC and Low SoC

 

[Efficiency-King]

I'm not making this because of the money for a new battery cell (although it would mean two new batteries for 1150 charge cycles, if each lasts for about 500 cycles). It's just because I'm not a heavy user that needs all the capacity. And with the battery shortcuts it's really no effort for me to do this. I just wanted to show that it is possible, like an experiment. And just like for electric vehicle batteries, you don't have to charge the battery fully up if you don't need the capacity. Why stressing the battery without any reason?

I can understand that this sounds very uncomfortable for most of you but for me it's totally effortless. And I mean in future it will be better for everyone who has an electric car to know better about how to care about the battery.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I'm not making this because of the money for a new battery cell (although it would mean two new batteries for 1150 charge cycles, if each lasts for about 500 cycles). It's just because I'm not a heavy user that needs all the capacity. And with the battery shortcuts it's really no effort for me to do this. I just wanted to show that it is possible, like an experiment. And just like for electric vehicle batteries, you don't have to charge the battery fully up if you don't need the capacity. Why stressing the battery without any reason?

I can understand that this sounds very uncomfortable for most of you but for me it's totally effortless. And I mean in future it will be better for everyone who has an electric car to know better about how to care about the battery.

My wife and I keep our EV between 30-80% if we can. Very convenient for us based on our driving habits. After almost 80,000 miles we've had almost no wear on the range. If it works, it's a great way to extend the life.

Really cool to see the stats - always wondered how much it would affect a phone to do a limited SoC over a long period of time.

 

[FeliApple]

I’d be inclined to say that it’s one of those cases in which they program the battery to always read 100% (I don’t know if that affects Coconut too though), but since it is the original battery, that’s impressive.

Still extremely convoluted for absolutely negative gain, because I am seeing that the device is on iOS 16, so you already lost runtime (which you wouldn’t have regardless of health if the device were on iOS 12), but an interesting exercise nevertheless.

I didn’t think it was possible. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say above 90% is definitely possible, maybe even above 95%, but I didn’t think it could still be above design capacity with more than 1100 cycles. An exercise in futility due to the iOS version, but like I said, interesting regardless.

Edit: I remembered that was somebody with an iPhone 6+ on iOS 9 with a similar number, I think he had like 1900 cycles and 96% health with a similar approach, so I knew something like that was possible, but yeah, above 100% is still impressive.

 

[addamas]

I'm not making this because of the money for a new battery cell (although it would mean two new batteries for 1150 charge cycles, if each lasts for about 500 cycles). It's just because I'm not a heavy user that needs all the capacity. And with the battery shortcuts it's really no effort for me to do this. I just wanted to show that it is possible, like an experiment. And just like for electric vehicle batteries, you don't have to charge the battery fully up if you don't need the capacity. Why stressing the battery without any reason?

I can understand that this sounds very uncomfortable for most of you but for me it's totally effortless. And I mean in future it will be better for everyone who has an electric car to know better about how to care about the battery.

Don’t take my post personal, really I work with EVs BMS software and this was really nice to see perfect age cycle of battery in your example.
Thanks for sharing!

Less heat, slow charge and no sudden charging stress - the better for cells.

 

[eyoungren]

Well…I bought my iPhone 6s+ on launch weekend, September 2015. I replaced the battery when it hit 79% in November 2021.

That's six years of use, plugged in once a night and taken off charger in the morning. Battery survived three summers riding around in 110º plus heat in Phoenix with a car that had no A/C and windows that could not be rolled down. One of those summers involved a five day a week one hour and ten minute drive at the hottest part of the day.

Phone saw regular use, it was not a substitute for a media device, a computer, or a game console.

Current battery is 97% of capacity. I take the 6s+ on morning walks, still has it's own line.

 

[Efficiency-King]

I have to admit though that the battery health provided by Apple in the settings says that the battery has only 90% SoH. I think this settings SoH is something that the battery can deliver under load, and the coconutBattery health can be rather the max capacity, that you can get out with the smallest load attached to the battery. The difference can be that the internal resistance of the battery has risen and therefore the more power the battery has to deliver, the less capacity can be supplied.

BUT I don't trust the battery health provided in the settings BECAUSE it has shifted straight from 100% to 96% exactly at 350 charge cycles. And a similar jump happened at exactly 1000 cycles. So maybe this value would only be updated on certain charge cycle numbers OR this value is calculated by a physical model and not measured in any way. So I'm not sure about this and only looking on coconutBattery.

 

[klasma]

This study is missing a control.

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

Hi guys,

I want to show you that it is indeed possible that the battery can last much more than the 500 cycles, which are specified by Apple. I bought my iPhone Xs on September 2018 and it has the first battery up to this day. On the attached screenshot of the Mac app "coconutBattery" you can see the cycle count up to this point, and also the remaining capacity, which is still above 100%.

I achieved this by only using the battery between roughly 70% - 30% SoC and taking care of good battery operating conditions in general. For me with the help of shortcuts, that remind me of keeping it charged or end the charging, it is really easy to keep the battery in this range. But I won't recommend it for somebody else😅 View attachment 2250158

Even paying Apple’s ridiculous battery replacement prices, I refuse to use my device in such a manner just to prolong the battery life.

You’d constantly be thinking about your iPhone.

Cool experiment. But absolutely not worth the money you saved.

 

[one more]

However, I do 70-100% instead of 30-70% - and that works for me and my usage because I'm a light user - usually replacing my phones every 1-2 years.

If I were a light user replacing my iPhone every 1-2 years I would not worry about optimising its charging at all. 😉

 

[BigMcGuire]

I have to admit though that the battery health provided by Apple in the settings says that the battery has only 90% SoH. I think this settings SoH is something that the battery can deliver under load, and the coconutBattery health can be rather the max capacity, that you can get out with the smallest load attached to the battery. The difference can be that the internal resistance of the battery has risen and therefore the more power the battery has to deliver, the less capacity can be supplied.

BUT I don't trust the battery health provided in the settings BECAUSE it has shifted straight from 100% to 96% exactly at 350 charge cycles. And a similar jump happened at exactly 1000 cycles. So maybe this value would only be updated on certain charge cycle numbers OR this value is calculated by a physical model and not measured in any way. So I'm not sure about this and only looking on coconutBattery.

This seems to mirror behavior other users have who go from 100% health for long periods of time and then drop like a brick after days/weeks.

I always knew that batteries were not an exact science because of their chemistry but ... seems like something funky is going on with Apple's BMS ...

 

[louis^]

I'm still using my jailbroken iPhone 4 with 5.1.1. with ~50% capacity at work.

 

[BogiTheTomtom]

Hi guys,

I want to show you that it is indeed possible that the battery can last much more than the 500 cycles, which are specified by Apple. I bought my iPhone Xs on September 2018 and it has the first battery up to this day. On the attached screenshot of the Mac app "coconutBattery" you can see the cycle count up to this point, and also the remaining capacity, which is still above 100%.

I achieved this by only using the battery between roughly 70% - 30% SoC and taking care of good battery operating conditions in general. For me with the help of shortcuts, that remind me of keeping it charged or end the charging, it is really easy to keep the battery in this range. But I won't recommend it for somebody else😅 View attachment 2250158

How do you use shortcuts to remind you to remind you to charge or disconnect charging?

 

[ignatius345]

I'm not making this because of the money for a new battery cell (although it would mean two new batteries for 1150 charge cycles, if each lasts for about 500 cycles). It's just because I'm not a heavy user that needs all the capacity. And with the battery shortcuts it's really no effort for me to do this. I just wanted to show that it is possible, like an experiment. And just like for electric vehicle batteries, you don't have to charge the battery fully up if you don't need the capacity. Why stressing the battery without any reason?

I can understand that this sounds very uncomfortable for most of you but for me it's totally effortless. And I mean in future it will be better for everyone who has an electric car to know better about how to care about the battery.

It's certainly an interesting experiment, but as others have pointed out most people just want to charge when it's convenient and let the chips fall as they may. I could certainly see some kind of "long lifespan mode" one could enable in software to do what you're doing manually, I guess.

Also, if we're lucky there will be advances in battery chemistry and we won't have to worry about this so much.

 

[Efficiency-King]

How do you use shortcuts to remind you to remind you to charge or disconnect charging?

You can trigger shortcut automations at different battery levels.

 

[VAR_123]

Keep your battery balanced.
Don’t go less than 20%, and don’t go more than 80%.

 

[eyoungren]

If I were a light user replacing my iPhone every 1-2 years I would not worry about optimising its charging at all. 😉

If I were a light user with a 2015 purchased 6s+ that upgraded to a Pixel 3a XL in 2020, then to an 11 Pro Max in 2021 while KEEPING said 6s+ and using it as a secondary phone that entire time…

…I would not worry about optimising its charging at all. 😉

 

[eyoungren]

How do you use shortcuts to remind you to remind you to charge or disconnect charging?

When I go to bed I've trained myself to plug in my phone. Hard to take my phone with me in the morning without unplugging it.

Shortcuts!!!!

 

[eyoungren]

Keep your battery balanced.
Don’t go less than 20%, and don’t go more than 80%.

I got 6 plus years out of an original iPhone 6s+ battery by ignoring this particular advice.

 

[MRrainer]

In use since January 2019.

So, the battery is down quite a bit.
I never charge wirelessly, I only use my MacMini 2018 or a 5W charger to charge it.

 

[FeliApple]

I have to admit though that the battery health provided by Apple in the settings says that the battery has only 90% SoH. I think this settings SoH is something that the battery can deliver under load, and the coconutBattery health can be rather the max capacity, that you can get out with the smallest load attached to the battery. The difference can be that the internal resistance of the battery has risen and therefore the more power the battery has to deliver, the less capacity can be supplied.

BUT I don't trust the battery health provided in the settings BECAUSE it has shifted straight from 100% to 96% exactly at 350 charge cycles. And a similar jump happened at exactly 1000 cycles. So maybe this value would only be updated on certain charge cycle numbers OR this value is calculated by a physical model and not measured in any way. So I'm not sure about this and only looking on coconutBattery.

Wait, settings shows 90%? I’m inclined to believe that then. It sounds a lot more reasonable. 90% after more than 1100 cycles is impressive, but far more realistic, matching the battery capacity of other users with similar approaches. That makes a LOT more sense.