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

[FeliApple]

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. 😉

I agree, I think in the end it just doesn’t matter. I’ve mentioned in other conversations with you the 6s I have on iOS 10. A slightly higher cycle count than OP, 63% health, and battery life is still like-new. So even if you don’t want to replace a battery (which I don’t), it doesn’t make any difference anyway, and I can enjoy all of the battery life of the device, all the time.

I think that for the sake of battery conservation it’s much better to charge with a 5w charger and avoid heat, and if you can, don’t update iOS. It’ll be fine for a very long time like that.

For the sake of an example, a family member has an iPhone 8 with 78% health and nearly 2000 cycles on iOS 14 and the device is completely fine, I’ve tested it myself, battery life is great. (Surprisingly, it was forced from iOS 12 into iOS 14 by Apple and it didn’t affect it too much), so if the iOS version is a decent one, you can use it pretty heavily for years and it’ll be fine regardless.

 

[FeliApple]

View attachment 2250243

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.


View attachment 2250245

Yeah, so exactly this: slow, wired charging, avoid heat. You use 100% of the battery life of the device and the battery life is still fine.

 

[Splitrail]

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

Note the OPs name!

 

[Efficiency-King]

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.

Yes, but as I said I wouldn‘t trust that because this percentage jumps on exactly 350 and 1000 charge cycles for a few percentage points at once. And this is suspicious in my opinion.

 

[JCCL]

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

I still attribute a lot to the "Battery Lottery". Definitely this helps, but if you had gotten a crappy battery to begin with, maybe it wouldn't have remained at 100%.

 

[erikkfi]

I don't really have an opinion about the point of this post, but CoconutBattery clearly needs to hire a UX person. That first percentage bar should be under "Current charge" if that's what it's displaying.

 

[MacCheetah3]

I have to admit though that the battery health provided by Apple in the settings says that the battery has only 90% SoH.

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.

Yes, but as I said I wouldn‘t trust that because this percentage jumps on exactly 350 and 1000 charge cycles for a few percentage points at once. And this is suspicious in my opinion.

The “jumps” are not some conspiracy, etc. Instead, it’s most likely the behavior of degraded calibration.

BU-603: How to Calibrate a “Smart” Battery

BU meta description needed...

batteryuniversity.com

Perform a (few) recalibration(s) and then show us the battery health values, iOS and coconutBattery:

Battery Calibration

All newly-installed smart batteries should be calibrated as soon as possible. This helps your phone or laptop get an accurate reading on the battery’s state of charge.

www.ifixit.com

 

[sunapple]

With previous iPhone I avoided wireless charging like the plague for battery health reasons. No fast charging either, just 5W wired. I always charge at night to 100% though.

With most iPhones I've owned my battery health seemed to drop around 5-10% after 1-2 years.

Now I'm using MagSafe charging for the nights. Seeing a similar 5% drop after 13 months.

Roughly speaking, in my head and based on my experiences, the difference is small. I'm fine with the convenience over efficiency. I'm aiming to use it for some years, may be replacing the battery half way through.

 

[v0lume4]

Super interesting data point. Thanks so much for sharing. That’s actually nuts.

 

[ctjack]

We had 1553 cycles on iphone 6 before upgrading it to 8 plus.

 

[toobravetosave]

Time value of money my friend. Your efforts were more expensive than a battery replacement

 

[1rottenapple]

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.

Interesting too. Tesla just changed the daily recommended charging limit from 90% which it has been like this for at least 8 yrs now to 80% with the new update. I’d be interesting if they disclosed the rationale and what data they used to come up with this. Like did they notice degradation across their fleet?

 

[jz0309]

Good to see…
For me, life is too short to worry about battery life…

 

[Tyler O'Bannon]

This study is missing a control.

Nobody’s running a science experiment here.

There’s no scientific method.

There’s no hypothesis.

This is a forum for nerds like me to see what someone did with real world use.

Nobody’s publishing this.

 

[Tyler O'Bannon]

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

Sure, but this is still best practice. Had you followed this, your battery might have been in even better health than it was.

 

[eyoungren]

Sure, but this is still best practice. Had you followed this, your battery might have been in even better health than it was.

It might. I'll never know.

That said, I have an iPhone 3GS, an iPhone 4 and 4s and an iPhone 5 that did not follow this routine either. And the batteries on these phones are decent. They will all hold a charge under load for a few hours. Not heavy load, I don't use my devices very heavily, I have computers, TVs and other things around me all day.

Battery wear and preservation doesn't concern me much. I've rarely had battery problems and then only five or six years down the line.

 

[ctjack]

Interesting too. Tesla just changed the daily recommended charging limit from 90% which it has been like this for at least 8 yrs now to 80% with the new update. I’d be interesting if they disclosed the rationale and what data they used to come up with this. Like did they notice degradation across their fleet?

Lets say tesla is just a big iphone - if your work commute allows to run always on 50-80% range, then there is really no need to stress the battery by going to below 20% or above 80%. For portable electronics, 80% was a long time golden standard.
I really see all electric cars as perfect work commuters - commute your daily 20 mile round trip, sit/sleep in it for lunch time with ac/heater and grab occasional groceries. Nothing more than that. Our work parking has free chargers as well.

 

[TechnoMonk]

Thanks for the tip. I usually don’t baby sit my phone, it’s a tool to help me be productive. I will pay 70-100 bucks for replacement battery every 3 years and not bother.

 

[reppans]

How’s your SOT approaching 5yo? Do you really think Coconut/Apple battery health % is accurate?… ie, after 5yrs you only lost 0-10% of your SOT?,

I also manage my batt, except more automated (shortcut automation to control a smartplug) so truly just plug-in and forget. Only plug-in once/day cycling ~70-20 as 50% is all I need - that’s about ~700 cycles so far for me.

Here’s my 4yr old XR SOT, although my usage pattern is abnormally efficient re: wifi, lite apps, settings.

EDIT… might be worth mentioning that if this is true, then we can do a lot better than 1000cycles, provided one has the excess capacity to play with.

 

[haruhiko]

The iPhone 14 series will break all your battery health conservation efforts. 😂

 

[MRrainer]

Yeah, so exactly this: slow, wired charging, avoid heat. You use 100% of the battery life of the device and the battery life is still fine.

Fine is a bit an overstatement. But it's good enough to hopefully drag the purchase of a new iPhone out for another year ;-)

Unless the screen breaks, of course....

 

[FeliApple]

Fine is a bit an overstatement. But it's good enough to hopefully drag the purchase of a new iPhone out for another year ;-)

Unless the screen breaks, of course....

I just don’t think battery health matters at all. If you keep the original iOS version battery life will never drop regardless of battery health.

A lot of examples. I have an iPhone 6s on iOS 10 which is 7 years old, 63% health, battery life is like-new. 32-bit devices have amazing battery life even something like a decade later. iPads being the perfect example: you have people saying their 11-year-old iPad 2 still has great battery life.

My 10-year-old iPhone 5c still has great battery life after something like 1100 cycles and no battery care. Original battery, of course.

My view? 32-bit devices won’t struggle with battery life even if fully updated because those iOS versions for those devices were infinitely more efficient. Performance is a different thing, they’re slow, but as far as battery life goes, it’s fine.

64-bit devices struggle a lot because newer iOS updates just obliterate everything. Too many features, too intensive, and devices can’t cope. That’s why you see an iPhone 6s on iOS 15 with utterly appalling battery life even after replacing the battery: iOS 15 is too much. 1st-gen iPad Pros? Obliterated by iPadOS 16. Too demanding.

If the iOS version is efficient, battery health doesn’t matter because it will work well regardless, and if the iOS version is too much, battery health doesn’t matter because battery life will be obliterated anyway. People replace the battery on the iPhone 6s and battery life is pathetic anyway. My 6s with its 7-year-old battery runs circles around a new battery on an updated 6s.

 

[Alex Cai]

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.

I think in the future we can make software like Aldente run on iPhones.
Apple wants users to use their devices seamlessly, so they wanted users to fuzz less about managing their batteries but we do want to fuzz with them.

AlDente

AlDente – Charge Limiter The ALL-IN-ONE charge Limiter App for MacBooks. Download Free Get AlDente Pro AlDente gives you the tools you need to extend the life of your MacBook battery. Why do I need this? Li-ion batteries (like the one in your MacBook) last the longest when operated between 20%...

apphousekitchen.com

At least it runs on MacBooks
But with 3rd party app stores coming soon we might have the chance to use Aldente on iPhone

 

[eyoungren]

Apple wants users to use their devices seamlessly, so they wanted users to fuzz less about managing their batteries but we do want to fuzz

You can fuzz all you want, leave me out of it.

I'm really not interested in battery anxiety. I have enough anxiety to deal with already.

 

[sleven]

Noob question here - “SoC” system on chip?
And what does “ToC” mean?