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adam1080

macrumors 6502a
Mar 29, 2012
555
930
You think it’s a waste of time and money to use a slow charger. But you don’t think it’s a waste of time or money to:
1. Schedule a service appointment
2. Drive to the store
3. Wait around for them to replace your battery
4. Pay for this service (or get it “free“… by *paying* for applecare, an extended warranty you pay for even if you never use it)
5. Drive back home
6. Have a phone that’s been cracked open by a counter jockey (potentially decreasing water resistance)

Want to know how much time it took me to do this on my 11 pro last week, including getting my screen changed and 2 trips back and forth to the Apple Store???

90 minutes.

How many times a year do you charge your phone? How much faster does it charge at 18/20/30W? If you save 3 hours a week of charging time(which is a SUPER low number), but lets use actual working time and say you loose 1 hour, heck 30 minutes a week of time you could be earning money(being late to work, whatever). That's 26 hours a year. At minimum wage (which who can actually survive on that and afford one of these phones) that's $188/year which would cover anyones lost time and cost to replace a battery by more than double. (AppleCare costs less than that a year btw)

If we start talking livable wages in a modern world, the time you save over a year(even if it took you 4-5 hours to get your battery replaced) to fast charge your phone, WHICH THEY ARE DESIGNED TO DO, is way more than the personal cost associated with slow charging.


Time is precious, but feel free to use yours charging your phone. (I've just spent mine ranting on a forum to rando's on the internet)
 
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ctjack

macrumors 65816
Mar 8, 2020
1,378
1,417
You all are spending hours a week deciding how (and manipulating your habits) to charge your phone. How much time a year are you wasting on this????
I think just putting overnight with 5w charger is wasting probably 1 second more than the Magsafe/Qi. Nothing special is needed just the 5w overnight.
To each their own... but if you spend any extra time in a day to "slow-charge" your battery on your phone(or worry about it at all) you are wasting your own money. That is all.
I don't want to spend an extra time to charge during the day at all. My ideal phone would be that lasts from am to 10-11PM until i put it on charging overnight with 5w.

Want to know how much time it took me to do this on my 11 pro last week, including getting my screen changed and 2 trips back and forth to the Apple Store???
Oh yeah... there is a caveat behind the $69 replacement charge for battery - they mention on the website that they will perform $69 battery replacement only if your screen is OK. If your screen is cracked or shattered, they first want to fix the screen and only then the battery. And now we are not talking about $69 anymore for some cases
How many times a year do you charge your phone? How much faster does it charge at 18/20/30W? If you save 3 hours a week of charging time(which is a SUPER low number), but lets use actual working time and say you loose 1 hour, heck 30 minutes a week of time you could be earning money(being late to work, whatever). That's 26 hours a year. At minimum wage (which who can actually survive on that and afford one of these phones) that's $188/year which would cover anyones lost time and cost to replace a battery by more than double. (AppleCare costs less than that a year btw)

If we start talking livable wages in a modern world, the time you save over a year(even if it took you 4-5 hours to get your battery replaced) to fast charge your phone, WHICH THEY ARE DESIGNED TO DO, is way more than the personal cost associated with slow charging.


Time is precious, but feel free to use yours charging your phone. (I've just spent mine ranting on a forum to rando's on the internet)
I think you overcomplicated with the math. Charging overnight with 5W doesn't cost you anything.
.
 

adam1080

macrumors 6502a
Mar 29, 2012
555
930
Oh yeah... there is a caveat behind the $69 replacement charge for battery - they mention on the website that they will perform $69 battery replacement only if your screen is OK. If your screen is cracked or shattered, they first want to fix the screen and only then the battery. And now we are not talking about $69 anymore for some cases

I think you overcomplicated with the math. Charging overnight with 5W doesn't cost you anything.

Fair point on the screen needing to be intact. Never cracked one before so didn't think about that. Thats a game changer. (have paid the $29 to get a new one under AppleCare a few times but only because they get easily scratched up and I want my parents to get a refreshed phone when I give it to them).

And yeah, no time savings over night...

I do a ton of charging during the day, cause yes... the phone doesn't last all day for my needs. So, a non-max phone with real all day battery life would be ideal.

Good points.
 

ozziegn

macrumors 65816
Aug 16, 2007
1,298
832
Central FL Area
Glad we have an understanding...

To each their own... but if you spend any extra time in a day to "slow-charge" your battery on your phone(or worry about it at all) you are wasting your own money. That is all.

Maybe you should take your own advice, "to each their own" before you make another general suggestion like you did earlier about not wanting the forum to discuss this whole battery charging subject again. Just because you're tired of seeing these types of conversations doesn't mean everyone else is.

Therefore, "to each their own" should be "to each my own" in your case.
 

BigMcGuire

Cancelled
Jan 10, 2012
9,832
14,028
I don't mean to burst your 2 year, 100% battery health bubble but........ You might wanna watch the video below on this very same subject. What these guys say makes perfect sense.

Battery health vs charge cycles video
These guys got it right. I’ve had several phones come >100% design capacity from Apple. Those of us who are light users and do the 40-80% can also see very little degradation as well over the first hundred or so cycles.
 

now i see it

macrumors G4
Jan 2, 2002
10,724
22,557
Here’s a brand new iPhone battery as shown by Coconut Battery app on the Mac. You can see that it had 102% capacity over spec when new (and still does after a few days).
The Battery Health setting on the iPhone says Battery Health is at 100%


DAC23D69-BF7E-4B0E-A99A-E1D6F66AF2AE.jpeg
 
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michial

macrumors 6502a
Sep 15, 2009
769
424
I don't mean to burst your 2 year, 100% battery health bubble but........ You might wanna watch the video below on this very same subject. What these guys say makes perfect sense.

Battery health vs charge cycles video
No bubbles burst after two years with fantastic capacity. The charger is in the phone and not the power adapter. It reduces the charge it allows in phases during a charge to optimize battery life and prevent degredation. The phone does the work. The power adapter isnt in charge, no pun intended. But do it however you feel is best. Cheers
 

BuggyGT

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 1, 2019
165
148

4odomi

Cancelled
Jan 19, 2018
1,203
1,218
I find it almost impossible to believe that two years of I'm assuming daily use your battery health didn't fall a single percent. This doesn't fit with how li-ion cells function, even if you didn't use the battery it should show signs of aging.

18W vs 20W will be pretty insignificant in terms of long term battery health. But 5W vs 20W should produce a noticeable difference after two years of use.

Like I say to everyone, you want to keep the battery as close to 50% as possible and charge as slow as possible for optimal health. Obviously this is not practical. Most of the damage is done <10% and above 90%.
I have an iPhone 13 Pro which is 1.5 years old and has 100% battery health.
The trick is not to let it fall below 65% and just top it up to a 100% and not charge over night.
Your ways, is sure to shorten the battery life!
 

4odomi

Cancelled
Jan 19, 2018
1,203
1,218
Tested on the Apple 87W and 30W USB-C Power Adapter, when the battery is below 50% it charges at around 29 watts and was able to hit about 30.44W on my generic RavPower USB-C adapter. Not sure why Apple only advertises the 20W on the iPhone page but I will stick with the 30w for the slightly quicker charging times. (*Edited to add that I been using the 30W Apple adapter on my 12 Pro Max which can charge at a maximum of 25W for the past year and it is at 97% Battery Health.)

60% Battery - charges at 25W
70% Battery - charges at 17W
80% Battery - charges at 10W
90% Battery - goes below 10W and slowly tapers down

View attachment 1847109
Great article, now I understand, why my 30w adapter isn't any faster than my 20w adapter, I don't normally let my battery fall below 65%.
 
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