iPhone 14 Pro Max Is wireless charging detrimental to battery life?

[giffut]

Wireless charging (in and of itself) is not significantly detrimental to the battery.. What is detrimental is charging extremes such as keeping the battery charged to 100% or repeatedly allowing the battery to completely discharge.

That is wrong. Wireless chrtging is less efficient, by around 20%, and it creates much more heat which causes faster decline in battery health.

You don't want to waste enegy and create unnecessary heat which damages your battery.

Don't charge wirelessly, it's that simple..

 

[FreakinEurekan]

The problem is a lot of UK consumers don't read into what their rights are so either don't understand them, or have the knowledge.

Yes Apple ARE obligated through the retailer you bought through, to replace a device beyond a one year period. Having gone through this with both Carphone Warehouse and John Lewis, Apple are indeed under obligation as they produce the device.

I suppose they’re “obligated” to SELL the device, though that’s not the term I’d use. If your reseller goes out of business, Apple isn’t “obligated” to do *&$#.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

I suppose they’re “obligated” to SELL the device, though that’s not the term I’d use. If your reseller goes out of business, Apple isn’t “obligated” to do *&$#.

A retailer going out of business does not stop Apple being obligated to take responsibility for their product. If that were the case then everybody who bought an iPhone through 'Phones 4U' a few years ago would have had their warranties voided the moment that company went bust. I never buy my iPhone's through Apple directly, but if I have a hardware issue, I can take it directly to Apple for repair or replacement within 24 months. The manufacturer bears ultimate responsibility, not the third party retailer.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

A retailer going out of business does not stop Apple being obligated to take responsibility for their product. If that were the case then everybody who bought an iPhone through 'Phones 4U' a few years ago would have had their warranties voided the moment that company went bust. I never buy my iPhone's through Apple directly, but if I have a hardware issue, I can take it directly to Apple for repair or replacement within 24 months. The manufacturer bears ultimate responsibility, not the third party retailer.

If you were right, I’d agree with you.

Consume Law in the UK requires the SELLER of a product to provide certain relief for 2 to 6 years, not the manufacturer. Apple’s warranty is one year on an iPhone.

 

[Mr.Fox]

I’ve owned basically all the iPhone models since the beginning (I’ve skipped just the 12) and I’m really very careful managing them. But with the last two models (13 Pro and 14 Pro Max) I’ve noticed a quite fast battery health decline. I bought my 14 Pro Max in January and battery life already is at 90%.
I know the indicator is not very accurate, but usually after one year I had 95/97 %, while the last two models were 91 and 90, with the same usage pattern and just ONE big change in habits: an (apple original) wireless charger.
what is really puzzling me is that my wife’s iPhone 13, bought in the same day, still is at 97%, and she is using it with very little care (charging it often twice a day), but only with traditional wired charger.
is the wireless charging accelerating the battery wear? I know this is technically possible, but I thought it was negligible…
maybe it’s not 🤨

Let's remember physics. This is inductive charging. It is harmful only in two cases, if it critically overheats the device and if the device is constantly recharged or left overnight. If there is no strong heating and there is very good cooling, it is as harmful as a normal wire.
Learn physics. School course.

 

[Al Rukh]

I know AppleCare+ gets a lot of promotion on this forum, but it is an expensive insurance policy and many seem to use it to compensate for the shortcomings of their device. I think if a device requires a new battery in 2.5 years or less, that should be Apples responsibly, not ours.

At what point does an iPhone requires a new battery? When it’s 80%? 0%? There are people whom I know personally that are happy to use their iPhones with sub-80% battery health - they just hook up to the charger or a power bank and keep it moving. The grey zones are just too many for Apple to cover. There’s no actual lifespan for the battery. But Apple is nice enough to offer a replacement if the health drops below 80% within a year or two if you have AC+.

 

[Al Rukh]

Let's remember physics. This is inductive charging. It is harmful only in two cases, if it critically overheats the device and if the device is constantly recharged or left overnight. If there is no strong heating and there is very good cooling, it is as harmful as a normal wire.
Learn physics. School course.

Most times the controller would prevent the battery to get hot past a certain temperature range - it’s a fail safe.

 

[MacCheetah3]

To answer the main (title) question: no, not in itself, because...

Most times the controller would prevent the battery to get hot past a certain temperature range - it’s a fail safe.

I’ve never witnessed the paused charging due to overheating protection, even while living in the Phoenix, AZ area. Although, I did have an iPhone throw up the (general) temperature warning twice — once was even while lounging in the shade.

As stated, the iPhone can somewhat mitigate these scenarios by temporarily deactivating or strongly limiting one or more functions/components. However, there are situations the device (e.g., iPhone) has no control in preventing damaging conditions, namely high temperatures, for example:

How hot can a car get parked in the Phoenix sun? What about the shade?

Six children already died in the United States this year from being left in the car, according to ASU Now. Annually, 37 children die from it.

ktar.com

That said, let’s move to Apple’s guidance:

Read this carefully — though I will highlight a couple of things:

Avoid extreme ambient temperatures.​

Your device is designed to perform well in a wide range of ambient temperatures, with 62° to 72° F (16° to 22° C) as the ideal comfort zone. It’s especially important to avoid exposing your device to ambient temperatures higher than 95° F (35° C), which can permanently damage battery capacity. That is, your battery won’t power your device as long on a given charge. Charging the device in high ambient temperatures can damage it further. Software may limit charging above 80% when the recommended battery temperatures are exceeded. Even storing a battery in a hot environment can damage it irreversibly. When using your device in a very cold environment, you may notice a decrease in battery life, but this condition is temporary. Once the battery’s temperature returns to its normal operating range, its performance will return to normal as well.

Remove certain cases during charging.​

Charging your device when it’s inside certain styles of cases may generate excess heat, which can affect battery capacity. If you notice that your device gets hot when you charge it, take it out of its case first.

Automatic battery health management.​

To reduce battery aging, built-in software and hardware systems are included to manage charging patterns and battery temperature.

• Optimized Battery Charging and Optimized Charge Limit adapt to your daily usage and preserve your battery lifespan over time. Optimized Battery Charging is available on all platforms as of iOS 13, watchOS 7, and macOS Big Sur. Based on your daily charging routine, it may automatically defer charging to 100% until shortly before you need to use the battery. Apple Watch Ultra can further reduce time spent at high states of charge by learning when to charge to an Optimized Charge Limit and when to allow for a full charge.
• Charging may pause temporarily while in extreme temperature conditions, and will resume once the battery’s temperature returns to its normal operating range. Starting in iOS 16, you may see a notification appear on the lock screen when charging has paused for this reason. Starting in iOS

Store it half-charged when you store it long term.​

If you want to store your device long term, two key factors will affect the overall health of your battery: the environmental temperature and the percentage of charge on the battery when it’s powered down for storage. Therefore, we recommend the following:

• Do not fully charge or fully discharge your device’s battery — charge it to around 50%. If you store a device when its battery is fully discharged, the battery could fall into a deep discharge state, which renders it incapable of holding a charge. Conversely, if you store it fully charged for an extended period of time, the battery may lose some capacity, leading to shorter battery life.
• Power down the device to avoid additional battery use.
• Place your device in a cool, moisture-free environment that’s less than 90° F (32° C).
• If you plan to store your device for longer than six months, charge it to 50% every six months.

Depending on how long you store your device, it may be in a low-battery state when you remove it from long-term storage. After it’s removed from storage, it may require 20 minutes of charging with the original adapter before you can use it.

Basically, with current tech, a battery is most comfortable at 50%, when the chemical pressures are equalized. Of course, it’s impossible to keep battery cells at 50% as that would prevent a battery’s operation.

During charging, lithium ions flow from the positive electrode to the negative electrode through the electrolyte. During discharging, the ions flow back through the electrolyte from the negative electrode to the positive electrode.

What about the 20-80%, 40-60%, and similar recommendations?

They’re mostly arbitrary compromises to prevent exposing batteries to “extremes” (i.e., deep discharge and overcharge). The other problem is when these ranges become more than helpful suggestions and are falsely proclaimed as absolute fact. The truth is battery charge states nearest to zero and one-hundred-percent are stressful on a battery. However, the ‘damage’ is related to amount of time at the edges of the range, where brief periods in the extremes is likely to have negligible impact to rate of degradation. That is why Apple insists you store an iPhone at half-charge and has implemented Optimized Battery Charging:

Optimized Battery Charging is designed to improve the lifespan of your battery and reduce the time your Mac spends fully charged.

The words “and reduce” probably should be “by reducing” but that’s somewhat nitpicking.

EDIT: I accidentally posted prematurely.

 

[bushman4]

This is an unspoken about topic
Experience suggests that it does degrade the battery faster
However it’s hard to say if it was a faulty battery or something else

 

[FeliApple]

At what point does an iPhone requires a new battery? When it’s 80%? 0%? There are people whom I know personally that are happy to use their iPhones with sub-80% battery health - they just hook up to the charger or a power bank and keep it moving. The grey zones are just too many for Apple to cover. There’s no actual lifespan for the battery. But Apple is nice enough to offer a replacement if the health drops below 80% within a year or two if you have AC+.

I use devices on their original iOS versions with severely degraded batteries and battery life is like-new. I’d say practically never if the device isn’t updated. This is… a controversial opinion to say the least.

 

[I7guy]

At what point does an iPhone requires a new battery? When it’s 80%? 0%? There are people whom I know personally that are happy to use their iPhones with sub-80% battery health - they just hook up to the charger or a power bank and keep it moving. The grey zones are just too many for Apple to cover. There’s no actual lifespan for the battery. But Apple is nice enough to offer a replacement if the health drops below 80% within a year or two if you have AC+.

My xs max was shutting off randomly when the percentage dropped below 30% or so. I had the battery replaced for $59 and the max felt like new. The battery was obviously defective. The new battery performed flawlessly.

As a battery degrades it won’t shut off if there is not a heavy load on the battery. Put a heavy load on a degraded battery and it will turn off.

 

[DSTOFEL]

I’ve got a 13 mini that I bought in December 2021. My strategy is this. I have 20 watt fast chargers in my car and at home. I don’t give a second thought to how I charge my battery. If it’s dead, I stick it on the charger and leave it there until I remember to take it off. If I jump in my car and it's a bit low, I plug it in and juice it up. My battery health is at 85% after 2 years and when it hit's 80%, I'll pay Apple $89 to replace the battery and let the fun begin again

The way I figure it…I’ll gladly pay Apple $89 every two yrs for a new battery to avoid all of the stress and worry that comes with trying to optimize the battery life of my phone.

 

[FlyingDutch]

In the meanwhile battery health is down to 88% after a few weeks…
It’s still more than enough to make my day, but this phone is one year old and 88% is disappointing

 

[FlyingDutch]

iPhone 13 Pro, exclusively charged wirelessly (MagSafe puck), overnight (the only exception is that I got a car with wired CarPlay in 2022, so whenever I'm in the car it's charging whether it needs it or not), coming on its second anniversary. 98% battery health. So clearly, My anecdata is better than everyone else's anecdata.

I am baffled to the extent that people seem to suffer actual stress about all this. It's a battery. They have a finite life span. Little of what we do alters that more than a few percentage points one way or another. Use your device, charge it when it needs to be charged with whatever method is most convenient for you, and stop worrying about it so much.

To change a battery costs money. And quite a lot of money for an iPhone. So if there is a way to extend its life, I’ll do it.
So I’m not stop worrying at all.

 

[cateye]

The point is there is little you can do to change its trajectory. Most of the "advice" in this thread is nonsense.

Don't let the battery get extremely hot (like leaving it in a hot car in summertime). Charge it only when it needs to be charged. Don't let it run to zero percent and leave it there. Turn on the battery and charge management features in iOS. Done. Anything else is almost entirely a waste of time.

 

[FlyingDutch]

The point is there is little you can do to change its trajectory. Most of the "advice" in this thread is nonsense.

Don't let the battery get extremely hot (like leaving it in a hot car in summertime). Charge it only when it needs to be charged. Don't let it run to zero percent and leave it there. Turn on the battery and charge management features in iOS. Done. Anything else is almost entirely a waste of time.

My iPhone doesn’t get hot while charging. And I’m not charging it when not needed. Mosto of the people here are spouting sentences without even bother to read.
The entire point is: I didn’t change my habits (I’m very careful managing my electronic devices), I owned almost e EVERY iPhone since its invention, and THIS YEAR I’m experiencing a very high wear on the battery.
I’m just wondering if I’ve got a lemon or Apple made a bad decision about battery quality in its 14 Pro series.
Considering the existing thread about that, I thing this could be the case.

In the US, the iPhone 11 through iPhone 13 series is $89 (Apple official/direct). The newer, 14 series is $99. Although, if you need to have the battery replaced on an iPhone 14 model (excluding a defect that would probably be or have been covered by warranty), you seriously need some digital addiction therapy.

I’ve not yet (had) replaced any iDevice battery. My previous iPhone, an iPhone X, still has acceptable performance. The battery is definitely degraded, reported as 75% health. I had a single incident that cracked the back glass, therefore, a battery replacement would cost at least $270 from a third-party, if I ever wanted to. I also have a sixth generation iPad that I will probably retire next summer. The iPad was a refurb from the online Apple Store -- almost exactly five years ago as of today. The battery health is about 50 - 55% after 827 cycles, but it still has a standby time of a few days and lasts an entire day with low to moderate use — running the latest iPadOS 17 version.

And who exactly are you to prescribe me some “therapy” ?

 

[freeagent]

Wireless charging is supposed to be a convenience, not a way of life. If you want to believe that just because you can do it, then you should do it all the time is entirely up to you. It is your hardware, and your money after all. But if all you use these batteries for is a cellphone, or a drill.. then your opinion really is just that.

 

[FlyingDutch]

Wireless charging is supposed to be a convenience, not a way of life. If you want to believe that just because you can do it, then you should do it all the time is entirely up to you. It is your hardware, and your money after all. But if all you use these batteries for is a cellphone, or a drill.. then your opinion really is just that.

Wireless charging really is a convenience. I’m just wondering if that convenience comes at the expense of an accelerated wearing or I’ve just got a lemon. But there is a third option: Apple used lower quality batteries starting from series 14 Pro

 

[MacCheetah3]

Wireless charging really is a convenience. I’m just wondering if that convenience comes at the expense of an accelerated wearing or I’ve just got a lemon. But there is a third option: Apple used lower quality batteries starting from series 14 Pro

Indeed, there are several possibilities, some we can’t confirm, including the possibility of poor QC on some batches of batteries. With mass production, that seems to happen frequently.

 

[freeagent]

I bought this phone thinking it was going to be awesome.. so far it is pretty good. But I have my OS tuned for battery life, so it might not be doing as much as the next guys phone..

If I have to buy a new battery, I will.. sure would suck if it didn't last a year though. Only time will tell. I play a lot of Mario Kart so..

 

[freeagent]

Apple used lower quality batteries starting from series 14 Pro

I think I read something about using recycled cobalt or something.. something..?

 

[FlyingDutch]

I think I read something about using recycled cobalt or something.. something..?

Yes, I’ve read something about that too.

 

[Mikey86uk]

Wasn't the 12 series battery also terrible?

The reason i upgraded to the 14 Pro Max was because i could barely get a days charge from my 12 Pro Max

 

[FlyingDutch]

Wasn't the 12 series battery also terrible?

The reason i upgraded to the 14 Pro Max was because i could barely get a days charge from my 12 Pro Max

I think you are speaking about a different “issue”.
We are not complaining about battery life in terms of endurance, which is just great on the 14 Pro Max, but in terms of health.

 

[Surfsalot]

Nope