Why you shouldn't charge your iPhone battery to 100%?

Nowadays, phone batteries have significantly improved in performance, allowing users to use their devices all day on a single charge, even on mid-range or low-cost devices.

However, instead of just worrying about daily battery life, you should also pay attention to battery life, which is the battery's ability to maintain good performance throughout the life of the device.

One of the most important ways to extend battery life is to reduce the amount of time you keep your battery at 100% charge. When a battery is constantly fully charged, it is put under greater stress, which can cause it to wear out and lose performance over time.

This is especially important for phones that use lithium-ion batteries, as these tend to degrade faster if they are regularly kept at their maximum charge for long periods of time.

Improve battery life with "Optimized Battery Charging"

If you have an iPhone, Apple has built in a smart feature that helps reduce the stress on your battery from being fully charged for too long. It's called "Optimized Battery Charging," and it works by learning your charging habits.

Optimized Battery Charging is designed to reduce battery wear and improve battery life by reducing the time it takes to fully charge your iPhone.

This feature is available when “Charge Limit” is set to 100%. When this feature is enabled, your iPhone will delay charging past 80% in certain situations.

iPhone uses on-device machine learning to learn your daily charging habits. So, Optimized Battery Charging only kicks in when your iPhone anticipates being connected to a charger for an extended period of time. This algorithm ensures that your iPhone remains fully charged when it's unplugged.

When "Optimized Battery Charging" is active, a notification on your Lock screen will let you know when your iPhone is fully charged. If you need to fully charge your iPhone sooner, touch and hold the notification, then tap "Charge Now."

How to set up "Charge Limit" feature on iPhone

If you want to have more control over your battery charging, Apple also offers another feature called “Charge Limit,” specifically on the iPhone 15 and newer models. With this feature, you can limit the phone’s maximum charging rate to a certain level to reduce stress on the battery.

To enable the "Charge Limit" feature, go toSetting>Battery> ClickCharging. Here you can set the charging limit to 80%, 85%, 90%, 95%, or 100%. Note that if you select 100%, the device will only use the "Optimized Battery Charging" feature instead of "Charging Limit".

Should I charge my phone to 100%?

According to Apple, using the “Charge Limit” feature can significantly increase the lifespan of your battery. Even if you only set the limit to 95% instead of 100%, it will still reduce battery wear and tear and help extend its lifespan.

But don't worry if your phone occasionally hits 100% charge. There are a number of factors that affect battery life, not just the charge level, says Patrick Holland, CNET editor and phone review expert.

Apple and other phone makers have developed software algorithms to optimize the charging process, minimizing the negative impact on the battery, so fully charging your phone is not too much of a concern.

Additionally, if you have “Charge Limit” enabled, you will still see your iPhone hit 100% charge occasionally. This is because Apple has set up an automatic mechanism to occasionally charge to full to maintain accuracy in estimating the actual battery capacity.