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You've probably heard people say that you shouldn't leave your phone plugged in overnight.
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Doing so, depreciates your battery life and makes it age faster.
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You're killing your battery!
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I always charge my phone overnight, and I always let it reach a full 100 percent charge.
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Am I really killing my battery?
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Am I a murderer?
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I can't live with this guilt, so I called up some battery experts to find the truth.
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Daniel Steingart, Associate Professor at Princeton University told me that, actually ...
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The easiest thing to do is just keep it plugged in all the time or as much as you can.
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Did you hear that?
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I'll say it again, "as much as you can."
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The way he sees it is that we all need our phones ready and charged, so we might as well keep them fully charged forever.
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Your phone is pretty smart, and its software recognizes when it reaches full charge, so you can't technically overcharge your battery.
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Problem solved!
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But not really.
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I also called Venkat Srinivasan, the director of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science, and he told me ...
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Don't charge the battery all the way to 100 percent.
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Get it up to 90 percent and then stop it.
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He never lets his phone reach a full charge, what?
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He says we should keep our phones between 30 percent and 80 percent charged because once they reach 100%, certain reactions occur that degrade the electrolytes and depreciate our batteries.
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So this is probably where that overcharging myth comes from.
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Alright, so I went back to Dan, and I asked him to clarify.
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Like, Venkat says you're wrong.
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And Dan told me that both of them are actually right.
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So, awesome, you do damage your battery when you charge it to 100 percent.
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But if you're going for the full charge already, keeping it there doesn't harm it.
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Basically, if you are a normal human who just needs their phone out all the time, feel free to go to 100 percent and keep it plugged in forever.
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But if you care a lot about your battery's life, like, a lot, a lot, or you don't use your phone that much, go Venkat's route and try to keep it in a narrow charging range.
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I admire your discipline, and maybe you'll extend your battery's lifespan.
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Ultimately, though, batteries are meant to be used, and phones are meant to be used too.
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You don't do any damage by leaving it at 100.
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You'll probably replace your phone before your battery totally dies.
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Or in a worst case scenario, you replace the battery.
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That's not so bad.
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Okay, glad we settled this.
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Go live your truth, keep it 100, goodbye.