As our smartphones age, it’s normal for their batteries to degrade. But there are some bad habits that will shorten your phone’s battery life sooner rather than later. Here’s what to do to prevent your battery’s lifespan from shortening more quickly than it should.

Don’t let your phone overheat

One of the worst things for a battery is overheating. Heat can damage the battery, and extreme overheating can even cause lithium batteries to explode. 

Avoid charging your phone on a wireless charging pad for long periods of time and placing your phone on hot surfaces (such as a table in the sunlight) or on other devices that generate heat (such as a laptop or game console). 

Use your battery more efficiently

The life of a lithium-ion battery, the type used in smartphones, is determined by charge cycles. A charge cycle is the process of a battery draining and recharging by its full capacity (100%), though these cycles can be completed in increments (such as charging and draining by 20% over five sessions). Over time, the more charge cycles your phone’s battery experiences, the more its capacity reduces.

You can’t get around charging your phone and completing charge cycles, but you can reduce the number of cycles over time by making your battery drain slower. To do this, you need to make your battery usage more efficient. 

A few simple ways to reduce your battery usage is to lower your screen brightness, switch off auto-sync on certain apps, use a dark-mode theme on your phone and use your phone’s battery-saving functions. 

You can find more battery saving tips in our guide to saving battery power. 

Try to keep your battery between 30% and 80% charged

According to the battery professionals at Battery University, a lithium-ion battery should stay charged between 30 and 80 percent capacity. Your phone’s battery doesn’t drain rapidly in this state and your phone also operates at ideal temperatures, whereas a full charge may make it operate at higher heats. 

‘The worst situation is keeping a fully charged battery at elevated temperatures. Battery packs do not die suddenly, but the runtime gradually shortens as the capacity fades,’ the site says. 

The battery of the future

Frustrated by today’s super snazzy phones that can do it all – but need to be charged daily to do so? This may not be the case for too much longer. The recent Mobile World Congress introduced the Energizer Power Max P18K Pop smartphone, which has a massive 18,000mAh battery! Click here to read about more tech trends to look out for in 2019 and beyond.