Stop Power Cycling Your Batteries

Here’s a tip for getting the most out of the batteries in your cell phones, tablets, and laptop computers!

You may have heard that by power cycling, or letting a device go completely dead before charging it back up, extends the life of your batteries. That may have been true for old NICAD batteries, but modern lithium ion batteries do NOT like being power cycled!

And while we’re on the subject, try and keep your batteries between 20-90% charged to get the most out of them! Don’t top off your phone each night if it’s almost fully charged. Just turn it off or stick it in airplane mode! Remember, batteries only have a life span of 300-500 cycles.

 “What’s a cycle?” you ask?

Well, every time you charge it back up, whether the charge is at 10% or 90%, each time you charge your device, that’s one less cycle it has left.

And finally, don’t forget to recycle your dead batteries, along with your light bulbs, at the nearest hardware store that accepts them.