Have you ever charged your phone in the morning and driven to the airport
only to notice that your phone is still sitting at 10% when you arrive at the gate?
Normally, it wouldn't be an issue but your charger is in your checked baggage because again you already charged your phone.
Your hopes to post that cool from the wing cloud Instagram story just vanished.
On a positive note, we are going to show you how to prevent this from occurring in the future. This is DIY in 5.
Hello everyone! My name is Trisha and you are watching DIY in 5
the show where we make tech simple enough that you can DIY it in 5 minutes or less.
Today we are discussing common android battery problems and how to fix them.
What I described previously is a nightmare scenario that many of us face daily.
The time, place, and scenario may be different but it is still a nightmare.
On a daily basis, someone is going to experience this.
One - Slower than normal charging.
Two - Fast charging may suddenly switch to normal charging.
Three - Overheating.
Four - The battery may discharge too quickly.
Or five, the ever so fun watching your phone drop battery percentage like the second hand of a clock while not in use.
The good news is that battery swelling and the eventual losing battery capacity over time is something you actually plan for.
Alright, let's plan our trip to the airport again. We wake up and notice our phone is at 10%.
We plugged it into the charger and confirmed that it was charging.
We get ready and grab one last bagel before we grab our phone and it's not charging!
Yikes. Ok, let's fix this problem.
First, check to see if the cable is broken, you can do this by physical inspection.
If you don't see anything obvious, wiggle the cable to see if it starts charging again.
Next, check the phone, cable, and charger contacts.
In most cases, this will solve slow charging or in this case when it stops charging.
If it doesn't it's important to note that it could be the phone.
In 2017, the essential ph-1 was released as a stock android flagship.
However, the essential ph-1 became known for being finicky with chargers.
The phone would think that some chargers were able to fast charge
and it will cycle between fast and slow until the phone would just stop charging all together.
At DIY in 5 we learned that most essential ph-1 users that charge with a Pixel 2 or 2XL charger reported zero issues.
Alright, so what happens when you have a phone that is capable of fast charging, but it stops charging rapidly and indicates that it's charging normally?
The same troubleshooting techniques from before apply but I would suggest that you double-check your actual charger first.
Make sure that you didn't plug in your 10W charger by mistake especially if your phone is expecting your 30W charger.
Note, although your phone can magically make your 10W charger into a 30W charger it will still charge at 30W if you happen to plug in a 40W charger.
Now let's say you did everything that we suggested but you are still not seeing rapid charging.
Power off the phone and see if rapid charging resumes.
If it does that tells us that there is an app or most likely apps drawing a lot of power in the background.
Try updating the apps and if this doesn't work disable those apps until the OEM releases an update.
This leads us to another issue.
If you are charging while using your phone the ability for it to charge rapidly or at normal speed is reduced
and sometimes drastically depending on the OEM.
Some phone users have reported ghost touches or false touches when using the phone while charging.
Others have noticed that charging may take twice as long.
So, assume the worst and if possible, turn off the phone when charging or try to reduce some of your tasks while it is.
To put it simply, the more apps that you have running competing for services the more power is being discharged from the system.
Eliminate that and all resources will go to charging.
One result that can happen when you charge your phone while doing intensive tasks is overheating.
Overheating is normally reported by the user when they are setting up the phone the first time
while plugged in, gaming or any other CPU-intensive task while plugged in and/or wireless charging.
Note that your battery drains much faster when the phone gets too hot.
If your phone is too hot while charging, there are times when the battery can drain faster than the phone is charging, even though it's plugged in.
Frustrating I know. In this case, it's best to close or disable any CPU-intensive apps and/or move your phone to a cooler environment while charging.
Over the life of your cell phone, you may or may not notice that your battery is discharging faster
or simply doesn't hold a charge as long as it used to. Don't worry this is normal and considered wear and tear.
However, if you find yourself complaining about this after a few months with the phone the problem could be you, so let's review some best practices.
To optimize battery health, the rule of thumb used to be to wait until we pass below 40% battery before we start charging again
and stop charging at 80%. What this does is reduces the time under temperature load
as well as reduces the number of charge cycles which has the biggest impact on sustained battery health
Today, most modern phones have built in protection that will manage this for you.
At some point, we will all reach our end but in smartphones,
we may notice this case of battery swelling.
Even with the best practices our smartphone batteries will start to hold their charges less.
They will drain more per hour and in several years they may even begin to swell.
As soon as you notice swelling it's time to properly remove this hazard from your house and dispose of it properly.
So there you have it! After your next flight, you will have all the cloud pics your heart can handle.
And still be able to call your ride when you land.
If you found this video useful, please do give us a like and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss out on any future tech tips.
Until next time, my name's Trisha Hershberger and you've been watching DIY in 5!