On iOS 13 there is an Optimized Charging feature that allows you to safeguard your smartphone battery: here’s how it works
There are certain times, days or entire weeks, when we make more use of our smartphone. Whether it’s for work or just for fun, maybe because we’re on vacation and want to take a lot of pictures and videos, in these periods the phone battery is subjected to greater stress.
And often you have difficulty getting through the day, unless the smartphone is brand new. In iOS 13, though, there’s an extra setting that can affect iPhone charging on days like these. It’s called “Optimized Charging” and it’s designed to protect the health of the battery and make it age less quickly, based on the famous 40/80 principle. This feature, in fact, lengthens the total life of a battery, but decreases the amount of energy stored with each recharge. This means that, if we want a 100% charged battery, we will have to deactivate the Optimized Charging, while if we want to protect the health of the accumulator we will have to reactivate it.
What is the principle of 40/80
Lithium-ion batteries, such as those integrated in our smartphones, tablets and all modern mobile electronic devices, have more or less the same chemical characteristics and all respond in a similar way to the continuous cycles of charge and discharge: as they age they lose efficiency. The more the battery has been charged and discharged, the less energy it will be able to store with each recharge. But it has been discovered that battery aging is mitigated if we avoid discharging it all and then recharging it 100%. The ideal is to put it on charge when it drops below 40% charge, but not exceeding 80%. A battery that is kept at a charge between 40 and 80% lasts longer. And that’s why we talk about the “40/80 principle”.
iOS 13 and Optimized Charging
One of the most touted features of iOS 13 is the so-called “Optimized Charging”. Apple presents it as a novelty, capable of making the battery live longer. But, in reality, it’s nothing more than the application of the 40/80 principle. Or, at least, part of it. When you activate the optimized charging, in fact, the smartphone independently stops receiving power when the battery reaches 80%. Instead, it will be up to us to charge it when we fall below 40%.
How to recharge the iPhone battery faster
At this point it’s clear that, if for a certain period we need more autonomy for one of the reasons mentioned above, one of the possibilities is to disable optimized charging. Doing so, in fact, we can recharge the battery to 100% and use for a longer time the smartphone. To do this we’ll have to go to Settings > Battery > Battery Status and disable Optimized Battery Charging. But remember that, in this way, our battery will have a shorter life. So when we no longer need the maximum autonomy it will be better to re-enable this feature of iOS 13.