Does charging to 80% really make your battery last longer?

Charging your smartphone to 80% can indeed slightly extend the battery life, as lithium-ion and lithium-polymer batteries work best between 20-80%. At the same time, it is a compromise: you sacrifice autonomy, and there is no universal rule — the effect depends on your usage scenarios.

The website Novyny.LIVE tells whether it makes sense to always charge your smartphone to 80% to extend its service life.

Why limiting to 80% helps, and when it is appropriate

Lithium-ion and lithium-polymer batteries are damaged by extreme states of charge. Full recharging wears out the battery more: to "top up" the battery, the system supplies energy, which heats the cells and causes small but irreversible chemical changes. Over time, their accumulation reduces the useful capacity — fewer and fewer cells hold a charge for as long as before.

To reduce the rate of degradation, manufacturers are increasingly adding an option to limit the charge to 80% in the settings. In many models, it is enough to activate one switch, and the phone stops "charging" the battery to 100%.

It is worth mentioning separately the new silicon-carbon batteries that appear in flagship devices. They tolerate fast charging and high voltage better, so they wear out more slowly - in such batteries, the "80% threshold" is less critical. At the same time, the basic advice remains relevant: do not overheat the smartphone and do not bring the charge to zero.

The bottom line is simple: there is a recommendation to limit the charge to 80%, but there is no hard and fast rule. If autonomy is more important to you than long-term "saving" of the resource, sometimes it is more practical to simply replace the battery after a year or a half, rather than limiting the battery life every day.

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