Preventing your smartphone from overheating in the summer may seem like a challenge, too avoid the battery from getting too cold in winter it could be, especially if you live in a geographic area where the thermometer easily reaches temperatures below zero. As we get closer to 0°C, the lower limit of the operating temperature of a typical smartphone battery, the batteries in our mobile phones deteriorate in performance and discharge quickly. For Don’t let your phone battery drain quickly in the cold you need to pay attention to some precautions, including avoiding charging it when the temperature is below 5 °C, turning it off or, again, placing the device in a thermal case.
Because cold weather drains your phone’s battery quickly
As you probably already know, our smartphones are equipped with lithium batteries. These work thanks tooxidation-reductionor a chemical reaction consisting in the exchange of electrons betweenanode and the cathode. With the cold, the chemical process that makes the batteries work is actually slowed downas the electrolyte present inside the latter becomes more viscous, offering greater resistance to the passage of electrons. This slowdown is the basis of the reason why the autonomy of lithium batteries drops drastically in the cold. Suffice it to say that, when extreme temperatures are reached (for example -20°C) the battery lasts less than half of normal life.
How to prevent your smartphone battery from draining quickly due to the cold
Here are some tips for prevent the cold from draining your smartphone battery leaving you “stranded” earlier than expected.
- Don’t charge your smartphone when it’s very cold: various electronic device manufacturers advise against charging your smartphone temperatures below 5°Cas this could potentially cause the battery to age prematurely.
- Turn off your smartphone if the temperature is below freezing: this is because, as indicated by the main companies that design and produce smartphones, lithium batteries have a optimal range of usewhich is usually between 0-35°Cas well as a ideal range of usewhich it generally is between 16 and 22 °C. If the phone is used outside the usage range idealit’s not a big deal; if, however, this is done beyond the thermal “limits” given by the range of use optimalthis could in the long run permanently damage the device and, in this case, the lithium battery.
- Keep your smartphone warm: if for some reason you cannot turn off your smartphone, even if you are in an environment that has a low temperature, do everything you can to heat the device, perhaps keeping it in an internal pocket that is as close to your body as possible.
- Place your phone in a thermal case: this will help the device disperse heat more slowly.
