A Little Survey - Saratoga Springs,NY

Not deliberately, but yes about once a month, my devices completely die. About 2-3 a week, they get down to 10% battery life. My husband charges his stuff every night and his batteries die out faster than mine.

i'm too lazy to remember to charge minehalf the time...so i'd say mine dies about once a day=) i wonder if too much is bad too=)

Updated

i'm too lazy to remember to charge minehalf the time...so i'd say mine dies about once a day=) i wonder if too much is bad too=)

Yes, once a month, per the ipod's instructions, it's on my calendar to do a maintenance charge. I do it because they told me to. My understanding is that the battery capacity gets "fractured", meaning there is a sort of wall built up each time you charge it that means it starts to have sections that get walled off. By letting it die completely, it allows those fractured areas to open up again. It sounds like a fairy tale, but since it's no skin off my nose to do it, I just do what I'm told, like a good little consumer.

because MOST of the batteries today are NI-Cad or Lithium ION batteries - they have a "memory" - for lack of better words (I'm sure the "experts have a different word) - so when you charge them at "half-charge" that is "dead" to them. When you let your battery DIE - it's used ALL of its life - and that's what it "remembers".

That's as simple as I can make it.

Batteries do NOT like heat. They can and will explode with heat. Most batteries last two to three years - some only one - especially when exposed to heat a lot.

No, I don't let my batteries die. I think it's silly but it seems to be true. They don't have a brain, they don't know when their out of power. They are a storage facility.

If you google this question there will be a lot of information to back up this claim and some good explanations of why it is true. I just can't wrap my head around an inanimate object knowing it is out of power and it making a difference.

My laptop is plugged in 99.9% of the time so I can't say I've ever let it rundown. Except for those few times that someone unplugged it from the wall by mistake and it downright dies on me and I go into hysterics because I think it is dead. (Not a pretty sight!!!)

As for my cell phone, we have multiple batteries so when the battery is low we just swap it out for another one and charge them later. I will say that the older batteries we have do not hold a charge as long or take as long to charge for that matter. So it is my opinion that there is a natural attrition that occurs over time no matter what you do.

Sorta related, from my latest Family Handyman magazine: For Lithium-Ion batteries, DON'T DISCHARGE COMPLETELY. This includes the little flat batteries in our cell phones (excluding Iphones). It also says to charge it frequently.
The old theory, which I had always heard as well, may be just that, an old theory. Hope that helps.

I don't think that is true anymore. But go ahead and try it. It can't hurt. Just keep in mind that if I don't charge my iphone every night, I won't make it through the next morning.

You can always stop by the Verizon store and ask!

Ummm lets see... to not get as technical... I tried to find a relatively simple to read article. It is important to cycle your battery. It is more about a charge/discharge cycle. To make it a little easier to understand, here is a link:

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong...

i dont but i should... i can tell you that from leaving my laptop plugged in ALL the time, my battery life is like nothing.. i keep it plugged in all the time -not sure why- unless i take it in another room or out in the garage, which isnt really often... but when i do & especially if im on the internet, im lucky if i get an hour out of it before i get the screen pop up saying its about to die. As far as my cell phone, i notice that when i let it die completely and charge it, i wont have to charge it again for a few days.. but if i charge it when its halway it doesnt last as long

I've heard this too. But I've also experienced letting the computer die until it shut itself off aaannd....it shorted out something important and cost 300 dollars to fix. No bueno.

I've heard that the battery has a memory. If you recharge it after it's only used less than its full life on a regular basis, it will begin to only use that much life before going dead. I know this does happen, as hub and I had the same cell phone with the same battery. I used to plug mine in every night whether it needed it or not and he didnt plug his in until it started doing the warning beep. After a while, maybe 6 mos or so, we noticed that my phone would be dead in a few hours of use and his would still last a few days.
That's all I know.
So I now wait till mine beeps before recharging.

I don't deliberately, but probably because I end up depleting the battery entirely about once a week anyways.

Nope, if I see them getting low, and I am able to throw them on the charger I do.

In our house those devices are always "dying" from lack of charging by us. I swear it's rare anyone has a full charge and we are always scrabbling for the cords.

Thank you, now I can say it's a good thing!

I do before I charge for the first time. After that...sometimes. I do let it get pretty low, though. Before I head home from work, I make sure that it's pretty close to 100% before I get on the road.

My assumption is the same as breastfeeding. We teach the battery how much juice we need by how much we use. If we don't ever let it reach full capacity, then it assumes that we don't need that much. Makes sense to me.

That is true for older and low quality batteries (NiCd, modern rechargables are usually Li-ion) and is called the battery memory effect.
More important than letting them totally die is not overcharging them. Modern AC adapters have an automatic shutoff when the battery is fully charged. But older or cheap adapters/chargers don't and if you routinely overcharge your battery it will eventually stop holding a charge.
Batteries can actually be damaged by completely discharging them, so no, I try not to let them die. I go until they are almost empty (battery warning comes on) and them recharge.

That is certainly true for older batteries. I have heard (but can not confirm) that some newer batteries don't need this done anymore. It's not a problem for me. I tend to have my devices completely die before recharging. Not always by choice.

I don't know the scientific validity of this theory. But in my experience, it seems to work. With my last laptop, I always kept it charged and plugged in. I NEVER let it die. That battery in that thing died really fast(less than a year) and it turned into a desktop pretty quickly because I could not use it without power...the battery would go dead in about 10 minutes. With the next laptop I let it die once in a while and it has shown no signs of battery deterioration yet (1.5 years later).

The only thing I have ever done, or been aware of, is that many devices say (or used to say?) that the FIRST time you charge them, you should charge them fully and completely without using them at all during the process, then FULLY and COMPLETELY use them until the battery is dead.
THEN, you fully and completely charge it to max again and use it as needed/normal usage.

That has generally been my habit and practice and I've never noticed anything in particular (nothing to compare it to, I always do it this way) regarding the life of the battery. But I have rarely had dead battery issues, either. I am not someone who replaces my phone every time a new one comes out, or I am eligible for an upgrade, either. I tend to use them for several years at a time.... My current one is on year 3, I believe, so is my husband's. No battery issues.

I don't use a laptop, so can't speak to that. My ipod.... hasn't been getting much use lately, since I can't run right now due to foot problems, and I've had it less than a year so can't draw any conclusions from that. I think sometimes it is what you have your devices SET to that has a bigger effect. The brightness/dimness settings, whether you have Bluetooth on constantly, searching for WiFi constantly, etc....

Well, my cell phone battery will last FOREVER based on this theory! Yes, my hubby is an engineer and he says this too:) Not sure why, though!

I've never heard of that theory, so no, I have never intentionally let any electronics completely die. I'll have to ask our I.T. about it!