Fast charging which is now becoming a necessity for all the battery-operated gadgets as well as automobiles is now turning into a standard feature on all devices.
Fast charging is being preferred by most due to the capability of it juicing up a device or car in a much shorter period than a conventional charging method.
Now, even though it is being the choice of many, the question of it having negative effects on battery life pops up every now and then?
The most common question remains if fast chargers are bad for your phone?
Here is what we have as an answer:
Fast charging is preferred as it charges a device in just a fraction of what the older methods would have.
A device is designed in a way that it can only draw in the power that the charging circuit as was programmed for. Due to this, a device that was not designed for fast charging will not charge any faster if connected to a fast-charging brick.
The usage of smartphones has increased over the days to a great extent as if our lives are dependent on them. In the same manner, the need for charging devices has also increased. A single charge would barely last a day or in some cases even a few hours.
In today’s world, a common marketing tool for new devices has become the introduction of fast charging and the term is mostly used in most flagship smart devices and smartphones.
However, there’s no industry standard yet as to what can be termed to be fast charging. Often, 10 watts and above is labelled as fast charging. And in fact the higher the watts and the higher the rate of charging.
The question about the effects of fast charging is connected to the heat and the high amount of power that is being injected to the device.
Heat is considered bad for the battery and especially the batteries with lithium-ion. For this the attempts to decrease the heat input to the battery is being more and more by the companies these days.
Now coming to the main question. Does fast charging damage the battery?
The answer is “no”.
Why? Because of the way fast charging has been designed. You may notice that most companies have a fixed capacity mentioned or a specific time that takes the battery from zero to a designated percentage.
After the mentioned percentage is reached, the device charge rate drops to a normal level.
The fast charging option has two phases of charging. In the first phase, as much power as possible is sent into the battery by the device. The first phase is usually executed when the battery is low or empty.
Once the battery capacity reaches that quoted level, the charging speeds are reduced.
The speed is reduced in order to prevent stress and heat on the battery.
Both these factors can damage the battery’s longevity.
The phones designed for fast charging can also switch off the fast charging mode if the temperature of the device crosses a certain level.
Some companies have introduced a dual-battery design that shares the high input load during the fast-charging phase. This helps in preventing any possible damage.
The devices are also loaded with different battery management software systems with a dedicated management system for overseeing charging. This prevents batteries from being damaged by a high input charge.
The conclusion of the entire topic is that the fast charging method or devices do not impact your battery life.
However, one should also be expecting the batteries to last longer than that conventional ones. It more or less has the same life span.