What's The Best Way To Break In A New Cell Phone Battery?

I've always read that you're supposed to fully charge and then fully use up a new battery 3-4 times to condition it in a way that will make it have the best capacity and useful life. But the issue is, when you get a new battery, it will often have a partial charge already. So you unwrap the new battery, slap it in the phone, and it shows like 40-50% battery life, even though you haven't charged it yet.

So, are we supposed to go ahead and use up the battery down to like 5-10% first before charging the battery for the first time? Or, do you go ahead and just charge it first all the way up to the full 100%, even though it already has a 50% charge out of the wrapper? And then you use it all the way down to 5-10% and fully re-charge it 3-4 times?

Unlike NiMh or NiCd batteries, there is no break-in required or even recommended for Li-Ion cells. All you do if you 'break them in' is reduce the life by however many cycles you run them through. There is no increase in capacity or any other measurable improvement in Li-Ion cells from 'breaking them in'. The life of the cell is related to both the number of cycles they have been through, and the extent to which they have been discharged prior to recharge. Fully discharging them will in fact shorten life somewhat, so not only is there no reason to break them in, there are good reasons not too.

The recommendation has nothing to do with the health of the battery. Rather it has to do with calibrating the fuel gauge - which may be way off due to significant self-discharge during storage. It will be recalibrated by a complete (100%) (dis)charge. Hence the recommendation to do a full cycle asap. More advanced fuel gauge algorithms do not require such full cycles to accurately recalibrate.

The disadvantage of using it before charging is that the cell may have lower level of charge than the gauge believes (due to a possibly large self-discharge over a long period) so that you may not get much advance warning before the cell goes empty (the phone might even crash). But if you charge it first then gauge will typically have a better estimate based off the nominal capacity at full charge (assuming that the capacity has not degraded significantly in storage, e.g. years in a hot warehouse). But the specifics may depend heavily on the type of fuel gauge algorithm employed.

My wife and I always get new phones at the same time. She just kills it out of the box then charges as needed or when not in use like over night. Rarely fully kills it. I fully charge and kill it two times and every 3-4 months completely kill it and full charge.

The wife has battery issues with hers well well before I do. It's 100% repeatable. Every pair of phones we have had, my battery lives longer. I still have an iPod from 2007 on its original battery and that sucker has seen unreal amounts of use and the battery life is about 70% of what it was new, still good enough, ran very long when new.

Just observations over 15ish years. Nothing more. No science behind it.

Boris74 said:

My wife and I always get new phones at the same time. She just kills it out of the box then charges as needed or when not in use like over night. Rarely fully kills it. I fully charge and kill it two times and every 3-4 months completely kill it and full charge.

The wife has battery issues with hers well well before I do. It's 100% repeatable. Every pair of phones we have had, my battery lives longer. I still have an iPod from 2007 on its original battery and that sucker has seen unreal amounts of use and the battery life is about 70% of what it was new, still good enough, ran very long when new.

Just observations over 15ish years. Nothing more. No science behind it.

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You'd need to supply much more detail on your (dis)charging habits in order to identify what's causing you wife's batteries to degrade quicker. It has absolutely nothing to do with the first few cycles.

Generally to maximize the life of Li-ion cells you should strive to maximize the time they spend away from extreme voltages and temperatures. For example, if you charge it overnight then it spends the whole night near fully charged, which is much worse than charging it right before use (e.g. morning), since the immediate use will quickly pull it down from the higher voltages (which accelerate degradation processes).

Gauss163 said:

You'd need to supply much more detail on your (dis)charging habits in order to identify what's causing you wives batteries to degrade quicker. It has absolutely nothing to do with the first few cycles.

Generally to maximize the life of Li-ion cells you should strive to maximize the time they spend away from extreme voltages and temperatures. For example, if you charge it overnight then it spends the whole night near fully charged, which is much worse than charging it right before use (e.g. morning), since the immediate use will quickly pull it down from the higher voltages (which accelerate degradation processes).

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I was thinking the same thing. Keeping it in a hot car, cold car, using it while in a hot/cold environment, charging it while in a hot/cold environment, using 1A vs 2.1A chargers (iPhones), keeping it plugged in at 100%, sitting and watching youtube for 30 minutes at a time vs. sending a few text message throughout the day, GPS running for a 10 hour road trip nonstop, so many variables.

My wife? I'd bet my life her's is somewhere between 6% and 12% right now...it always is. She's HARD on phones, laptops, etc.

But out of the box, I charge it to 100% then just use it, shooting to keep it between 30 and 95% as much as possible.

markr6 said:

I was thinking the same thing. Keeping it in a hot car, cold car, using it while in a hot/cold environment, charging it while in a hot/cold environment, using 1A vs 2.1A chargers (iPhones), keeping it plugged in at 100%, sitting and watching youtube for 30 minutes at a time vs. sending a few text message throughout the day, GPS running for a 10 hour road trip nonstop, so many variables [...]

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Yes, high-end (dis)charge rates could also play a major role in his wife's batteries accelerated degradation. There is a nice summary of ageing effects in the slides I posted last year. In particular, take note of the red-highlighted phrases following "accelerated by", e.g. high current, high/low temperature, high/low SOC (State Of Charge), etc.

Pretty much same here as markr6:
No need to spend time and emotional energy trying to eke out the absolute longest battery life. Orbtronic (battery supplier) recommends always fully charging before initial use.

If I am aware of it, I will remove the phone from charger before 100% and above 80% if I know I will be around power sources and there is no need for extended use. If I need to charge right before sleep time, I do not sweat it and sometimes forget and leave it plugged in overnight, believing that the phone's electronics stop charging. Then it is a matter of a full battery in short term standby; not great but worth it if the phone will see a full day of significant use in the morning.

One thing I try to do is not let the indicated state of charge fall below 20%, knowing that sometimes it will go lower, and that the internal gauge can reset those unintended times, I guess. I never take it all the way to phone shutdown if possible, but would, if I ever started getting abnormally reduced runtime. It should be mentioned (I think) that a phone that says you are at 0% (or something like that) is not really a totally depleted battery. The phones electronics are designed not to let that happen because it IS bad for battery life, especially for an extended time.

Surely it applies to some husbands as well, but it is also with my wife that her phone spends much more time at a low state of charge than mine, yet her phone still works after some years now. We have an iPad 2 from 2013 that is just fine after a lot of use, with the same "no sweat" strategy as written above. Our one-year-old iPad Pro 10.5 inch gets more attention to battery state though, and our 8 year old son is restricted time-wise when he uses game apps that heat the device with intense computational demand. The iPad has a silicone protective outer shell that holds the heat in (something to consider with hard driven phones in heat insulating cases).

It's speed vs longevity; most chargers that come with most phones charge at 1A, but you can use a different/upgraded charger to get 2A or higher - these faster chargers will wear the battery faster over time. Keep it at 1A if you want the battery to last as long as possible.

KITROBASKIN said:

[...] Orbtronic (battery supplier) recommends always fully charging before initial use [...]

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Presumably this refers to "Charge fully before first use" which is listed in the "important | Safety" blurb appended to each Orbotronic product page. They don't explain why they believe this is necessary. Most likely it has been copied from other (unreliable) sources on the web, since there is no scientific evidence supporting such for cell health or performance. Generally information on battery resellers sites is no more accurate than the rest of the web, i.e. there's a good chance it is inaccurate.

One point I forgot to emphasize above is that for battery packs the issues are a bit more extreme due to possible unbalancing after long periods in storage. One cell may be much lower than the others and the gauge may not be smart enough to compensate for such - which increases the probability of a crash if you discharge first. But if you charge first then the cells will get rebalanced (normally done at top, i.e. near full, not near empty), and the gauge will typically recalibrate some after the first charge, so reducing the probability of such abnormalities.

In particular, if your device is a phone or tablet that requires some configuration on first use, and you discharge it first, then it could possible end up in an inconsistent state if the battery runs out in the middle of configuration and the OS can't safely shut it down in time because the gauge was so far off. So to avoid this and similar abnormalities the manufacturers simply advise to charge first. This will reduce support calls, reduce bad reviews, etc.

Also it is possible that some of this "charge first" advice has simply been blindly copied from advice for other types of batteries (e.g. NiCad/NiMh).

Orbtronic information has shown to not be typical of "rest of the web" from my experience. We are used to dismissive comments from the otherwise knowledgeable Gauss163. That still does not make it OK, and I suggest other, more productive ways to reaffirm one's expertise to the world.
It may be that Orbtronic wants its customers to get the most out of their batteries from the first use, thinking that some users assume the batteries are fully charged from the package, then get frustrated when it does not last as long as expected. I mistakenly implied that cell performance was the reason for the Orbtronic advice? Sorry about that.

After my post #8, I was hoping a member would make comment as to how high the voltage actually goes when a cell phone is charged fully, thinking there is also an effort to extend battery life by not charging at too high a voltage.

KITROBASKIN said:

After my post #8, I was hoping a member would make comment as to how high the voltage actually goes when a cell phone is charged fully, thinking there is also an effort to extend battery life by not charging at too high a voltage.

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Not sure what you mean, the charger stops charging when the device is full. As verified by my toy pictured below, once the device gets past ~90% it drops to a trickle charge where voltage is still constant but amperage gets below 0.2. Everything stops when the phone is fully charged, but it will from time to time pop back on to do a momentary trickle charge then turn off again. Turning the display on also restarts the trickle.

Yes, SH, thanks for that. Was wondering though, what the high voltage disconnect is for cell phone batteries in various phones, and do they keep it conservative to improve battery life?

KITROBASKIN said:

Orbtronic information has shown to not be typical of "rest of the web" from my experience. We are used to dismissive comments from the otherwise knowledgeable Gauss163. That still does not make it OK, and I suggest other, more productive ways to reaffirm one's expertise to the world.

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As I often emphasize, it is highly unlikely that you will find folks with expertise in battery electrochemistry in companies that don't do original research on batteries. So don't expect expert knowledge from companies that are battery resellers / rewrappers, charger / light manufacturers, etc. Typically such scientists are only employed by large battery manufacturers or research universities / labs.

Do you seriously believe that professors and scientists who voluntarily share their knowledge in (hobby) web forums do so to "reaffirm their expertise"? This couldn't be further from the truth for the hundreds I've known over the many decades I've been teaching on the net.

KITROBASKIN said:

It may be that Orbtronic wants its customers to get the most out of their batteries from the first use, thinking that some users assume the batteries are fully charged from the package, then get frustrated when it does not last as long as expected. I mistakenly implied that cell performance was the reason for the Orbtronic advice? Sorry about that.

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Yes, as I mentioned above, it probably has nothing to do with battery science and everything to do with minimizing newbie errors and support calls. Since you seem to value their advice, why don't you simply ask them about the reasons behind it?

KITROBASKIN said:

After my post #8, I was hoping a member would make comment as to how high the voltage actually goes when a cell phone is charged fully, thinking there is also an effort to extend battery life by not charging at too high a voltage.

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I've never heard of a phone with charge termination < 100% SOC. Though it is common nowadays to find user-configurable "battery saver" software in laptops and tablets, it seems it has not yet percolated down to phones. So you'll need to find 3rd party solutions for that.

Gauss163 said:

...over the many decades I've been teaching on the net...

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This thread seems to have handled the needs of the originator. I can ask Sal at Orbtronic the rationale for the 'charge fully before first use' recommendation when convenient.

Perhaps Gauss163 will provide verifiable data regarding this statement? Can Private Message me for confidentiality. It would be an honor to voice confirmation of this claim.

Gauss163 said:

I've never heard of a phone with charge termination < 100% SOC. Though it is common nowadays to find user-configurable "battery saver" software in laptops and tablets, it seems it has not yet percolated down to phones. So you'll need to find 3rd party solutions for that.

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Probably why I've seen cables for sale that when a phone reaches fully charge they disconnect power to the phone so it stops the "trickle".