Tulsa Firm Has Tips For Saving Your Cell Phone Battery

If your cell phone keeps dying throughout the day, you may be damaging your battery in ways you don't even realize.

I spoke to a Tulsa firm about the do's and don't of cell phone care, including one way which could cause your battery to explode.

We've all been there, right? There's nothing worse than getting to your lunch break and your phone is already dead.

Well, I stopped by PHONEDOCTORS corporate offices in Tulsa to get some tips on the best ways to care for your phone's battery.  We're talking about lithium-ion batteries, which are in basically every cell phone manufactured since 2007.  

The number one enemy of lithium-ion batteries is heat, which will cut down your battery's life.  PHONEDOCTORS says it's not only a myth that you need to let your battery go to zero, before recharging it, but in fact, doing it often could damage the battery.

"Discharging the whole battery. You want to try to avoid doing that habitually. A couple of times a year, that's going to be fine," said Nathan Barnes, PHONEDOCTORS Chief Marketing Officer.  

He says check your cell phone's manual to find out more.

The company also says knock-off chargers that aren't made for your phone can ruin the battery, and in some cases, may cause it to explode.  Look for chargers made for iPhone, Galaxy or whoever manufactured your cell phone.  

What if you leave it on the charger all night?  

"I do that every night. I have an iPhone 6 and there are control circuits on these batteries now where once your phone hits 100 percent of charge, it will be on your charger, but it will actually stop charging," said Nathan Barnes.  

He says that power cut-off feature is on virtually every phone made in the last four years.

 Here’s some more advice from PHONEDOCTORS:

1. Lithium-Ion batteries in today’s cellphones are designed for up to 300 charge cycles.  After that, their performance will be affected.
2. If your battery is acting up (e.g., not holding a charge) and it's less than two years old, try fully discharging it and then resetting it.  That may fix it.
3. Wireless charging docks won’t harm your battery.
4. Use any “rapid charge” feature on your phone in moderation.
5. Heavy usage (e.g., using apps, making calls) while charging your phone will heat up your battery.  As mentioned before, heat will damage your battery.  The Facebook app is one of the “worst offenders” when it comes to heating up your phone and taking a lot of power.