Gadgetory

your phones tablets notebooks and toys all need batteries and while thankfully we're not stuck with the old way of buying them using them one time and then going to the store to buy more the rechargeable batteries that are tightly integrated into many modern electronic gizmos aren't perfect and they do have a limited number of discharge cycles so taking good care of them is a must now most of your devices with integrated batteries will use lithium ion batteries so we'll focus on those first up the conventional wisdom about the memory effect a tendency of older batteries to forget their total capacity if you didn't completely discharge them from time to time well forget about that that shiz is so outdated it might as well be a portable CD player deep discharge cycles are actually terrible for your lithium-ion batteries and can cause them to stop working out right the good news is that your devices have mechanisms to prevent them from occurring during normal use like you know how your phone turns off while it still seems to have some life in it that's it so as long as you don't go out of your way to circumvent these safeties you don't need to worry but what about not normal use like when a device won't be used for a while great question prior to storage your lithium-ion batteries should be at about half capacity and then they should be kept in a cool place while you're not using them the basement is a good bet if you have one otherwise some folks recommend the fridge but don't think that colder is always better and please don't store them in the freezer extreme cold can affect your battery's health just like extreme hot can higher temperatures can cause faster discharges so worse immediate performance and reduce the overall lifespan of your battery but since you can't spend your life in a fridge a lot of the time higher than optimal temperature simply can't be avoided I mean even in the design of a product it's not unusual to see a battery stuck right next to other components that kick off a ton of heat like high performance CPUs but you can still make the best of a bad situation by ensuring all your ventilation holes are unobstructed and avoiding direct sunlight or other unnecessarily toasty environments another related nono is assuming that you're going to preserve your precious discharge cycles by meaning your device plugged in all the time modern chargers and I guess another pro tip here is to use a compatible one preferably the one that came with your device may have safeties that prevent explosive overcharging but having your battery sit and trickle charge while safe both increases temperature and doesn't help the battery stay in shape a bit of light exercise so shallow discharges and then recharges is good for both you and your battery okay then so if I can't save up my cycles how do I even keep track of how many I'm using am i eating one up every time I plug into the wall not at all a charge cycle is counted each time you've used a total of a hundred percent of the battery's capacity even if you spread the use out over several partial discharges this diagram from Apple actually explains it quite well speaking of Apple some of their products use lithium polymer batteries so let's touch on those very briefly care wise they're very similar to lithium-ion batteries you're welcome so that's the basics but with all that said I'm not trying to stress you out about this stuff and I want it to be clear that these are just best practices to get the most out of your battery and while they will help bending the rules here and there to make your life a bit easier let's say by using a wireless charger from time to time which causes the battery to run hotter isn't likely to make a difference that you'd notice speaking of differences you're likely to notice browsing the web with hotspot Shield the sponsor for today's episode of fast as possible their elite service is easy to set up inexpensive and especially with our 20% off coupon code linked below makes your web browsing experience more private and more fun with hotspot Shield you can circumvent lame-o restrictions like regional lock downs on Netflix or even governmental web browsing restrictions so your access to information isn't being controlled by someone else if all that sounds pretty good the link in the video description takes you straight to a free trial of the elite service so you can try it out thanks again for watching guys don't forget to like and share this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment with requests for future episodes as fast as possible if you'd like to see them and as always don't forget to subscribe to tech wiki for more videos just like this one