Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hey there, everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Polette. I'm
Speaker 1: an editor here at how stuff works dot com and
Speaker 1: with me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and today we're going to talk about that pesky source
Speaker 1: of electricity in your mobile phone, portable camera, portable computer
Speaker 1: three player. That's the rechargeable battery. Yes, the the the
Speaker 1: device to which we are all slaves. How many times, Chris,
Speaker 1: have you been out and about and you were about
Speaker 1: to rely upon your favorite mobile gadget only to discover
Speaker 1: your battery had completely drained away and you couldn't get
Speaker 1: it to work no matter what. That's thousands of times, Jonathan.
Speaker 1: It's a real source of frustration. Yeah, it is for
Speaker 1: me to um. And so we wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: kind of what you need to do in order to
Speaker 1: keep your battery in the best possible working order. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of conflicting information out there, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: in fact, there was there was one thing that both
Speaker 1: Chris and I believed was you know, that was the
Speaker 1: right thing to do all the time. That turned out
Speaker 1: to not necessarily be true. Right, Yeah, that's true. And
Speaker 1: just as a little bit of background, the thing that
Speaker 1: prompted me to suggest this topic for a podcast is
Speaker 1: I get complaints all the time about people who say
Speaker 1: their cell phonwner MP three player dies and I asked them,
Speaker 1: have you ever conditioned your battery or or calibrated your battery?
Speaker 1: And they go, what? And the thing is that I
Speaker 1: don't think a lot of people know, and I don't
Speaker 1: think a lot of manufacturers include information that says, hey, look,
Speaker 1: every once in a while, your machine is not going
Speaker 1: to understand how much juice is left on that battery
Speaker 1: because they decompose over time. And Jonathan and I both
Speaker 1: knew of a way to do it, but it turns
Speaker 1: out it's not exactly right. No. It for one thing,
Speaker 1: it might actually harm your battery or at least decrease
Speaker 1: it's useful lifespan. And we're talking lifespan. We're not necessarily
Speaker 1: talking how long it will hold a charge. We're talking
Speaker 1: about how many times you can recharge it before that
Speaker 1: battery is just a big lump of you know, it's
Speaker 1: just a paper weight and you you need to get
Speaker 1: a new battery. That's what we're really talking about when
Speaker 1: we're talking about lifespan here. Now. The the the tactic
Speaker 1: that we thought originally was the best to use was
Speaker 1: that you use your mobile devices until the battery essentially
Speaker 1: drains down to zero before you connect it back and
Speaker 1: recharge it all the way back up to rather than say,
Speaker 1: using it and it just dropped to maybe, you know,
Speaker 1: or six, and then you you know, charge it up
Speaker 1: to eighty and then you let it go down to
Speaker 1: forty and then you charge it back up to maybe
Speaker 1: eighty again or whatever. We were thinking, well, that's that's
Speaker 1: not a good idea because eventually your battery is going
Speaker 1: to think that eight is the new one hundred, sort
Speaker 1: of like pink is the new black. Yeah. Yeah, And honestly,
Speaker 1: that's uh most of the time, that's how you're going
Speaker 1: to use these things. But as your let's face it,
Speaker 1: your cell phone, you don't want to go, uh, driving
Speaker 1: around long distance, especially in a um car that may
Speaker 1: or may not make it to the destination with a
Speaker 1: half a bar left of battery life. You're gonna say, look,
Speaker 1: I need my cell phone charge all the way. I
Speaker 1: can't let it drain all the way and I you know,
Speaker 1: gotta get it charged right now. So this is not
Speaker 1: how most people do things. This is you know, they
Speaker 1: just get as much energy as they can on it
Speaker 1: and go back out. But that's another charging cycle, that's
Speaker 1: your battery uses, so charging cycles. This is a good
Speaker 1: time to address that that issue. Now. A charging cycle,
Speaker 1: a full cycle is essentially one of that battery's capacity.
Speaker 1: A charging cycle is when you have reached the point
Speaker 1: where you have used of that battery's capacity and recharged
Speaker 1: it to That doesn't have to be all at once,
Speaker 1: So in other words, you don't have to have used
Speaker 1: all one of your battery and recharged it all the
Speaker 1: way up. Yes, that will, that will mean one full cycle.
Speaker 1: But you could also do it, say the use of
Speaker 1: your battery every day of the week and you recharge
Speaker 1: it at the end of the day, so Monday through Friday,
Speaker 1: that equals and that's a full cycle as well. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if it's all at once or in bits
Speaker 1: and pieces, and batteries have a limited number of charge cycles.
Speaker 1: That's true. Um, every time you do this, it it's
Speaker 1: just that a little bit more wear and tear on
Speaker 1: the battery. And in general, um a lithium ion battery
Speaker 1: has thousands of charge cycles. Sure, so you know your
Speaker 1: laptop battery will last several years in general before you
Speaker 1: have to worry about replacing it. Yeah, usually at least
Speaker 1: three or four. And another issue that you have to
Speaker 1: keep in mind is that it will last, but it
Speaker 1: may not hold as much of a charge as it
Speaker 1: used to. That it'll it'll begin to degrade in quality,
Speaker 1: so you'll have maybe charge now the battery, the meter
Speaker 1: is still gonna say because it's holding a percent of
Speaker 1: the energy it's capable of holding, but that isn't equal
Speaker 1: to the hundred percent you got when you bought it
Speaker 1: in the store. And that's where the uh, that's where
Speaker 1: the electronics onboard whatever device that you're powering with a
Speaker 1: rechargeable battery come in. See, the battery is going through
Speaker 1: a natural chemical process um and storing the energy, and
Speaker 1: it basically at some point can't hold quite as much
Speaker 1: as it used to. Is Jonathan was just saying, But
Speaker 1: your computer doesn't know that. It still thinks it can hold,
Speaker 1: you know, as much as it did two cycles ago. Well,
Speaker 1: the thing is over time, your computer is gonna say, hey,
Speaker 1: look you you've got this much time left and you
Speaker 1: don't um. And that's why, after a while, your laptop
Speaker 1: is gonna say, you're gonna unplug your laptop. In twenty
Speaker 1: seconds later, it's going to give you an alert telling
Speaker 1: you you gotta plug in your computer or it's gonna die.
Speaker 1: And you're gonna go, wait a minute, Just a second
Speaker 1: ago it said I had nothing exactly. And then that's
Speaker 1: where conditioning or calibrating your battery comes in. You have
Speaker 1: to get them if you will in sync with one another. Now,
Speaker 1: the best advice we can give you is that whenever
Speaker 1: you buy a new device with a new battery in
Speaker 1: it is charge that battery all the way up as
Speaker 1: soon as you get home. Don't don't start using it.
Speaker 1: Like if you've got a new cell phone it's got
Speaker 1: a little bit of a charge on it, don't start.
Speaker 1: Don't give in to temptation like I have done on
Speaker 1: many occasions, and start using that that device. Immediately, go
Speaker 1: and charge it all the way up to This will
Speaker 1: calibrate your battery. It will tell your device, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: at a full charge. This is what a full charge
Speaker 1: looks like. Um, this is what I should shoot for
Speaker 1: every single time I am charging up to Otherwise, your
Speaker 1: your device maybe reading your batteries life incorrectly, and as
Speaker 1: Chris pointed out, it might tell you you have a
Speaker 1: dred percent, but in reality you're closer to maybe seventy
Speaker 1: or eight, and you're not getting as much out of
Speaker 1: your mobile devices as you would otherwise. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: it's hard, you know, here, we here again, this is
Speaker 1: not how we use things. We're gonna want to get
Speaker 1: into the temptation to go ahead and turn on your
Speaker 1: new cell phone and start playing HTCG one, which I
Speaker 1: did that with and immediately needed to recalibrate. Yeah, exactly. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, all of us are excited about having the
Speaker 1: new gadget and want to go ahead and start using it.
Speaker 1: But you have to and and that's fine, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be fine. But the thing is your battery is not
Speaker 1: going to be fully calibrated and it's not going to
Speaker 1: give you the maximum life out of the battery. And
Speaker 1: you know, these things are expensive. If you've had to
Speaker 1: replace a computer battery on your laptop, you go, you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty dollars and five dollars. That's that's
Speaker 1: pretty expensive. It's not you want to try to get
Speaker 1: as much life as you can out of it. So
Speaker 1: it's it's a good idea to do this, and you
Speaker 1: need to do it every so often. Um, not every
Speaker 1: week or anything like that, but I think the experience
Speaker 1: experts recommend that it, you know, once every month or
Speaker 1: a couple of months, you should go through it again. Now,
Speaker 1: it does take a charging cycle to do that, but
Speaker 1: it's worth it to to do that. Yeah, And here's
Speaker 1: some other tips that you can use to help keep
Speaker 1: your battery life lasting as long as possible. If you're
Speaker 1: not using a device regularly, if it's just in a
Speaker 1: once in a blue moon, it's a good idea to
Speaker 1: to to take the device out every now and then
Speaker 1: and let it run for a little while. Uh uh.
Speaker 1: Apple actually calls this encouraging the flow of electrons. Uh
Speaker 1: So if you have electron right exactly, you can do it.
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, if you don't do that, then it's
Speaker 1: the battery life can actually degrade over time. So even
Speaker 1: if you're not using it often, it's good to take
Speaker 1: it out once in a while, you know, like if
Speaker 1: it's an old cell phone or any other device like
Speaker 1: a gaming device. If you have a gaming device as
Speaker 1: a rechargeable battery, um, you're gonna want to at least,
Speaker 1: you know, let it run for a little well, you know,
Speaker 1: let's let your little cousin who never gets to play
Speaker 1: it give a world on legend of Zelda or something,
Speaker 1: and that way it will uh with the electrons flowing,
Speaker 1: it keeps everything uh more prepared for the whole charging
Speaker 1: and draining cycle. Um. Also, when you store batteries storm
Speaker 1: in a cool but not cold place, you don't want
Speaker 1: it to get too hot, um because that will will
Speaker 1: definitely shorten your batteries useful life. You don't want to
Speaker 1: get too cold because that can also kill a battery. Also,
Speaker 1: it takes longer for the battery to warm up and
Speaker 1: actually you know, start providing juice to whatever device you have.
Speaker 1: So you want a nice medium, something nice and cool. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't want to keep a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of extra batteries on hand either, they will degrade on
Speaker 1: their own, even if you don't have them attached to anything. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's better to you know, you have maybe maybe an
Speaker 1: extra one if it's a device where you know there's
Speaker 1: a problem where it's just sucking down battery life so
Speaker 1: fast that you needed an extra but I would, um,
Speaker 1: I would recommend actually finding a like an extra charging
Speaker 1: device for that, something that can hold a charge and
Speaker 1: uh and and charge your device, usually through a USB cord.
Speaker 1: I've got one of those, um where it will hold
Speaker 1: probably about of my my g one's battery life on
Speaker 1: this device. So if if I were to hit a
Speaker 1: really low level, I could just plug it in and
Speaker 1: keep it going for another couple of hours before I
Speaker 1: needed to find a a more permanent solution. That's true.
Speaker 1: And if you know, if you're to the point where
Speaker 1: you're not using something that has a rechargeable battery in it,
Speaker 1: and you realize you're probably not going to use it again,
Speaker 1: it's probably best to go ahead and remove that battery
Speaker 1: before it starts to corrode and you know, just to
Speaker 1: recycle that sucker or you know, you know, recycled the
Speaker 1: hold darn thing. If you have an old cell phone battery,
Speaker 1: acid is no joke. It can ruin lots and lots
Speaker 1: of cool stuff. Well details details, um So, essentially, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of different theories on how you should
Speaker 1: do this. Um, if you're going to calibrate your computer battery,
Speaker 1: Apple has some suggestions from their website that I got.
Speaker 1: Different manufacturers have different ways of doing that. But um,
Speaker 1: the first thing you need to do, according to Apple,
Speaker 1: is to plug your computer in and and let it
Speaker 1: go until it's fully charged. Now you can actually run
Speaker 1: your computer during this time. UM, but you're supposed to
Speaker 1: let the battery rest for two hours. Don't unplug the
Speaker 1: computer while you're using it. UM, that's really important. Um.
Speaker 1: And then basically you need to unplug it and let
Speaker 1: it run. You know, you can use it or just
Speaker 1: let it sit until it goes to sleep on its own,
Speaker 1: and then go ahead and plug it back in. Actually
Speaker 1: wait a minute, sorry, check in my notes. This just in.
Speaker 1: Once you do let it go to sleep, you need
Speaker 1: to let it sit for about five hours. Wow. And uh.
Speaker 1: And then once you do that, you can plug it
Speaker 1: in until the battery is fully charged and you can
Speaker 1: use it as normal. Uh. There's no mention of whether
Speaker 1: or not you have to draw a circle on the
Speaker 1: floor or sacrifice alive chicken. Uh. Yeah, it does seem See.
Speaker 1: I had to write it down because I didn't have
Speaker 1: it all memorized. UM. Some manufacturers, although Apple is not
Speaker 1: one of them, actually have software that they include with
Speaker 1: their laptops that help you calibrate your battery UM. A
Speaker 1: lot of PC manufacturers will do that to help you
Speaker 1: go through the steps and you don't have to read
Speaker 1: a long list of things that you might get lost
Speaker 1: in the middle of like I did right and well
Speaker 1: and and the encouraging the flow of electrons. Part of
Speaker 1: that also is if you use your your laptop and
Speaker 1: you plug it in a lot like like we do here,
Speaker 1: it's a good idea every now and then to just
Speaker 1: let run on battery life and and use it on
Speaker 1: battery life for a while, and then you know, you
Speaker 1: plug it back in and you know that's fine. You
Speaker 1: can work on it, but but vary it so that
Speaker 1: sometimes you're using it on battery, sometimes you're using it
Speaker 1: under you know, a cable power and UM and that
Speaker 1: can also help extend your batteries life and all of them.
Speaker 1: You know, again, you don't have to do this, it's
Speaker 1: not something that's required, but it is going to help
Speaker 1: you get the maximum life out of the battery, which
Speaker 1: is a sizeable investment if you have to go have
Speaker 1: have it replaced especially if it's something that you have
Speaker 1: to have somebody else replaced for you, and in different
Speaker 1: electronics that have to be eervis by the manufacturer. So
Speaker 1: I can think of one manufacturer right off the top
Speaker 1: of my head where that as a common problem. Yes,
Speaker 1: my wife, this is a good segue into that my
Speaker 1: wife had battery replaced. My wife has a popular MP
Speaker 1: three brand player. Um that what she couldn't have. She
Speaker 1: it wouldn't hold a charge, it would, you know, She
Speaker 1: try and turn it on and it would stay on
Speaker 1: for a couple of seconds, it wouldn't necessarily play a
Speaker 1: song or would start playing. It would immediately just go
Speaker 1: black and she wouldn't be able to do anything with it.
Speaker 1: And it turned out it was this problem where the
Speaker 1: software was not recognizing how much power was left in
Speaker 1: the battery, and all it really took was resetting the
Speaker 1: the device back to its original settings, charging it all
Speaker 1: the way up and everything's fine now. Unfortunately, in the
Speaker 1: process that means losing all the stuff that was on there,
Speaker 1: so we had to reload it. But that's still even
Speaker 1: though that's annoying and frustrating, that's not nearly as annoying
Speaker 1: and frustrating as buying a new device when you think
Speaker 1: that you've broken your old one. The old one wasn't broken,
Speaker 1: it just needed to be recalibrated. Yeah, and it's certainly
Speaker 1: an inexpensive thing to try. I mean, recalibrating the battery
Speaker 1: doesn't cost you anything except maybe a battery cycle. So
Speaker 1: you know it might be worth it to try. And
Speaker 1: next time you have something some weird behavior go on,
Speaker 1: at least before you go and drop three more dollars
Speaker 1: on a new something. Very true, Very true. That was
Speaker 1: a good discussion, I think. Are you you know? I
Speaker 1: got a real charge out of it. Oh geez, hopefully
Speaker 1: our listeners did too. I find it revolting nice. Well,
Speaker 1: before we go with this shocking podcast, I would like
Speaker 1: to once again visit our favorite segment, Plug your Ears Pillette.
Speaker 1: It's listener mail. Can I plug my ears? And So?
Speaker 1: Today's listener mail comes from Chris Besquez of St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada.
Speaker 1: So hello a and for Chris writes. He says, Hey
Speaker 1: guys from Tech Stuff that be Us. You have a
Speaker 1: great podcast, Thanks Chris, but you have did have an error.
Speaker 1: In one of your latest podcasts, you said that you
Speaker 1: would never see a virus in your task bar. But
Speaker 1: that's not true. You see plenty of viruses in your
Speaker 1: task bar if they're designed to be there. There's tons
Speaker 1: of viruses that say you have a virus on your computer,
Speaker 1: so you install their anti virus software, which is actually
Speaker 1: a virus. There are other ones as well. Now, Chris,
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying here. Um, I agree. There
Speaker 1: are programs out there that are a viruses out there
Speaker 1: that are masquerading as legitimate programs. They try and trick
Speaker 1: you into downloading a virus by saying, hey, your computer
Speaker 1: is at risk. You need our software so that you
Speaker 1: won't be attacked by viruses. And many of us think, hey,
Speaker 1: that's a good idea because I don't want to get
Speaker 1: attacked by virus. So you download it, not knowing that
Speaker 1: you're actually installing a virus on your own computer. And
Speaker 1: you might see that in the system trade and and
Speaker 1: you would go, hey, look my virus protection software. There
Speaker 1: it is, it's workings running. Now, what we were saying
Speaker 1: is you would not see a blately obvious virus in
Speaker 1: your task bar because that would give away the whole,
Speaker 1: the whole uh point that there was a virus on
Speaker 1: your computer. Um, so that was that was the point
Speaker 1: we were making, Chris, was that we don't think you
Speaker 1: would see a little skull and crossbones in your task
Speaker 1: bar saying ha ha, I got you you have a virus,
Speaker 1: because that would mean that you would take the steps
Speaker 1: necessary to remove it. But you are right. If you
Speaker 1: install a virus that is masquerading as a legitimate program,
Speaker 1: it could show up in your task bar. So thank
Speaker 1: you very much for the email, and if any of
Speaker 1: you want to email us, you can do so at
Speaker 1: our email address, which is tech stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. If you want to learn more about
Speaker 1: lithium ion batteries and portable mobile devices, we have information
Speaker 1: in dozens of articles on how stuff works dot com.
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