It’s me! New Cable!
When we had real headphone jacks the phone lasted longer because you didn’t use the same port for both audio and charging, wearing it out faster.
Step 1: clean out the lint from the charging port
Step 2: make sure you actually got all the lint out and there isn’t any hiding to the side.
The sim ejector pin that used to come with phones can sometimes just barely fit between the center blade and connector housing. Otherwise a paperclip with a slight hook bent into the end can work well. Flosspicks work well to dig out the lint.
Also consider getting a wireless charger for nightly charging if your phone supports it.
The port on my old phone broke entirely but it still had wireless charging so I got three more years out of it. Then the display failed and since phones have switched to USB C I figured it was time to upgrade
time to upgrade
They fucking got ya. That’s like a $30 repair and you just threw it in landfill and gave them another grand or more. Weaksauce.
Given that the phone didn’t have USB-C that most likely means it was from like 2016, so it’s fair to say that it’s time to upgrade. Phones have gotten so much better since then, especially the cameras.
I prefer a toothpick. Wood won’t scratch the metal or cause a short, but it’s still stiff enough to scrape any lint that’s stuck. And lint sticks a bit to the toothpick, so that helps get it out.
Neither will the plastic of a floss pick. And the floss pick is narrower so there is much less risk of deforming the interior parts of the plug. Also, less risk of splinters.
Everyone raves about usb-c but despite my hating everything Apple, the lightning port’s physical design is so much better.
Who thought putting a thin circuit board projection inside the port was a good idea?
Lightning is an amazing design but I fucking hate that my XS Max is USB TWO SPEEDS
To add to this, get yourself a USB-C nubbin to protect it going forward.
Wireless charging WILL wear out your battery faster.
For longevity, use a slow wired charger. This will put the least thermal strain on the battery.
How exactly?
Also, my phone charges slower with a wireless charger.
Lots of hand wavy theories and generalizations in the answers below, some of them sound very convincing. None of them actually cite any sources or backup those theories with data.
Here’s my own acedotal experience. I’ve put my phone down on a seemingly well designed wireless charging pad every night for almost 4 years and this phones battery has shown zero sign of deterioration that I can see. This is the first phone I’ve ever owned with wireless charging and also the first with a battery that hasn’t given up the ghost in 2 years or less. The same pad also charges my smart watch every night, which doesn’t even have any other option for charging.
Next they’ll be telling you to avoid using cruise control on the highway because it will wear out the transmission. Use your phone as it was designed to be used and stop worrying.
I don’t know but anecdotally I’ve experienced this with every single phone I’ve had that’s been wireless charging.
It just shortens its life somehow. I thought I was crazy. It didn’t make sense unless it does fancy shit with the crystals inside or it heats it badly
Magnetic charging loses some energy in the form of heat on both coils.
Technologies like MagSafe lessen the severity of energy loss via ensuring the coils allign, however there is still some energy lost in the form of heat.
This is just a limitation of electromagnetic induction.
It’s a producer of heat placed right next to the battery.
This inefficiency also makes it take more energy to charge your battery. However, I would imagine it’s a nominal amount.
The problem is heat, not charging speed. A wired charger heats the phone less than a wireless charger, and a slow charger heats it less than a fast one.
It’s not like wireless charging will literally destroy your battery instantly, but it WILL do so faster than wired charging at the same speed.
You could offset the heat by charging even slower via wireless (easy with something that has a small battery to begin with, like a watch) but no matter what method is used, the one that runs the battery the coolest WILL last the longest, whether the difference is just one year out five, more, or less.
I’ve charged my Pixel 6 wirelessly every night for 3 years and had zero battery loss. Simply not true.
Then you are truly, talking out your ass.
Within the first year, even with slow wired daily charging, the battery would have lost at least a few percentages of capacity. By year three, losing around 10% is basically unavoidable, but typical loss at that point is closer to 15 or 20% simply due to age.
You can use something like AccuBattery to measure the current real capacity of your battery. It will measure the amperages going in and out of the battery, calculate the milliamphours, then average it over several battery cycles.
Even when new, the real capacity will vary several hundred milliamphours from cell to cell, within the same exact model. Batteries are a chemical device, some inconsistency from one cell to the next is unavoidable. That’s why cell monitoring and balancing circuits are so critical in multi-cell packs.
You may not have noticed a difference, but the capacity loss that your battery has suffered is almost certainly worse than it would have been if you’d charged wired and slowly.
…did you try cleaning the port?
Get a wireless charger. If your phone is less than ~6 years old it probably supports wireless charging. Can find them for as cheap as $10-15…
