Myth or Fact: "Drain your battery to 0 % before charging"
MYTH for lithium-ion: deep discharges age it faster; 20–80 % is kindest.
"Drain your battery to 0 % before charging." Myth or fact? 🔋
❌ MYTH! That rule was for old nickel (Ni-Cd) batteries from the 1990s. They had a "memory effect": stop them at the same level again and again and they acted smaller. Full drains helped them — back then.
📱 Your phone uses lithium-ion. It has no real memory effect, and draining it to 0 % stresses it and ages it faster. In lab tests, full 100 %→0 % cycles wear a cell out after roughly 300–500 cycles, half-depth cycles last about 1,200–1,500 (it varies by battery).
✅ So charge whenever you like — short top-ups are fine.
✅ Around 20 %–80 % is the kindest range.
✅ Turn on "optimized / adaptive charging".
❌ Don't drain it to 0 % on purpose.
(Fun fact: "0 %" isn't truly empty — phones keep a small reserve to protect the battery.)
Top up, don't drain!
Read the voiceover (transcript)
- Drain your battery to zero first?
- Myth! That rule was for old nickel batteries with a memory effect.
- Your phone has lithium-ion. Draining it to zero stresses it and ages it faster.
- So charge whenever you like. Keeping it between twenty and eighty percent is kindest!
- Top up, don't drain!
- Next myth: power bank math. Follow for more!
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