adaptive charging: Explained: What is the Adaptive Charging feature in Android and how can it save your device’s battery – Times of India

Adaptive Charging is a feature that can be found in most modern Android smartphones and even on Apple’s mobile devices. This feature takes care of the battery ‘health’ of a device by controlling the speed of charging especially at night. Bad battery life on a device can ruin the Android experience of a user. Smartphones that come with bigger battery units need to be charged at night to get fully charged which gradually degrades the battery health. This is where Adaptive Charging comes in and helps to solve all these issues. Here we will discuss how this feature works and how it is important.
How battery life of a device degrades over time?
The battery life of a device tends to degrade as it gets used for a long time. As batteries age, the health of the batteries deteriorates. The batteries lose some of their capacity and don’t last as long on a charge as a new one. A new battery comes with 100 per cent health which will offer the full potential of the battery capacity. The constant charging and discharging cycles eat away at battery health.
Keeping a device charged in the 20-80 per cent range is apt for any battery, however, it is not always a realistic practice. Most users put their smartphones on the charger at night to see their handsets fully charged when they wake up. In the meantime, the battery stays in a cycle between 99-100 per cent for several hours.
Most devices are designed to retain up to 80% health for 500 complete charge cycles (0 to 100 per cent). The number of charge cycles a battery offers is usually enough, but it may vary depending on how long a phone is being used. This is where Adaptive charging comes in which can help in maintaining the battery health even after a long time.
What makes Adaptive Charging important?
As users put their phones on charge for the entire time they are sleeping at night, it becomes hard for the battery to maintain the ideal range (between 20-80 per cent). Adaptive charging uses a smart way to tackle this problem by keeping the battery at 80% for most of the night. This feature allows the battery to get fully charged just before the user wakes up to avoid the constant cycling between 99-100 per cent throughout the night. This feature is designed to maintain battery health for as long as possible by reducing the damage that charging cycles have on batteries.
How does it work?
Adaptive charging modes try to learn the user’s sleeping habits to maintain the charging accordingly. The feature depends on the user’s alarms and usage habits to determine the best time to fully charge the battery. Some users who own devices that support this feature might find that their battery isn’t fully charged when they need it. In this case, the user needs to give the device more time to get acquainted with their routine.
Adaptive Charging in various brands
This feature in Google Pixel phones is called Adaptive Charging, however, other smartphone makers use the same feature with different names. For example, OnePlus devices have a similar feature called “Optimized Charging,” whereas the feature is called “Adaptive Battery” in Samsung Galaxy devices. Samsung devices also have a feature that can limit the battery up to 85 per cent all the time. Even Apple has a similar feature for iPhones which is known as “Optimized Charging”.
How too much battery optimisation can affect the Android experience?
However, too much battery optimisation can also negatively impact your Android experience. Samsung is known for taking extreme measures to maximise battery life on its devices. Killing apps to improve battery life can result in missed notifications and poor app performance. A website named “Don’t Kill My App” ranks Android manufacturers and how their battery “optimisations” impact a device’s functionality.