It can be frustrating when your phone dies halfway through the day, but it turns out a short battery life may actually be our fault.
Most of us think we should just charge our phone when it is close to dead, but the opposite is actually true. Turns out, charging your battery in short spurts isn’t actually bad for your phone, so you might want to make a number of changes to how you typically charge your device.
One battery company called Cadex has created the website Battery University which helps explain how charging lithium-ion batteries works. The site details how batteries go through their own forms of “stress,” which can damage your battery’s longterm lifespan.
Here are a few tips for salvaging the length of your battery life:
1. Charge your phone throughout the day whenever you can, instead of once at night.
2. Don’t charge your phone to 100 percent, as a high voltage stresses the battery. According to Gizmodo, “Your battery will behave the best if you take it off the charge before it hits 100 percent.”
3. Don’t keep your phone plugged in when it’s fully charged. This keeps the battery in a high-stress, high-tension state, which can wear it down.
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Check out Simplemost for other great tips and ideas to make the most out of life.