Should we unplug our chargers each night?

[iHammmy]

If you own a smartphone of any description then you're probably familiar with seeing the battery warning level light flick on at some point during the evening. It's now become standard practice for phones to be charged up at least once every 24 hours, and the easiest time to do that is overnight when they're sat still doing nothing but waiting for the morning.

Is this really the most sensible option, though? Are we causing permanent damage to our handsets by keeping them charged for much longer than they need to be? (Assuming you get more than two hours of sleep each night, that is.) And just how much unnecessary power is being drawn by our chargers while we're snoozing away oblivious?

 

The charger facts

The good news is that a lot of progress has been made in the efficiency and performance of smartphone chargers in recent years, thanks to organisations like the International Energy Agency and the manufacturers themselves.

The IEA's One Watt Initiative helped get standby power usage down below a single watt and then below half a watt in 2013 for many electronics. What does that mean? Well, when your charger is plugged in but not connected to a device (while you're out at work say) it's only using the equivalent of a few pence worth of energy over an entire year.

That's assuming you're using a phone and charger made in the last few years and abiding by current regulations, of course; but the trend is moving in the right direction.

As Cambridge professor David MacKay points out, that half a watt equates to saving one hot bath's worth of energy every year if you unplug your charger when it's not in use. Multiply that by everyone who owns a smartphone and you get a lot of hot baths — but only a very small percentage of the energy that those people are using in total.

Of course not using energy is better than using it, but as Professor MacKay puts it: "Obsessively switching off the phone charger is like bailing the Titanic with a teaspoon. Do switch it off, but please be aware how tiny a gesture it is."

 

Overnight charging

That half watt figure goes up by a factor of ten (give or take) when your phone is actually plugged in to the charger, but we're still talking about a small amount of energy use overall.

A 2012 study at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that an idle charger drew 0.26 watts on average; this figure goes up to 3.68 watts when a phone is attached and charging, and drops down to 2.24 watts when the phone is attached and fully charged. Overall, the cost is a handful of pounds over 12 months.

Npower puts the figure at £3.50 a year for the average household. Some quick and very rough calculations suggest that if all UK phone users unplugged after charging, enough energy would be saved to power a town the size of Canterbury — once you look beyond your own energy bill it suddenly it starts to take on more significance.

The Energy Saving Trust reckons that the average household can save £50-80 a year by unplugging all of the devices that are on standby or connected to the mains during the night, that includes smartphones, but also microwaves, television sets and routers.

As smartphones only take an hour or two to charge, the EST suggests doing it right after work rather than overnight. Even if your charger is plugged in and connected to nothing, it's pulling a small amount of energy from the grid.

 

Lithium ion batteries

Every smartphone on the market is now fitted with a rechargeable lithium ion battery. If these batteries are overcharged or completely drained, they can become very volatile and dangerous, which is why modern chargers are designed to stop those two things from happening: they will actually cut out the power once a phone reaches 100%.

Your phone is therefore getting 'trickle charged' through the night — dipping very slightly then getting topped up again. That's one of the reasons why it's important that you use the charger that came with your phone whenever possible, otherwise there's the risk of causing unnecessary damage to it.

MicroUSB has standardised the system somewhat, but it's still not worth the risk of something catching fire. If you're using the supplied charger and cable then much of the power management will be taken care of for you.

Besides the issue of energy drain, keeping a phone topped up at 100% for longer than necessary degrades the battery slightly faster. The difference isn't huge, but there is a difference: lithium ion batteries prefer not to be fully charged if possible.

Shallow discharges, where the battery drains for a short time and then is charged for a short time, work better than leaving it on charge constantly — it's a bit like someone going for an occasional walk rather than sitting slumped on the sofa all day long.

 

The smarter battery future

As we've already pointed out, a lot of great work has already gone into making chargers as reliable and as energy efficient as possible, whether or not a smartphone is attached to them, that's another reason not to cut corners when it comes to getting replacement chargers.

Technology developed by Californian startup Qnovo is promising to reduce the time it takes for devices to charge and increase the lifespan of batteries at the same time. We're also seeing batteries that can be recharged from your body's movement, doing away with power sockets altogether.

In the not-too-distant future, charging times could eventually get down to just a few minutes, which would make overnight charging a thing of the past. So while unplugging your phone after charging (and unplugging the charger too) can make a small difference to the health of your battery and your electricity use, it's a problem that's already close to being solved.

That's good news for the planet, the device that sits in your pocket and your household energy bills. In the meantime: consider changing up your nightly charging schedule.

 

Credit:

 

http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/should-we-unplug-our-chargers-each-night--1280918?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=unplugchargers&utm_campaign=project

 

 

EDIT - I don't know what happening to the font colour, so just read the OP if you wanna read about it

Edited February 15, 2015 by iHammmy
Night Theme Compatibility

[Lolzious]

I would read this whole post if I could

[SImoHayha]

Am too damn lazy to do that............grrrrrrrrrrr

[iHammmy]

I would read this whole post if I could

Yeah, idk what happened

 

Check the updated post

[Trik'Stari]

I leave mine plugged in all night. See no reason not to.

[iHammmy]

I leave mine plugged in all night. See no reason not to.

Well, read the post and you will see why it can be bad

[Trik'Stari]

Well, read the post and you will see why it can be bad

If it makes the enviromentalists cry at night, that's just a bonus lol

[Lolzious]

Yeah, idk what happened

 

Check the updated post

Thanks man

[Raudi_]

RIP Night users. Did you use auto text color?

[Enderman]

Ive had transformers fail on me before from leaving them plugged in without being attached to anything. The thing with a transformer is that unless it has special circuitry built it, current will still flow through the coil whenever it is plugged in. This means it uses power to create heat, because it cannot charge anything or use that electricity.

 

I'm pretty sure all wall plugs now have something that protects it from damage by leaving it plugged in while disconnected.

[Enderman]

RIP Night users. Did you use auto text color?

you can always just drag your mouse over it to highlight the text...but then youre reading white on blue, which isnt too nice.

[Raudi_]

you can always just drag your mouse over it to highlight the text...but then youre reading white on blue, which isnt too nice.

Yeah true.

[Guest Kloaked]

Highlight all of your text (CTRL+A) and select the 'automatic' color option.

[Matu20]

If it makes the enviromentalists cry at night, that's just a bonus lol

 

Not only are you flipping off the world, but also yourself. Paying more for nothing and letting the battery degrade faster. 

[iHammmy]

Highlight all of your text (CTRL+A) and select the 'automatic' color option.

Yeah, auto colour is fucked up and glitchy

[Blade of Grass]

Ive had transformers fail on me before from leaving them plugged in without being attached to anything. The thing with a transformer is that unless it has special circuitry built it, current will still flow through the coil whenever it is plugged in. This means it uses power to create heat, because it cannot charge anything or use that electricity.

I'm pretty sure all wall plugs now have something that protects it from damage by leaving it plugged in while disconnected.

They always create heat because the actual conversion of AC to DC isn't 100% efficient. If nothing is plugged in (the circuit is not complete) then you can get additional heat on the "hot" (switching) side.

Yeah, auto colour is fucked up and glitchy

I fixed it

[iHammmy]

They always create heat because the actual conversion of AC to DC isn't 100% efficient. If nothing is plugged in (the circuit is not complete) then you can get additional heat on the "hot" (switching) side.

Thankyou for fixing the format

[flibberdipper]

Huh. That would explain why the battery in my netbook died so fast. Still not unplugging shit, but I will charge my phone during the day if I get an SIII.

[Enderman]

They always create heat because the actual conversion of AC to DC isn't 100% efficient. If nothing is plugged in (the circuit is not complete) then you can get additional heat on the "hot" (switching) side.

My point is that when there is nothing connected to a transformer, and the transformer is powered, ALL of the energy is converted into heat, which is what causes damage

[kpreg]

can you make the font smaller pls my head hurts

[iHammmy]

can you make the font smaller pls my head hurts

Done

[spartaman64]

If it makes the enviromentalists cry at night, that's just a bonus lol

yep who cares if the earth gets destroyed im not going to be alive to see it

[Trik'Stari]

yep who cares if the earth gets destroyed im not going to be alive to see it

Yep, cuz my few extra hours of charging my phone is going to make the oceans rise, forests burst into flames, and animals suffocate.

 

Not only are you flipping off the world, but also yourself. Paying more for nothing and letting the battery degrade faster. 

Ermagerd a few cents a month leading up to a grand total of a pack of cigarettes over the course of a year.

 

 

Anyone who gets butthurt about someone else wasting that minuscule amount of power, must have absolutely nothing going on in their lives to worry about, must be nice to have such a perfect life that you can nit pick something so very small in someone else's.

[iHammmy]

Yep, cuz my few extra hours of charging my phone is going to make the oceans rise, forests burst into flames, and animals suffocate.

 

Hah, ive never seen such a stupid thing.

 

Many houses have 3 or more phones in first world countries... Just imagine how much energy is being wasted by everyone as they're leaving their phones charged.

[Trik'Stari]

Hah, ive never seen such a stupid thing.

 

Many houses have 3 or more phones in first world countries... Just imagine how much energy is being wasted by everyone as they're leaving their phones charged.

Okay, so roughly 3 packs of smokes for every household over the course of a year.

 

Here's a thought, just pass a law requiring the phones to have some sort of "trickle charging" feature that turns off the charging, and just keeps it filled up whenever it senses the phone below 99%, or a sleep mode where the phone turns completely off after getting to 100%. instead of running around telling people not to plug their phones in at night because the polar bears might die.

 

I don't have such a low self esteem that I have to make myself feel better by telling myself I help saved the polar bears, I have more important shit to worry about.

 

You want green tech? Fine, do it, but stop harping about how wonderful it is, I know that I for one, don't care that this pamphlet is printed out of 99% recycled paper. In fact, it's wasteful to print that, so why even bother to print it? Why have Earth aid concerts where people trash the forests and artists fly in unnecessarily to talk about how we're damaging the environment.