Hey guys! I’m pretty young (15) and whenever I would get a new device for my bday or something, my parents always said that you needed to charge the device for 24 hours before you use it, and that you should always charge it up to 100% and use it until it hits 0% otherwise the battery won’t hold as much charge as possible. This kind of sucked because I of course wanted to play whatever it was right away instead of waiting until the next day, and I recently found out that you don’t have to do this on newer batteries but on older ones you do, which is how this “common sense” advice originated. However why did old batteries need to be charged for 24 hours before use, and used from 100% to 0% as it doesn’t seem like that should impact how much charge the battery can hold. Please ELI5.
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This was true of old nickel metal halide (NiMH) batteries back in the day.
Most devices these days use lithium ion batteries. They do not like to be fully discharged, or stored unused at >90% charge. They are happiest the closer they are to 50%. Most devices are designed to shut off before the battery fully discharges, and they set some limit before 100% charge as “100%” to prevent you from over-charging (this is less of an issue with things that are being constantly discharged, like a phone that you rarely shut off). Consumer electronics today are designed for you to not have to think about it or game the system. Just plug in when you want, and use it until you can’t (or plug in again).
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