Experts explain why people should never charge their phone to 100% and if it actually ruins your battery

If you charge your phone to 100 per cent, you’re probably in the majority group of people who like to charge their phone to the top; however, an expert has revealed that this could be harming your phone.

There’s nothing quite as alarming as looking at your phone and seeing that it just won’t have enough juice to last the day.

So, you do what anyone else would do, and you charge it to 100 per cent so that you know whatever the day throws at you, you’ve got more than enough battery to last.

You might even charge your phone overnight to save yourself the hassle of being without your precious phone during the day.

However, you could be doing yourself and your battery a disservice in the long run.

You may have already heard that charging your phone to 100 per cent can be detrimental in the long run, but whether this is a rumour or a fact has always been debated.

Thankfully, an expert has weighed in, so we can finally put this issue to rest and take action accordingly to prevent our phones from needing a new battery or upgrading them to save the headache.

Does charging your phone to 100% ruin its battery? (Getty stock images)

According to Chao-Yang Wang, director of the Electrochemical Engine Center at Penn State University, there is some truth to the rumor about full-battery charging.

He shared that ‘a battery will degrade faster if you charge it to 100% versus a little bit lower state of charge’, according to the Huffington Post.

Dibakar Datta, an associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology also added that if you continuously charge your phone to 100 per cent, your phone will be at a high voltage, causing it to chemically age.

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Wang went on to say that if you keep charging your phone fully, you could be losing 10 to 15 per cent of your battery faster over its lifetime, than if you were to charge it to 90 percent, adding: “So it’s not a whole lot, but it’s noticeable.”

So, while the deterioration might not be as noticeable at first, Wang says that phone batteries are largely durable, as he continued: "[Batteries] last, probably, longer than the other features of the phone. You likely will need a new phone for other reasons, such as camera quality or a broken screen, before you need one for battery issues."

However, this shouldn't deter you from charging to 100 percent - at least, every now and then.

Letting your phone run out can be bad too (Getty stock images)

According to Wang, it's a case-by-case situation, as it all 'depends on people’s needs and also convenience', as he added: "If you do have a mission-critical day, you will be better off to charge to 100% so you have more electricity and longer usage time."

However, if you are just chilling at home, then charging your phone to 85 to 90 per cent should be sufficient enough.

As well as charging it fully, letting your phone run out of battery is also not good. Sigh.

This is because it could harm the battery's ability to hold the charge, leaving it to run out faster.

Datta said that you should charge it at around 20 per cent to avoid this and also avoid extreme temperatures to ensure your phone doesn't begin to wear out.

He told the publication that you should also eliminate fast-charging ports, as they generate heat in the battery, which can degrade it over time.

"I think that the battery is probably more afraid of too cold or too hot [temperatures]." Wang added. "I think that damage under those extreme conditions probably is greater than charging to 100% under normal temperatures."