Wondering what the optimized battery charging in the battery settings of your phone does? Here's everything that you need to know!

Rechargeable Lithium-ion batteries are the fossil fuels of the 21st century. We use these batteries not only to power smartphones (and all our gadgets) but modern electric vehicles as well. However, maintaining lithium-ion batteries remains challenging. These types of batteries wear out over time, which can affect their ability to hold a charge. Therefore, keeping the battery at 100% all the time can cause it to deteriorate more quickly.

Moreover, as modern requirements grow, consumers want their batteries charged all the time. While this isn't possible in the real world, OEMs ship their smartphones with fast charging features, which can deteriorate the batteries of the smartphones even faster. So, to negate this effect, most OEMs ship their smartphones with a feature called Optimized Battery Charging. But what exactly is optimized charging? Here's everything that you need to know.

Optimized battery charging is a feature that keeps the battery's health in check and prevents chemical aging of your smartphone's battery. But why is preventing the aging of a better important? Well, to answer this simply, a weak battery isn't able to hold the charge properly, thus resulting in reduced battery life. It also impacts the overall performance of your smartphone.

Different factors affect how fast batteries age, such as their charging pattern, the temperature surrounding them, and their physical age. One of the factors that deteriorates a battery the most is overnight charging or simply keeping a phone connected to a charger even when it is fully charged.

So, most OEMs have developed an optimized charging feature for their smartphones. This feature ensures the batteries don't deplete quickly and charge in a very safe manner.

It uses machine learning to determine how you use your smartphone. This includes active use, idle time, and charging time. Then, when your phone knows when it will stay connected to a charge for a long period of time (for e.g., overnight charging), it will delay charging past 80%. The charging is then activated before you take your phone off the charger, so you get a fully charged phone.

The feature works well overnight, especially if you have regular sleeping habits. Despite the fact that you make your iPhone purposefully charge slower, it proves to be beneficial in the long run. Here's how you can enable optimized charging on iPhones, Android smartphones, MacBooks, and even Windows devices:

The Optimized Battery Charging comes enabled by default on all iPhones (running iOS 13 or above). Just in case you want to double-check, here's how you can enable (or disable) the feature on your iPhone:

If Optimized Battery Charging is turned on and you put your iPhone on charge for a long time, the system will send you a notification that will hint when your phone's charging will complete. If you want to turn off the Optimized Battery Charging feature at that point, tap and hold the notification, then tap Charge Now. The phone's charging will continue normally after it reaches 80% instead of pausing.

Here's how you can enable optimized battery charging on various Android smartphones, including Google Pixel, Samsung Galaxy, and OnePlus smartphones:

On Google Pixel Devices (Pixel 4 or newer)

While Samsung doesn't offer the optimized charging feature on its devices, you can instead limit the charging of the devices to 85% to protect the health of your Galaxy smartphone.

OnePlus also offers an optimized night charging feature on its devices. Aside from that, you can improve battery health by optimizing the sleep standby time and the individual apps. Here's how you can do it:

If your smartphone's brand is not listed above, don't worry. Many other Android smartphone makers, such as HONOR, HUAWEI, and Realme, offer similar settings on their devices to enable/disable optimized battery charging. Do look up similar options in the Battery settings of your smartphone.

In case you're unable to spot the settings on your smartphone, then do let us know in the comments section below, and we'll be happy to help. Alternatively, you can try installing similar apps from the Google Play Store, such as Super Charging Pro, to monitor charging speeds and be notified when your device is charged.

Just like iPhones, Apple also offers the Optimized Battery Charging feature on macOS. On macOS Ventura (or later), you can enable the option by going to System Settings → Battery → ⓘ and then check or uncheck the Optimized battery charging box to enable/disable the feature.

On macOS Monterey (or earlier), you can enable/disable the feature by going to System Preferences → Battery → Optimized battery charging. To ensure your Mac's battery is doing well, you should also enable the Manage battery longevity checkbox buried under the Battery Health section at the bottom.

All Windows devices and laptops support an adaptive charging feature called Smart Battery Charging. Microsoft says that when the Smart Battery Charging feature is enabled, your Windows device's battery level "will be set to a lower level that's better for the battery overall." This means that your laptop may not charge to 100%, but it will charge to a certain point (that's less then 100%) which helps keep your battery healthier in the long run.

While the feature cannot be enabled manually, Microsoft says that your device will automatically determine when it has to 'smart charge'. When your Windows device starts smart charging, you’ll notice a heart on the Battery icon on the right side of the taskbar and in Power & battery settings.

Optimized battery charging is a feature that’s worth keeping turned on for your devices. In addition to keeping your battery healthy, it will also save you money on replacement batteries or new devices. Make sure you enable Optimized Battery Charging on all of your devices today.

iPhone 14 Pro is the latest premium smartphone from the brand. It features a new pill-shaped 'Dynamic Island' notch, 48MP primary camera sensors, an A16 Bionic chipset, and much more. Check out all the deals on the device using the links given below.

The latest Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 comes with the most powerful Qualcomm SoC, a wider display, a better hinge mechanism, and many significant upgrades over its predecessor.

The Google Pixel 6 Pro is the first flagship-level offering from Google after it spent a year away with mid-ranged devices. It features a 120Hz 1440p display and a triple camera system with all-new optics.

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