Ever had to charge your phone but didn’t have enough time? Ran late for a meeting but your phone’s battery was dead? If your answer is yes and since you are here, Fast-Charging is definitely a topic relevant to you. In this blog, we’ll go over frequent concerns that people have with such a technology and we’ll try to establish the (very) truth about Fast-Charging and why you should use it?
What is Fast-charging for smartphone?
As the name suggests, Fast-Charging refers to charging your phone faster than normal. The current sent through the wire is relatively larger and hence, charges your phone in a much shorter time.
If you’re running out of time and have to go somewhere, but your phone has a very low battery, Fast-Charging can certainly come in handy. It can help save a lot of time, enabling you to use the device during the hours you’d normally put it to charge.
Some advantages of the feature include:
- It improves the mobility and usability of your device
- Your phone is charged significantly faster
- You don’t have to wait around
Will Fast-Charging harm my smartphone?
Although it is recommended to use fast chargers with compatible smartphones only, there is no actual risk of frying up your device if it’s not compatible. The reason for that is simple: in order to protect them from power surges when charging, smartphones are equipped with a specific type of component called a controller. This component regulates the amount of power flowing into the battery in order to maintain safe levels at all times.
Think of this as if you were filling up a water bottle. You open up the tap wide at the start but as the bottle fills up, you diminish the influx of water gradually. The same principle applies to smartphone batteries. As a matter of fact, you will notice that a standard charger will take approximately 30 minutes to bring your phone’s battery to about 50% of its capacity. Then it would take several hours to fill up the remaining 50%. A fast charger will just shorten the overall process by twice that amount of time.
Therefore, if you ever find yourself charging up your phone with a fast charger while it’s not compatible, it will just charge up to its normal pace. Basically the fast charger will act as a standard charger.
Will Fast-Charging affect my smartphone’s battery life?
Amongst other myths, Fast-Charging is believed to affect smartphone batteries negatively in time. Let’s be perfectly clear here: there is only one thing that can affect a battery’s life: time. More precisely, it is charge cycles. The cells inside a battery are meant to operate for a defined number of charge cycles (generally between 500 and 1000). After that, they will not be able to store power anymore. In regard to this, there is a misconception regarding Fast-Charging and battery life. Simply because we are letting in more power with fast chargers, we leaned toward thinking that this accrued influx of power was affecting batteries’ life negatively.
However, that approach is wrong, and we actually brought part of the answer to that question in our previous point. Indeed, we know now that smartphone batteries are paired with regulators that moderate the amount of power that is sent to them. Therefore, there is actually no accrued influx of power.
Regardless, you will still hear some people saying, “I’ve used Fast-Charging and I had to change my phone’s battery a year after that”. The actual reason for that is just that while we spend less time charging our phones (and not being able to use them), we simply spend more time using them… Eventually, we just end up charging them more often, affecting the charging cycles of the battery.
Should I use wireless or wired fast charging?
Fast-Charging docks are undeniably more convenient and practical. They also look fancier. However, these are more expensive to purchase, slower to operate and more cumbersome in some situation like travel.
Therefore, if you don’t necessarily want to spend that much money for a fast-charger and you want it to be as much versatile, it’s better to go with a wired one. It is cheaper, more efficient and more versatile.
Should I use fast-Charging for my smartphone?
The answer to that is pretty simple. Engineers have worked for some time to develop such a feature to allow people to benefit more from the capacities of their phones. Everybody finds himself in need of a boost for their phone and dead cell phone batteries are a pretty problem for us. Therefore if your phone is compatible and you can afford it, by all means, equip yourself with such a tool for your productivity and comfort, and fear no more about misconceptions.
