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Leaving the phone always plugged in will not overcharge the battery, as the protection circuits prevent overcharging. However, leaving the battery at 100% state of charge (SOC) for extended periods is bad for the health of the battery. At 100% SOC, the positive and negative electrode materials (cathode and anode) in the battery are at very high and very low electrochemical potentials respectively, and the electrolyte (the liquid and lithium salts that help the lithium ions move between the electrodes) also experiences those high and low potentials. Keeping these materials at these high and low potentials for an extended period of time causes these materials to degrade, and causes the battery capacity to degrade as a result. That is, the “full capacity” of the battery (measured in watt-hours) will be reduced, and the capacity that the battery reads as “100%” will degrade over time. So even though your battery may show “100%”, it is storing less energy (watt-hours) over time. This is the reason that all batteries (and devices) are shipped at 40–50% SOC. The next time you buy a new phone, notice that it is not fully charged when turned on for the first time.
Also, someone said that doing a full discharge-charge of the battery once a month is considered good. This is not quite true. Doing full charge-discharge regularly, generally speaking, will negatively affect the battery capacity. However, since battery capacity degrades by a small amount after every charge-discharge cycle, it is recommended to do a full charge-discharge (100%→ 0% → 100%) once in a while to help the phone recalibrate the “0%” and “100%” points of the battery. This will ensure that your phone does not report an incorrect value, which would otherwise cause an unexpected shutdown (e.g. the phone reports “10%”, but it rapidly drains to “0%” within a matter of minutes and the phone shuts down).
So how do you extend the life of your mobile/laptop battery?
Since laptops often spend a lot of time connected to the charger, some OEMs provide battery management utilities or a “battery extender mode" that limit the max charge to 80% (Dell allows you to customize this in bios).
No such features are available on phones, so most phones remain charged at 100% for several hours each night. A workaround to this is to use a timer on the AC outlet, which will disconnect the charger from AC after a fixed amount of time. For example, I use this timer (Century 12 Hour Mechanical Countdown Timer with Grounded Pin - Energy Saving - - Amazon.com) set to two hours every night when I start charging my phone. My phone charges to 100% between 1–2 hours, after which the timer disconnects the charger and my phone discharges. I get ~90–95% charge remaining by the time I wake up, which is acceptable for me.
https://www.quora.com/Does-leaving-the-smartphone-always-plugged-in-damage-the-battery
Also, someone said that doing a full discharge-charge of the battery once a month is considered good. This is not quite true. Doing full charge-discharge regularly, generally speaking, will negatively affect the battery capacity. However, since battery capacity degrades by a small amount after every charge-discharge cycle, it is recommended to do a full charge-discharge (100%→ 0% → 100%) once in a while to help the phone recalibrate the “0%” and “100%” points of the battery. This will ensure that your phone does not report an incorrect value, which would otherwise cause an unexpected shutdown (e.g. the phone reports “10%”, but it rapidly drains to “0%” within a matter of minutes and the phone shuts down).
So how do you extend the life of your mobile/laptop battery?
Since laptops often spend a lot of time connected to the charger, some OEMs provide battery management utilities or a “battery extender mode" that limit the max charge to 80% (Dell allows you to customize this in bios).
No such features are available on phones, so most phones remain charged at 100% for several hours each night. A workaround to this is to use a timer on the AC outlet, which will disconnect the charger from AC after a fixed amount of time. For example, I use this timer (Century 12 Hour Mechanical Countdown Timer with Grounded Pin - Energy Saving - - Amazon.com) set to two hours every night when I start charging my phone. My phone charges to 100% between 1–2 hours, after which the timer disconnects the charger and my phone discharges. I get ~90–95% charge remaining by the time I wake up, which is acceptable for me.
https://www.quora.com/Does-leaving-the-smartphone-always-plugged-in-damage-the-battery
