How much would you guess it costs to charge a smartphone for an entire year? That's a hard question to answer because it is likely something that you have never thought about before. Well, we've got the answer (at least for Apple's new devices); and, it turns out that charging your iPhone 6 is one of the least expensive things you'll do all year.
Opower has looked into the issue and has concluded that it takes 10.5 watt-hours of electricity to fully charge the iPhone 6 once. Assuming you charge it once per day, every day for one year, that comes out to be 3832.5 watt-hours (aka 3.8325 kilowatt-hours). If you take the U.S. average cost of electricity as 12.29 cents per kilowatt-hour, that adds up to a mere $0.47 per year to charge your iPhone 6. The iPhone 6 Plus and its bigger battery would cost $0.52 per year, because it would require about 4.2 kilowatt-hours. There aren't many things that you have to pay for that only cost 50 cents per year.
The numbers may be tiny on an individual level, but when you consider that Apple sold 10 million iPhones in the first weekend, that alone makes up about $5 million in energy costs. That's a sobering thought, considering a smartphone is one of the least power-hungry devices in your home, and also considering that the average person in Haiti uses just 32 kilowatt-hours of electricity in total for one year.
The big trouble with the study is that the only comparison it gives is to the iPhone 5, which cost $0.41 per year to charge. We would have loved to see these numbers for other popular phones in the Android and Windows Phone world. The cost appears to be somewhat correlated to battery size, but at a certain point, you could start charging every other day, which would bring the cost back down again. So, we would assume there are some devices out there that would cost significantly less than an iPhone to charge.
Michael Heller is known for his clear and informative articles on mobile technology. He explores important topics such as the rollouts of 5G networks and the advancements in mobile payments, offering readers insights into the evolving tech landscape.
Recommended Stories
Loading Comments...
COMMENT
All comments need to comply with our
Community Guidelines
Phonearena comments rules
A discussion is a place, where people can voice their opinion, no matter if it
is positive, neutral or negative. However, when posting, one must stay true to the topic, and not just share some
random thoughts, which are not directly related to the matter.
Things that are NOT allowed:
Off-topic talk - you must stick to the subject of discussion
Offensive, hate speech - if you want to say something, say it politely
Spam/Advertisements - these posts are deleted
Multiple accounts - one person can have only one account
Impersonations and offensive nicknames - these accounts get banned
Moderation is done by humans. We try to be as objective as possible and moderate with zero bias. If you think a
post should be moderated - please, report it.
Have a question about the rules or why you have been moderated/limited/banned? Please,
contact us.
FCC OKs Cingular\'s purchase of AT&T Wireless
Things that are NOT allowed: