Study shows consumers waste large amounts of electricity by over-charging mobile devices

2. cober319 (Posts: 11; Member since: 10 Nov 2011)

why is there not a device in place where charging completely stops and won't begin again until the battery drops to like 90% or something. Is "there an app for that"...?

3. GALAXY-S (Posts: 701; Member since: 07 Jun 2011)

its kinda tough to wake up at 3 in the morning to unplugg my cell phone!

5. PimpStrong (Posts: 310; Member since: 25 Jul 2011)

I thought my phone stopped charging once fully charged?? I mean isn't it just a minute trickle of energy being used?

7. Jyakotu (Posts: 854; Member since: 12 Dec 2008)

I know I'm guilty of doing this, but it's mainly because I charge my phone and laptop every night, so it hits 100% in the middle of the night, how am I supposed to know to wake up and unplug the charger.?

9. k1ng617 (Posts: 264; Member since: 13 Oct 2009)

Good advice. A little trick here and there can help the pocketbook and the environment. Also, I think my girlfriend would find it interesting that leaving items plugged in will decrease their life. Cheers

10. dirtydirty00 (Posts: 425; Member since: 21 Jan 2011)

i keep my laptop plugged in most of the time. and i charge my phone while i sleep at night, so it charges till the morning. oops

11. gotphone (unregistered)

this is a totally different information than what I've been reading about regarding the newest lithium ion batteries. I was under the impression that lithium ion batteries now don't have the memory issue and don't over-charge.
which is correct??

17. MrNobodyWTB (Posts: 27; Member since: 03 Jan 2012)

I know that it doesn't solve the energy being wasted problem. But can't the phones (or do some already) stop the battery charge when it gets to 100% and start using power straight from the wall? That way the drain on the battery is absolute minimum and it doesn't damage by overcharging.

Sometimes it works out that my phone needs to be charged a couple hours before I go to bed, And I don't want to wake up for work with a battery less than 100%, Can usually make it through the work day with a full charge.

18. JC557 (Posts: 1794; Member since: 07 Dec 2011)

My MacBook and HTC Thunderbolt already do this. Once the Macbook reaches full charge it begins a very slow discharge while plugged in. Once the LED on my Thunderbolt reaches green it stops charging but maintains the battery (it still slowly loses charge). I would think most modern portables do such a thing.

19. TKFox007 (Posts: 303; Member since: 02 Nov 2010)

Not this junk again. This argument changes all this time, first they say that over charging you batteries are bad, then they say that constantly charging and discharging your batteries is bad. And each argument uses the same points, that doing whatever will save power, save your battery, etc. And doing the opposite will waste power, kill your battery, etc.

And each time those arguments are made they attach the "go green" message to it. Remember when they were running those commercials saying to unplug your charger after you take your phone off it because it wastes electricity? Well they took them down because the logic was flawed. A charger plugged into a wall with nothing attached is an open circuit so electricity is not flowing, therefore not using electricity.

Also plenty of devices are already programmed to switch to using power from the wall after the battery is fully charged, especially laptops. These "studies" are largely inflated by the groups that either conduct them or pay to have them conducted and its always those "go green" people who twist the data into something they can get their message across.

More than likely they asked people if they leave their devices in after they've been charged then combined that with their own energy beliefs (which have no research behind it at all) and drew this conclusion.

And next year we'll see an article telling people not to constantly charge and discharge their batteries because it's ruining them and causing them to pile up in landfills which is damaging to the environment.