We’re becoming increasingly depend on mobile devices.  Cell phones, laptops, tablets, GPS, even smart watches.   The one thing they all have in common is the battery.   Without batteries, we’d be tied to sitting next to a power socket all day.

And batteries have come on a long way!

We’re becoming increasingly depend on mobile devices.  Cell phones, laptops, tablets, GPS, even smart watches.   The one thing they all have in common is the battery.   Without batteries, we’d be tied to sitting next to a power socket all day.

And batteries have come on a long way!

The first battery was invented in 1800 by Volta – consisting of pairs of copper and zinc discs separated by cloth or cardboard soaked in brine.

Today, batteries are typically Lithium Ion, with the first Lithium batteries coming to the market in the 1970s.  The key features of modern batteries are that they’re compact, hold a lot of power, and can be recharged numerous times.   All features that are vital to keep our modern gadgets on the go.

You may have seen mention of mAh on the labels on a battery.   This shows the capacity of a battery and stands for milliampere hour.    Very roughly a 1000 mAh battery can supply 1000mA for one hour, or 100mA for ten hours, or 10mA for 100 hours.   So the higher capacity the battery, the longer your device will run for.   As an example, the recently announced Samsung Galaxy Note 9 has a 4000mAh  battery which is large for a cellular device.

Now you may remember Samsung were in the news a couple of years ago for exploding cell phones?   The problem become so common, that airlines banned anyone from carrying a Galaxy Note 7 on their planes!

It turned out that the battery was so high capacity, and so tightly packed in to the device, that too much pressure was being forced on it, resulting in the battery exploding.   And with so much power stored in such a small space, the videos of phones exploding were quite impressive!

What made the situation worse, was Samsung recalled the phones and replaced them with an “updated” version, which also turned out to explode!   The whole saga was a PR nightmare for Samsung who ended up recalling all of the phones and refunding customers.   Only now, a couple of years later are customers starting to buy the “Note” series of cell phones again.   Samsung insist that they have vastly improved their battery research and testing because of the fiasco, so they’ve now probably got the safest phones out there (we’ll have to see).

I’m commonly asked, how often should I charge my device?  Should I leave it plugged in?   My answer – don’t worry – plug it in when convenient to make sure you have charge when you need it.   And it’s becoming even more convenient to charge now that wireless chargers are coming to market.

It used to be that you had to fully discharge a battery before charging it again.   It still holds true that batteries have a set number of cycles (how many times you can charge/discharge).

Modern chargers have a lot of intelligence built into them which means they actively monitor the battery whilst charging.   For example, this means you don’t have to worry about unplugging the device once it’s charged.  You should however be cautious when buying chargers, as the cheap knock-off chargers out there aren’t as smart and may shorten the life of your battery.

One thing you should keep an eye on is the temperature of your device.   Batteries don’t like it too cold or too hot.   Leave your device out in the sun for too long and you may find it shuts down prematurely.   Likewise – use your phone on the slopes while skiing and you may be surprised how quickly the battery runs out!

And under no circumstances should you apply undue pressure to a battery.   As mentioned previously with the Note 7 exploding batteries, they should be treated with respect.    Some airlines even refuse to ship cargo containing charged batteries because of the risk of explosion, which is another reason why you should safely dispose of batteries.

Until next time – keep charging!