The iPhone 14 is a powerful smartphone, but, like any other electronic device, it requires some maintenance to work propery. Like a ship that can sail forever, as long as people are willing to maintain it, your iPhone 14 will keep working as long as you maintain its battery health.
Here’s why maintaining your iPhone 14 battery is critical and how you can do that to get more years from your device.
Note: information in this article apply to iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.
The best iPhone 14 battery health tips
1. Don’t turn off Optimized Battery Charging
Overcharging your battery is a bad thing. Optimized Battery Charging learns from your daily charging routine and uses AI to understand your charging patterns. Using that, it holds the charging and waits to charge past 80% until you need to use your iPhone.
For example, let’s say you go to sleep every day at 9 PM and wake up at 5 AM. Before going to bed, you plug in your iPhone every night at 9 PM to charge. Now, your iPhone will normally charge up to 80%, and after that, it will not charge. Then, around 3 or 4 AM, your iPhone will automatically resume charging and go to 100% before you wake up at 5 AM.
Optimized Battery Charging is turned on by default on iPhone. You can check if it’s turned on by following the steps below:
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Go into Battery.
- Tap Battery Health & Charging.
- Make sure optimized battery charging is switched on.
2. Don’t expose your iPhone to excessive heat
Heat, water, and dust are the biggest enemies of any electronic device. And your iPhone’s lithium-ion battery is no exception. Too much heat can negatively affect it and cause its battery health to degrade greatly if you often overheat your iPhone.
So, to maintain your iPhone 14 battery health, ensure your phone doesn’t get extremely hot. You can prevent your iPhone 14 from getting hot by removing the case, refraining from using too many intensive apps for extended amount of time, not leaving your iPhone in a locked car on a sunny day, and so on.
3. Avoid charging your iPhone to 100% and discharging it completely
Charging the battery to both extremes is bad for its health. To maintain iPhone 14 battery health, try not to charge it entirely up to 100% and discharge it to 0 to 5%.
Important: Don’t overthink this too much. Keep the above fact in mind but charge your iPhone as you normally would at your convenience. If you ask me, I often charge my iPhone up to 80% or 90% and plug it back when the battery falls to around 30%.
4. Don’t leave your iPhone plugged into charging for hours or overnight
Optimized Battery Charging is a great feature that prevents overcharging problem. Still, it’s better if you take precautions and do not leave your phone plugged into charging for several hours or overnight.
See also: The Best iPhone 14 charging tips to maximize battery life
5. Use wired instead of wireless charging
Charging your iPhone wirelessly is quite convenient. However, it may generate a lot of heat which can affect your iPhone battery. To extend your iPhone 14 battery life, try to use wired charging instead of wireless or MagSafe alternatives.
6. Fast charge only when needed
With fast charging, the battery is forced to take in a lot of power in a short span. This is great for quick top-ups but isn’t good for long-term battery health.
I have a 61W MacBook charger that can charge my iPhone 14 quite faster. I use this in rare cases. For everyday use, I use a 10W Apple adapter (or sometimes my 20W iPad adapter) which slowly fills my iPhone battery, maintaining its battery health.
7. Use Apple or MFi-certified chargers and cables
Almost all adapters can charge your iPhone, and due to Apple not bundling a charger in the iPhone 14 box, you may be tempted to purchase a cheaper option.
If you want to maintain your iPhone 14 battery health, use an Apple adapter or one that’s MFi-certified. Chargers from other reputed manufacturers like Samsung should also have all safety checks and may not harm your iPhone. But note the wattage of the charger before using it with your iPhone.
Besides that, also limit yourself to using a proper Apple or MFi-certified Lightning cable.
8. Disable features you don’t use
Another great iPhone 14 battery health tip is to reduce the load on it. And one of the best ways to do that is by disabling certain iPhone features you may not need. This includes things like disabling Background App Refresh, disabling automatic updates, keeping Automatic Brightness enabled, having cellular settings to Auto 5G, and such.
9. Restart your iPhone regularly
To maintain your iPhone 14 battery health, you should make it a habit of turning your phone off and on regularly. This will fix a lot of minor problems and keep your device fast and responsive.
10. Keep your iPhone updated
Apple introduces new improvements with software updates. Sometimes, unnecessary battery drain and other similar problems can be fixed by iOS updates. So, to maintain iPhone 14 battery health, keep your device updated.
- Go to Settings.
- Tap General.
- Select Software Update.
Note: Your iPhone can download, prepare, and install an iOS update if its battery is over 50%. However, software updates exert considerable pressure on the battery, and thus it’s better to perform the update with your iPhone plugged into charging.
11. Planning not to use iPhone for a long time? Store it at 50% charge
Finally, if you have two devices or if you regularly switch to Android, you may keep one of your iPhones stored in the drawer. When you do that, ensure the iPhone battery is charged to around 50% before storing it for an extended period. Never store it fully charged or fully discharged.
Protect your iPhone 14 Battery Health
The above tips will help extend your iPhone 14 battery health and ensure you’re able to use the device for a few years without notable battery problems.
However, no matter what you do, slowly, the iPhone battery and all other batteries like that in AirPods, Apple Watch, Apple Pencil, iPad, etc., degrade. This can’t be stopped. But the above iPhone 14 battery health tips will help.
Finally, you can keep note of your iPhone battery health by going to Settings > Battery > Battery Health & Charging. From here, note the percentage next to Maximum Capacity. If it’s seriously reduced, you’ll see a message asking you to get the battery serviced.
See also: The Best iPhone 14 battery tips to maximize battery life