Obsessing over the devices we buy is normal because it takes years off our lives. We bought the cases before the device itself (my partner Eva buys them six at a time), we looked for the thickest protective glass and we were immediately obsessed. Is that a speck of dust on the screen or a dead pixel?
One of the obsessions of recent years has to do with the battery. What if the fast charge degrades it, if I go to see how many charging cycles I have, if I think that the phone has lasted an hour less than a month ago and that means that the battery is degrading… Anyway, we become too obsessed and there Apple has put its two cents with the iPhone battery health percentage. So that you don’t think about it anymore, We tell you what it means and when you have to worry.
How to know what is the health of the iPhone battery
Since I write about technology, in the eyes of my friends and family I am a hacker. Therefore, recently several acquaintances have asked me if they have to change the battery of their iPhone. Not knowing very well how to react to that question, I asked them what phones they have and what battery health indicates the iPhone itself.
One has an iPhone 11 and the other an iPhone 12 Pro and neither could answer the question about the health of the battery. “Where do you see that”, they asked me, so I answered with another question: “If you don’t know, why do you think you should change the battery?”
The answer from one of them was because I had read that leaving the mobile charging all night drains the battery and the other’s response was… that the first one had told him about that problem and now he was worried.
“Let’s get it done”, I thought, and after recommending that they read about the myths and facts of batteries (I didn’t want to explain anything because I was running out of time), I told them what they had to do to check the health of their battery.
Since they both have quite current and updated mobile phones, they had to do the following:
- Go to settings.
- Scroll until you find “Battery”.
- In that new menu an option appears called “Health and battery charge”.
- When you press, you see the percentage and a series of options.
In the case of the iPhone 11, 87%. In the case of the iPhone 12 Pro, 82%. The conclusion is that none have to change the batterybut the truth is that that iPhone 12 Pro will have to go through the workshop sooner rather than later, but the mobile has not yet turned on the emergency lights. How do you know if you have to change? Well, because Apple itself tells you.
Here are some screenshots from my colleague José Alberto and a comparison with my own screenshots so you can see the difference in messages:
With a light background: the iPhone that has to pass the review. With dark background: my brand new 99% health.
On Alberto’s iPhone, under “Battery Health and Charge” it indicates “Repair”. If we go to see the percentage, we see that it is at 79% and a message appears that tells us that the battery has degraded and that it is time to change it. On my iPhone, at 99% health, still nothing to worry about.
Now, what does Apple say about it? If we go to their support page, we can read that the iPhone battery -like all- degrades over time. a normal battery It is designed to work well up to 80% of its capacity after 500 full charges.
A cycle is complete when 100% of the battery is used up, regardless of whether it is from one hit or after a charge.
A complete cycle is from 0% to 100%, obviously, but it is a difficult scenario to achieve on a day-to-day basis and you will surely put the phone to charge with a 25-30% battery. If one day you have spent 75%, you put the mobile to charge and start the next day with 100%, when the battery percentage reaches 75% that second day you will have spent a cycle. That is, 75% of the first day plus 25% of the second equals 100%, a cycle.
So, 500 cycles are many days of use and that 80% has become the standard for measuring battery health (many companies tell us that their phones hold up to 80% after X charging cycles with their ultra-fast chargers, like the one in the realme GT3). But of course, this is an estimate.
Your phone’s battery may have a factory problem, it may be a model that especially degrades the battery more than necessary, or you give it so much that you naturally degrade it faster than normal.
And, as you can imagine, the little message of “Repair” on the iPhone appears when you go down to that 80% battery health.
Problems with the iPhone battery that indicate that you should change it
In the case of iPhones, you already know how to check the battery status, but there are also some details that can indicate that something is wrong. They are extreme cases, but if you notice any of these symptoms, your battery may need to go through the workshop:
- Longer startup times in applications.
- Frame rates doing weird things when scrolling.
- Backlight dimming.
- Decreased speaker volume.
- Gradual frame rate drops in some apps.
In addition, you have the help of the “Peak performance capacity” section in the battery health menu.
Here we will be told if everything is normal if, as in the case of my colleague José Alberto, the battery needs to be changed. Something interesting is that We will also know if the mobile has restarted at some point due to the fact that the battery, without being degraded, has not been able to offer the peak performance necessary for all the functions of the terminal to work normally.
How to know if my second-hand iPhone has an original battery?
The bottom line is that my two friends have worried before the count. They will have to go through a battery change sooner rather than later (and paying, since they are not in the year of warranty that Apple offers), but for now everything is going well.
One more thingAs Steve Jobs would say: if you buy a refurbished or second-hand mobile, the first thing you should do is take a look at the “Battery health” section. You will not only see the health of it, but also if the battery is original or not… or if it has a problem.
There are two messages that should make you suspicious:
- The iPhone cannot determine the health of the battery. An Apple Authorized Service Provider can repair it. Learn more about repair options.
- Could not verify if this iPhone has a genuine Apple battery. Battery status information is not available.
The first, surely, will be due to a hardware or software error and you can keep an eye on it in the technical center so that it shows the percentage of health.
The second message applies from the iPhone XS and it may mean that the battery has not been changed by Apple or it is not the one corresponding to that model, so it will surely have had a change and it may not be in the best condition.