How to Check Your iPhone’s Battery Health
The iPhone includes several useful tools for displaying how much battery you have left, as well as which items are consuming the most of your battery. But none of these tools actually tell you anything about your battery’s long-term health.
Battery health is different than battery life. Battery life determines how long your battery lasts on a single charge, but your battery health determines how much your battery life diminishes over time. After a year, your battery life won’t be as long as when the phone was new, and it will continue to degrade as the years go by.
If you’ve ever known someone who is constantly needing to charge their phone–especially a phone that’s a few years old and probably has low battery health–then you know how annoying this is. Compounding the problem is that most mobile phones don’t have a user accessible battery that can be swapped out with a new, fresh battery. In the end, it’s typically your battery more than any other component that indicates how long you will own your current phone.
To see how your phone’s battery is faring, there are quite a few apps out there that will check its status. We found one that is pleasantly simple and free and available in the App Store, that will show you just about everything you need to know about your battery’s health.
The logically titled Battery Life app is able to give you a straightforward, no-nonsense display of how much battery capacity you have remaining on your iPhone.
If that isn’t good enough, then tap the menu icon in the upper-left corner of the app and tap “Raw Data” for more in-depth battery details.
The raw data is useful for a number of reasons. Primarily, it displays the battery’s current capacity. As you can see, our battery still holds 99% (1675 mAh) of its rated capacity (1690 mAh). More interestingly, it shows a much more accurate reading of your battery’s current charge than what is displayed in the status bar.
Among the other information you can glean from this is the battery’s current voltage, how many charge cycles you have subjected it to, the current temperature (hotter temperatures degrade battery life considerably), and finally the charging or discharging current into or out of the battery.
None of these other metrics may be of value to you, but it’s cool to be able at least check your battery’s capacity and actual charge.
Finally, there’s an option to see how long your battery will last in an array of the phone’s states, whether its 3G talk time or 3G browsing, Wi-Fi, LTE, video, and more. Being able to check how much time you can expect the phone to go between charges can help you better gauge how you can use your iPhone if you find yourself far removed from a power outlet.
Overall, Battery Life does just about all we could hope for when it comes to seeing how much battery capacity our iPhone has remaining. Everything else it does is just a pleasant bonus. Best of all, it does this for free, though if you want to remove the ads and get a cool little widget in the process, you might consider paying the $.99.
Keep in mind, there are a number of things you can do to extend the life of your battery between charges, and there’s always the option to use an external battery battery case for those long stints away from the charger.
Battery health is different than battery life. Battery life determines how long your battery lasts on a single charge, but your battery health determines how much your battery life diminishes over time. After a year, your battery life won’t be as long as when the phone was new, and it will continue to degrade as the years go by.
If you’ve ever known someone who is constantly needing to charge their phone–especially a phone that’s a few years old and probably has low battery health–then you know how annoying this is. Compounding the problem is that most mobile phones don’t have a user accessible battery that can be swapped out with a new, fresh battery. In the end, it’s typically your battery more than any other component that indicates how long you will own your current phone.
To see how your phone’s battery is faring, there are quite a few apps out there that will check its status. We found one that is pleasantly simple and free and available in the App Store, that will show you just about everything you need to know about your battery’s health.
The logically titled Battery Life app is able to give you a straightforward, no-nonsense display of how much battery capacity you have remaining on your iPhone.
If that isn’t good enough, then tap the menu icon in the upper-left corner of the app and tap “Raw Data” for more in-depth battery details.
The raw data is useful for a number of reasons. Primarily, it displays the battery’s current capacity. As you can see, our battery still holds 99% (1675 mAh) of its rated capacity (1690 mAh). More interestingly, it shows a much more accurate reading of your battery’s current charge than what is displayed in the status bar.
Among the other information you can glean from this is the battery’s current voltage, how many charge cycles you have subjected it to, the current temperature (hotter temperatures degrade battery life considerably), and finally the charging or discharging current into or out of the battery.
None of these other metrics may be of value to you, but it’s cool to be able at least check your battery’s capacity and actual charge.
Finally, there’s an option to see how long your battery will last in an array of the phone’s states, whether its 3G talk time or 3G browsing, Wi-Fi, LTE, video, and more. Being able to check how much time you can expect the phone to go between charges can help you better gauge how you can use your iPhone if you find yourself far removed from a power outlet.
Overall, Battery Life does just about all we could hope for when it comes to seeing how much battery capacity our iPhone has remaining. Everything else it does is just a pleasant bonus. Best of all, it does this for free, though if you want to remove the ads and get a cool little widget in the process, you might consider paying the $.99.
Keep in mind, there are a number of things you can do to extend the life of your battery between charges, and there’s always the option to use an external battery battery case for those long stints away from the charger.