HOW IS BATTERY LIFE AFFECTED THROUGH USE?

Vanessa Barahona & Asher Spencer

December 11, 2015

Mr. Kaura

Period:4 & 1

Hypothesis:

I believe that the variety of different uses throughout the charging process will have an affect on

the battery percentage at the end of the charging session because as the battery is charging it is
also being used however, we don't believe the change in charge will be as significant, the results

will probably have a two or three percent gain change. We believe as the phone charging

products become more portable the percent gain will lower and as the amount of activity

increases the battery life will decrease by possibly two percent in a 15 minute charging session.

Materials:
Cell phone of your choice
Cell phones original charger provided by the company (i.e samsung phone =
samsung charger)
Generic USB cord
Battery Power Adapter 2200 mAh (portable phone charger)
Laptop of your choice
Car with USB port
Cell phone applications (i.e music streaming, messaging, social media, video
streaming applications)
Procedure:
1. Collect all materials listed above.
2. Plug in phone to companys charger into wall outlet.
3. Plug in phone and press the power key causing the screen to turn black. This will
allow your phone to be in sleeping mode.
4. Charge your phone for fifteen minutes and record percent gain (Current % -
Starting % = % gain)
5. Charge your phone again for fifteen minutes but this time running an application
while on sleep mode (ex music streaming or a phone call) and record percent gain
6. Open phone and go into settings.
7. Find display category and turn brightness down completely
8. Charge phone for another fifteen minute session this time have your phone open
and on applications normally used throughout day (i.e messaging, social media, etc).
Record percent gain.
9. Go into settings and find display category.
10. Turn the brightness up completely.
11. Repeat step eight.
12. Use different charging source (i.e portable charger, car usb port, laptop usb port,
etc.)
13. Repeat steps four through twelve until all sources are tested.

Abstract: When we chose this science fair project our goal in mind was to find the most efficient

way to not only charge your phone but to also see if the activities done while charging your

phone will have a significant difference in comparison to not being on your phone during the

charging process. In reality we hadnt thought much change would be evident however in testing
the charging of the battery in sessions and doing a variety of activities that had previously

claimed to have an affect on battery life, we came to multiple conclusions. We discovered that

the only source deemed worthy of actual charge within an hour time frame is the outlet and when

charging on other sources for the most part will either give a two or three percent charge when

on stand by. If the cell phone is being used however, it is more likely that your phone will die off

by five sometimes even ten percent in a one hour session. We discovered that buying a portable

charger is not worth the money in the long run as seeing that the battery becomes overheated and

eventually shuts off when doing simple tasks as playing music for an entire fifteen minutes. This

can not only cause certain applications and personal setup to alter but can also cause an

influxation in battery. Batteries that become prone to this wear and tear will eventually swell in

size and no longer be able to charge as fast, hold a charge, and eventually will cease to charge

altogether which will result in the purchase of yet another battery ranging anywhere from fifty to

one hundred dollars depending on cell phone provider and insurance. We also discovered that

manufactured usb cords are no different from the ones bought at your local gas station for five

dollars when a replacement name branded cord and plug in is about twenty five dollars. Our

science project has shown that in order to avoid long term damage on your cell phone, it is better

to wait until you are near an outlet and have a set time when you will not need you phone in

order to get the best charge.

Data Collection:

Percent Change Throughout Sessions of Power Sources

Power source Starting 1st session 2nd session 3rd session 4th session
percentage

Portable 50% 50% 48% 41% 36%

Charger
Laptop USB 50% 53% 50% 46% 40%
Port

Company 50% 65% 79% 88% 94%

Charger

Car USB 50% 49% 44% 37% 29%

Port

Data Analysis:
Conclusion:

Our question, How is Battery Life Affected by Usage? was answered during our

experiments. As we already stated in the hypothesis, we already assumed that applications being

ran during the charging sessions would indeed have a negative effect, which was certainly

proved during our lab. We discovered that with a standard outlet charge we gain the most

efficiency by fifteen percent and with applications running there is a percentage gain of around

ten percent. With wireless andon the go charging such as car USB we found that almost all

energy needed to charge your battery is used to process the demands needed to run the

applications. This causes a low charge rate and will kill off your battery by approximately five

percent. Even while charging your phone with the screen locked the likelihood of a charge

greater than three percent is highly unlikely. In conducting this experiment, I now wish we would

have had larger time sessions along with multiple phones in testing due to the fact that my own

phone may have battery damage which would cause a slower rate of charge in comparison to

another persons phone. These experiments will help in real world situations when we are in dire

need of a fast charge yet we need to also use our applications. We can calculate the amount of

time we have with the percent:application charge ratio to determine what percentage we will

have in one charge session. Then using this new information we can modify our cell phone

device habits to accommodate our charging needs for hours to come. If I were to further this

experiment however, I would find the percent charging differences within different products of

phones like samsung galaxy, iphone, android, HTc, etc. This would help determine not only the

percent charge but which device is the most logical for an individual who is constantly on the go

and in need of a long lasting yet quick charge.

Work Cited
Limer, Eric. 8 Essential Tips To Keep Your Phones Battery Healthy. Popular Mechanics. N.p.,

26 May 2015. Web. 08 Dec. 2015.

Hollister, Sean. How to Take Care of Your Smartphone Battery the Right Way. Gizmodo. N.p.,

26 Dec 2014. Web. 08 Dec. 2015

Mastroianni, Brian. These Apps Use the Most Data and Drain Battery Life CBSNews. CBS

Interactive. 20 Oct. 2015. Web. 09 Dec. 2015.

Ponti, Julia. New Tool Reduces Smartphone Battery Drain from Faulty Apps Editorial. State

News Service. N.p. 10 Sept. 2015

Stickland, Jonathan How Wireless Mobile Chargers Work HowStuffWorks. N.p. 16 July 2012.

Web. 10 Dec. 2015

Vanessa Barahona & Asher Spencer

Mr. Kaura

Period: 4&1
December 11,2015

How is Battery Life Affected Through Usage?

Battery life. A twenty four hour luxury provided by cell phone companies globally but

how many times has your phone lasted a whole day in actuality? Smartphones as of today use up

a large portion of your battery without your slightest knowledge meaning your phone can sit on

a table all day and you can come up to find a battery that it is at fifty percent. Why is that? The

answer is as simple as the nonstop search for satellite service your phone does throughout the

day. Your phone is constantly using up battery life in order to update you on everything including

social media, the latest installment of applications, new text messages, etc. When halfway

through the day we turn on our phones to find a half drained battery we then go to the most

efficient charging source. This source ranges from where your current location is. Sometimes it

will be your car or office space and sometimes youll be in your home and while thats all great

we as a first world society tend to use the daily conveniences during the charging course. This

lead to harmful effects within your devices battery and will eventually cause issues with the

usage of your phone. So what time frame do you have in mind and how full you want your

battery to be charged are two important questions when deciding on how and what you'll be

doing during the free time without your phone.

On the outside, charging a battery appears to be simple, plug it into a socket then place

cell phone on charger and wait. The process proves to be more difficult in your lithium-ion

battery however. A cell phone battery contains two sides named anode and cathode. Throughout

this entire battery there is a material called electrolyte. When your charger completes the circuit

energy is flowed through the battery causing a formation of electrons to be formed on the anode

side. As a result the electrons become crammed into one side this is also known as a full, one
hundred percent battery. When we disconnect our cell phones our battery begins to die off this is

the what occurs when the electrons are allowed to freely pass through the circuit into the cathode

side. When all electrons have reached this side it is known to us as a dead battery, thus beginning

the cycle once again. The cycle is considerably longer for some phones than others though and

this is due to the amount of lithium ions that can squeeze into the two sides, anode and cathode.

As we go down the timeline in phone evolution there is a relationship between battery life and

age of the phone. As phones become progressively newer they require more power in

comparison to a phone built in the early two thousands where the only uses was for calling.

Batteries for phones like these can remain at a level battery for days instead of the traditional

smartphone that only allows for, if were lucky, eight maybe ten hours.

Batteries are built to break and with that being said on average a phone will need to have

its battery replaced every five hundred to fifteen hundred cycles. A cycle in one discharge but the

amount of energy put off during discharging (know as depth of discharge D.o.D) is what affects

the over life of your battery. Lithium ion batteries arent particularly fond of deep D.o.D for

example a battery that is allowed to discharge until zero percent and charged back up to one

hundred percent will die will damage the batteries capacity to about seventy percent. This means

that instead of the intended five hundred to fifteen hundred cycles, your battery will need to be

replaced every three hundred cycles. Along with D.o.D cell phone users must be aware of the

excess heat that is released when charging and continuing to use the product. At approximately

one hundred degrees Fahrenheit the lithium ion battery will begin to decrease its overall charge

capacity by forty percent. Even at a mere seventy five degrees the phone will lose about twenty

percent capacity. Despite popular belief overcharging does not affect battery capacity and proves

to actually prolong your battery. Short charging sessions that increase your phone to about
twenty five percent instead of the usual two hour sessions to increase to a full battery will expand

the life of your battery by 400 cycles.

Due to our short battery life span we as a society have become accustomed to using

wireless and car chargers. This proves to be the most efficient when on the go but it also proves

to be problematic in other areas. Portable chargers work just as cell phone batteries do, with the

transmission of electrons through the two areas within your battery the anode and cathode. This

however isnt by far considered as efficient as the standard wall outlet because as the energy is

stored into the portable charger it remains within until turned on for use. When the power button

is pushed this allows the energy to flow out of the battery of the portable charger and into the

devices battery. As the electrons complete this cycle it is expected to make twice the effort than

normally anticipated. This extra work will in turn cause an excessive amount of waste heat talked

about earlier. When there is waster heat the electrons are then released from this path of

electricity, thus losing more energy than battery percentage is gained. Alongside portable

chargers are the typical car USB ports. These prove ineffective due to the energy that must

circulate through the entirety of the vehicle. Much like the portable charger the energy that is

needed to transport throughout the entire automobile will not be able to produce as much

electricity need for a phone to operate. The electricity circulating from your cars USB port is

originally from the cars engines battery. This is used for everything within a car from the

headlights, radio, clock, indoor light, air conditioner, bluetooth, heater etc. The more energy that

must be passed through numerous others obstacles will always result in a less efficient source of

energy no matter what predicament we are in. Whether we must leave in fifteen minutes and

need a full battery instantaneously it is always better to use the standard way of charging.
 In order to prolong your battery life to avoid wireless on the go charging and save your

money there are certain tips and tricks to maintaining a healthy battery. The top reason for a

fractured battery is due to the heat as previously stated. This could be prevented by keeping your

cell phone in a cool environment while running applications and charging. Although it may

appear as a convenience, portable and USB ports and are not recommended sources for your

device. This is due to the added waste heat released not only to charge your phone but to operate

the device you're charging with. Topping off your battery is essential to keeping a long lived

battery in addition to keeping it above fifty percent daily. This is because when a battery is

beyond the point of fifty percent it requires more energy to compensate for the lack of charge and

will create a frenzy within your phone. People neglect that our phones can only run so many

items in one sitting. We tend to forget that we have so many applications running as we click

home and open up a new application. This causes the percentage to dwindle rapidly and will

cause you to have to charge often. Not only do we leave apps like Youtube, Facebook, and

Google running, but some applications open as soon as your phone is turned on called auto run

applications. Shutting off applications that you are not in the process of using can save your

percentage by fifteen percent hourly. The top five auto start up apps you probably have on your

phone are Facebook, Google Play Services, Facebook Pages Manager, BBM, and Words with

Friends. The top five applications run by user are Snapchat, Amazon Shopping, Spotify Music,

LINE, and Samsung WatchON. We can do simple things to modify battery efficiency also. This

includes slight changes with your personal set up within your phone however, it could save about

nine percent when the screen is on. The adjustment made is simply to just turn down the

brightness of your phone. The battery for your device has plenty other uses and cell phone

brightness can be one of the many things that could be prevented from drainage. There are also
plenty of applications that will automatically kill off certain programs to avoid unnecessary

transmission of energy. These apps will locate the programs downloaded for once in awhile use

and turn off reminders, uploads, updates, and notifications until the time youre in need of the

app.

In this experiment we will be testing the rates at which cell phone batteries are affected

during certain applications and modifications to personal setup. It is said that applications such

as Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Youtube, Tumblr, and other social media apps

will cause a depletion in your phone batterys percentage by about twenty eight point nine

percent hourly. This of course is opposed to your device dying off at a rate of about sixteen

percent hourly with standard use being messaging and calling every so often. We will be testing

the rate at which batteries die with applications running on full brightness and on dim brightness

along with how efficient battery saving occurs when we allow our devices screen to timeout. We

will calculate percent differences to give us the ratios at which cell phones charge at. In doing

this we will be allowed insight on exactly how much our phone is taking in through charging

sessions and be able to calculate to what extent we are willing to wait to allow for a certain

charge percentage while in the process of using our devices.