Is fast charging actually harmful?

I’m using Samsung’s 25W adapter that I got from my previous galaxy A70, it charges the S24 ultra relatively fast, but does it really degrade the battery faster? it wouldn’t make sense to implement a fast charging feature if it basically self destructs the battery over time

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Yes. So does regular charging. Heat and stress reduces lifecycles, and fast charging produces more heat and more stress.

As does allowing your battery to drop to zero and charging to 100% or charging to 100% in general. Or leaving your phone on the charger overnight while you sleep.

I say all that to say this: just use your phone and don’t worry about it.

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Ok, I just didn’t know if it ruined it a lot faster with fast charging but I’m just gonna use it now I want and not worry: I wish they could fix these issues with batteries

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It’s not an “issue”, it’s physics. It’s how the lithium-ion material works. Works the same way in Alkaline batteries. You see the same thing with something rubber bands if you stretch and relax it a bunch of times; eventually it snaps. It breaks even faster if you expose it to wild temperature changes. Heat up a drinking glass and put it into cold water and it runs the risk of shattering faster than your typical dishwasher to room temperature cooldown would.

The soles on the bottom of your shoes probably aren’t as grippy as they were when you first got them, either.

When they finally move to graphine batteries in the next 500 years, this will be less of an issue because there wouldn’t be a need to charge as often, but even those futuristic batteries will wear out from use.

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Use your flagship device for what it is. Use it to it’s fullest and charge it if and when you want.

Enjoy!

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I mostly charge my phone at night and there’s no use in fast charging it then anyway, so I usually have it disabled. You could set up Routines which disable fast charging at night if you wanted to automate that while keeping fast charging on during the day.

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Yeah, using a Bixby routine to set slow charging at night is great, I do it for my phone and tablet. Also, if you don’t want to do that you can just use an old 5W charger that most of us will have lying around for overnight charging.

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I’ve had my OnePlus 6T for 4 and a bit years, and only ever exclusively used my 30W Warp Charger. Using a specific OnePlus diagnostic app which tells users the condition of the battery, it still at 82%, so has only lost 18% over the years. That’s with charging it pretty much everyday 1-2 times from around 40-60% battery life upwards (I’m OCD with it).

Could be different with other phones, but for me I’m not worried one bit about how or when I charge my S23 Ultra when it arrives, because it all seems a bit overblown. Obviously some phones do perform worse than others, but I don’t think using your fast charger most/all of the time is going to cause any significant difference compared to a normal charger.

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If you worry a lot about those things you are never going to really enjoy using your smartphone, so just be a bit careful but not so much that you end up using a 5w charger.