The first thing I did with my Fairphone was to root it, and tweak the internal BMS/charge controller settings via a terminal. My ~4 year old device battery pretty much still runs like new, still get 2 days of standby.
From what I read on the FP forums though, users running stock tend to swap out their batteries every 1-2 years, like I had to on my old Galaxy S5. Most manufacturers’ default battery charge profiles target the longest runtime, causing batteries to really degrade quickly.
For consumers that upgrade every 1-2y they won’t notice this issue, but for those of us who want their phone to last longer than that, we notice this really quickly… in these cases having a swappable battery is a must
On the topic of modularity, I had my FP’s vibration motor die on me, that was a very easy fix of literally opening up the device, swapping the module, and done. Absolutely love it!
On my device the charge is set to cut off at 91%, with the maximum charge current set to 500mA. If I’m in a hurry though I typically boost the max current to 1.1A, or the manufacturer’s 2.7A if absolutely necessary (although I think that’s a bit high personally).
To be honest a 1A max charge current would be a good balance between charge time and battery longevity IMO - the main purpose of the lower charge current is to reduce internal battery heat during charging, change the growth characteristics of lithium dendrite clumping within the battery, and reduce the chance of the battery swelling.
I also try to not discharge below 30%.
I’m not an expert on any of this at all though, I just mainly follow Battery University and some takeaways from a handful of research papers analyzing Lithium-based batteries
The first thing I did with my Fairphone was to root it, and tweak the internal BMS/charge controller settings via a terminal. My ~4 year old device battery pretty much still runs like new, still get 2 days of standby.
From what I read on the FP forums though, users running stock tend to swap out their batteries every 1-2 years, like I had to on my old Galaxy S5. Most manufacturers’ default battery charge profiles target the longest runtime, causing batteries to really degrade quickly.
For consumers that upgrade every 1-2y they won’t notice this issue, but for those of us who want their phone to last longer than that, we notice this really quickly… in these cases having a swappable battery is a must
On the topic of modularity, I had my FP’s vibration motor die on me, that was a very easy fix of literally opening up the device, swapping the module, and done. Absolutely love it!
What kind of settings do you need to use, to optimise for battery service life?
On my device the charge is set to cut off at 91%, with the maximum charge current set to 500mA. If I’m in a hurry though I typically boost the max current to 1.1A, or the manufacturer’s 2.7A if absolutely necessary (although I think that’s a bit high personally).
To be honest a 1A max charge current would be a good balance between charge time and battery longevity IMO - the main purpose of the lower charge current is to reduce internal battery heat during charging, change the growth characteristics of lithium dendrite clumping within the battery, and reduce the chance of the battery swelling.
I also try to not discharge below 30%.
I’m not an expert on any of this at all though, I just mainly follow Battery University and some takeaways from a handful of research papers analyzing Lithium-based batteries
You were able to limit the charge/discharge to stay within 20/80% or something like that? That’s awesome, i should look into doing that myself
Yep, I stay within 30%-91% where possible, and also limit the charge current to 500mA since the device defaults to 2.7A which I think is a bit high…
As @[email protected] mentioned it’s probably in the settings menu for your device if you’ve got a newer phone.
On the FP3, the phone’s hardware supports it, but it’s not implemented anywhere in the settings sadly - only way to access it is by rooting
I have the Fairphone 5. Limiting the charge to 80% is actually a feature without rooting!
You can also disable fast charging in the same menu to prolong battery life.
Damn, i thought i had the fairphone 5 as well, but it was “fairphone 4 5G” 😅
Time to throw away my ~1 year old phone to buy the newer model! /s