Expert issues warning to people who leave their phone on charge before going to sleep

Throwing on some body lotion, playing a bit of white noise, fluffing up the pillows so they’re just right – we’ve all got our little routine before getting some shut eye.

And for many of us, that includes the habit of plugging our phone into charge so that we’ll wake up in the morning to 100 percent battery.

There’s just something so satisfying about being able to unplug your tech first thing and know you’re starting the day fully locked and loaded, ready to go.

But it turns out it might not be such a good habit to have as an expert has issued a warning to people to leave their phone on charge before going to sleep.

Some people already avoid doing it out of the fear that if you keep your device plugged in once it’s already fully charged, then it’ll damage it in the long run.

Charging it while you snooze might not be best in the long-run. (Getty Stock)

And that’s what director of the Electrochemical Engine Centre at Penn State University, Chao-Yang Wang says there is some truth behind.

“A battery will degrade faster if you charge it to 100 percent versus a little bit lower state of charge,” he explained to HuffPost.

Yep, turns out your grand plan to wake up fully charged could be having an impact on your phone’s long-term battery life.

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Associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology, Dibakar Datta, also suggested that keeping it plugged it at 100 percent and consistently charging it to that full level will keep the battery at a high voltage. Plus, this can apparently cause chemical aging in the device.

It’s not hugely, hugely bad though, before you start panicking about all those times you’ve charged your phone overnight.

Wang said that if you’re often doing it right up to 100 percent then your phone battery will deteriorate roughly 10 to 15 percent faster over its lifetime than if you were consistently doing to to something lower, like 90 percent.

It might be best to keep your phone below 100. (Getty Stock)

He added: “So it’s not a whole lot, but it’s noticeable.”

Plus, phone batteries are pretty sturdy anyway, with the expert pointing out that they tend to last ‘longer than the other features’. It’s more likely you’ll end up getting a new phone because of the camera being crap or the screen smashing than just because your battery is playing up.

So, he says that charging it to 100 percent every now and again is fine – especially if you ‘have a mission-critical day’. But if not and you don’t need to rely on your phone so much, try charging it up to about 85 to 90 percent instead.