We are often forced to change smartphones because the battery lasts too little. Here's how to find out if the battery is getting damaged
The battery capacity, and the consequent autonomy, is one of the most important factors when choosing a modern smartphone. Today we are used to being always connected and we turn on the screen of our device hundreds of times a day. Unfortunately, the battery is also one of the most delicate elements of the hardware of a smartphone and one of those that "ages" faster. The thing that makes a battery age the most is the charging itself: the more charge and discharge cycles a battery has behind it, the less efficient it will be. There are several ways to slow down the aging of a battery, but no way to stop it: even if the smartphone is turned off for months the battery continues to lose efficiency over time. You can, however, monitor the health of your smartphone's battery and get statistics on the use of this component. Here's how to do it.
How to check the health of our smartphone
The first attempt we can make to check if our battery is still healthy is to type the string *#*#4636#*#* in the phone dialer and launch the call. If our smartphone accepts the use of special codes then it will show us a secret menu full of information about the hardware. Among the information there are also those about the battery: current level, general health status and "battery scale", that is the percentage (compared to new battery) of capacity left in the battery. A new battery has a battery scale of 100, a completely exhausted battery has a battery scale of 0. If our battery is still between 80 and 100, then it is in good health. If our smartphone doesn't accept the codes, we can get the same information only by using an app, such as CPU-Z or dozens of similar ones.
How to check battery recharge cycles
The more the battery is charged and discharged, the more it ages: each charge/discharge cycle affects the battery scale of the accumulator and this is one of the reasons why it is always better to do few long recharges than very short and partial ones. Unfortunately, however, practically no Android smartphone has among the settings the ability to read the count of charging cycles. To know it, we'll have to install an app, for example Charge Cycle Battery Stats or Battery Cycle. Unfortunately, however, these apps have a big flaw: they count charging cycles only from the moment they are installed. That's why, if we want to know the exact number of charging cycles of our smartphone, we have to install one of these apps the first time we start the device.