It’s a common misconception, but fast charging is not bad for your phone and its battery. It’s all thanks to the two phases of fast charging: the first phase directs more power to a low battery to deliver a fast charge, and the second slowly trickles power until your phone reaches 100%. That reduced charging speed in the second phase of fast charging is what helps prevent the stress and heat that can cause long-term battery damage.
Yes, it’s safe. A fast charger is not going to be bad for your phone — but that only applies if you’re using your phone manufacturer’s charger or one from a reputable third party like mophie. Low-quality fast chargers aren’t manufactured with the same safety and quality standards, which could lead to overheating during charging and even damage to your phone’s battery. In these cases, fast charging is bad for your phone.
Since phone batteries are finite, they all lose battery capacity over time regardless of the charger you use. Because of this, neither fast charging nor regular charging is necessarily bad for your phone's battery capacity. Batteries degrade naturally after each charging cycle. This may happen a little quicker with a fast charger, which can generate more heat from delivering more power to batteries. However, many current phones have technology to manage heat and power flow, along with optimized/adaptive charging to extend battery life based on your usage.
Just because fast charging is not inherently bad for your phone doesn’t mean it’s entirely free of risk. Using counterfeit or low-quality fast chargers can cause overheating and degrade battery health.
To get more daily battery life out of your phone, you can utilize common methods like dimming your phone’s brightness levels, turning off WiFi and Bluetooth when not in use, reducing push notifications, and limiting location services like your phone’s weather app. Long-term, you should keep your phone out of extreme heat, make sure to update your operating system — this can fix software bugs that affect battery life, and avoid draining your battery to 0% before charging.
