How to Check the Battery Health of Your Phone

Power - by Bryan Veldboom - updated on 7/26/2022

You rely on your cell phone for an enormous number of things, from streaming music, to providing directions when you're driving somewhere new. The ability to power all those applications comes from your phone's lithium-ion battery. Lithium batteries cram a lot of energy into a small, lightweight unit, giving you the power to run a variety of different apps.

Unfortunately, like all batteries, lithium-ion types don't last forever and a typical lifespan is roughly two to three years, or around 300-500 charge cycles. Here are a few warning signs that your cell phone battery is starting to run down, as well as helpful tips on how to check your cell phone battery's health.

How Do You Know if Your Phone Needs a New Battery?

Here are some of the most common symptoms of a dying cell phone battery:

• You find that you need to charge your phone multiple times a day.
• Your phone won't charge completely.
• Your phone charge drops from 100% down to 90% or 80% immediately after unplugging it from the charger.
• The battery drains quickly.
• For iPhones, the performance begins to slow down.

How to Check Your iPhone Battery's Health Directly

If you're using an iPhone 6 or newer model (running on iOS 11.3 or newer) there's an easy way to check your battery's status directly. Simply select "Settings," then "Battery," followed by "Battery Health." The Battery Health screen will display the following information:

• Maximum Capacity - The percentage displayed here is a measure of your battery's capacity compared to when it was new. A lower percentage may result in fewer hours of usage between charging cycles. A normal battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles when operating under normal conditions.
• Performance Capability - As your battery health degrades, its ability to deliver peak performance will fade over time. This field may also display one of the following messages:
  • Performance is normal - Your battery is currently supporting normal peak performance.
  • Performance management applied - This means that your battery has caused your phone to restart at least once and your software is slowing down your phone's performance. You can restore the iPhone to full speed by selecting "disable" at the end of the message, although this may result in further crashing.
  • Battery health unknown - Appears when your iPhone is unable to determine your battery's health.
  • Performance management turned off - Appears when you have disabled the applied performance management feature. If the device experiences another unexpected shutdown, the performance management feature will be re-applied.
  • Battery health degraded - Displays when your battery's health has degraded significantly.
• Optimized Battery Charging - Available on phones running iOS 13 and later. Optimized Battery Charging works to help reduce the wear on your battery by learning from your charging habits. When engaged, the feature will delay charging your battery past 80% when your phone anticipates that it will be connected to a charger for an extended period of time. This helps to ensure that your iPhone will be fully charged when you unplug it.

How Do I Check My Samsung Battery Health?

If you have a Samsung phone, you can check your battery health using an app called "Samsung Members."

1. Open "Samsung Members."
2. Tap the "Get Help" tab.
3. Select "Interactive Checks."
4. Select "Battery."
5. You will be brought to a screen that displays "Battery power," "Life" and "Capacity."

Can I Check Battery Health on Other Android Phones?

Unfortunately, not all other Android phones have a built-in way to check for battery health, although they do provide you with a list of the apps that have consumed the most power since your last full charge. While this won't help you check your battery's current performance, it is a useful way to track your power usage in order to get the most life out of a healthy battery.

1. Go to "Settings," then select "Battery usage" from the menu at the top right.
2. The Battery usage screen will display a list of the top power-draining apps below.
3. For a more in-depth view, tap on the three-dot menu and select "Show full device usage." This will add systems processes such as your screen or operating system to the list of heavy-draining applications.

Can You Replace a Battery in a Phone Yourself?

It's important to remember that most cell phone batteries aren't like the alkaline batteries found in a flashlight or remote; you can't simply pop them out in order to replace them. Unless you know exactly what you're doing, it's best to seek the services of a professional. Otherwise, you're likely to damage your phone.

Where Can You Get Your Cell Phone Battery Replaced?

Once you know that you need a new battery, where can you go to replace it? Batteries Plus offers professional cell phone battery installation for all major brands, including Apple iPhone, Samsung Galaxy and more. Our technicians are WISE-certified professionals who can perform most battery replacements in less than an hour. Plus, we back up our work with a 6-month national warranty.

Batteries Plus Offers Additional Cell Phone Repair Services

We also offer additional cell phone repair services, including screen replacement, back glass repair, and additional fixes for malfunctioning cameras, buttons, ports, and speakers. Batteries Plus is also a Samsung Independent Service Provider. That means that we repair Samsung phones using official Samsung parts (Samsung parts are used at participating locations when parts are available). Learn more about the Samsung Independent Service Provider Program, or find your nearest Batteries Plus location online.

Want to learn more about maintaining your phone? You'll find plenty of useful information in our blog. Some of our most popular articles include "How Do I Stop My iPhone from Restarting?" and "Is It Worth Upgrading to a 5G Phone?"