why is the snow killing my phone's battery?
January 23, 2016 7:05 AM Subscribe
Snowmageddon has started, and now my iPhone 6 won't hold a battery charge. What's going on and how can I remedy this?
Sometime yesterday, my iPhone stopped holding a charge - the strange thing is this only seems to happen when I leave home. Battery is fully charged, phone is updated, all apps closed, in low power mode, and have not changed any settings. Why is this happening?
It worked fine yesterday morning when I went for an hour run outside, miles from home. Later in the day I took a walk to Whole Foods. Coincidentally as soon as I walk out the store, it started snowing. And then my phone immediately lost its charge. It'll go from 100%, to 96%, to 72%, in a matter of under one minute. It'll shut off until I get home and hook it up to a charger.
Same thing happened when I went out for a walk late last night, and also this morning. Come home, hook it up to a charge, and it's back to normal. Looks fully charged. And will work normally without any abnormal battery shenanigans. What the hell is happening?!
Sometime yesterday, my iPhone stopped holding a charge - the strange thing is this only seems to happen when I leave home. Battery is fully charged, phone is updated, all apps closed, in low power mode, and have not changed any settings. Why is this happening?
It worked fine yesterday morning when I went for an hour run outside, miles from home. Later in the day I took a walk to Whole Foods. Coincidentally as soon as I walk out the store, it started snowing. And then my phone immediately lost its charge. It'll go from 100%, to 96%, to 72%, in a matter of under one minute. It'll shut off until I get home and hook it up to a charger.
Same thing happened when I went out for a walk late last night, and also this morning. Come home, hook it up to a charge, and it's back to normal. Looks fully charged. And will work normally without any abnormal battery shenanigans. What the hell is happening?!
I am guessing that some of the cell towers are down or lower on power and your phone, away from your wifi, is searching for a good tower which expends battery quickly.
posted by AugustWest at 7:25 AM on January 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by AugustWest at 7:25 AM on January 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
There's also some kind of bug in iOS9 that affects the battery indicator. Perhaps this is also part of the problem.
posted by Nedroid at 7:30 AM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Nedroid at 7:30 AM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
i think your phone (hardware or software) is broken. neither cold temps nor poor reception should reduce your battery from 100% to 72% in 1 minute.
posted by andrewcooke at 7:31 AM on January 23, 2016
posted by andrewcooke at 7:31 AM on January 23, 2016
I've had the same experience with the iPhone's battery acting strangely if it's very cold out, to the point where it'll shut off until I go back inside.
posted by lydhre at 7:32 AM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by lydhre at 7:32 AM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Promise not to threadsit... but why would this suddenly be happening, or suddenly be affected by the cold? I've been out with my phone in much colder temperatures - just a couple days ago - and never experienced this. It was completely fine yesterday morning when I was outdoors for more than an hour. Now it will literally drain in seconds, until I get home (with wifi turned off). If it works normally at home, could it still be a hardware/software problem? Argh this is maddening!
posted by raztaj at 7:37 AM on January 23, 2016
posted by raztaj at 7:37 AM on January 23, 2016
Where did you put your phone while you were outside walking? In order of most likely to have battery issues because of cold:
- in your hand while you fiddled with it
- in an outer coat pocket or a purse
- in your hip pocket while wearing a short jacket
- in an inner pocket near your body heat with a layer of insulation outside
I had an old ipod that did this like crazy, while I lived in Chicago. It was fine for light snow and near-freezing, but on days when the weather was single-digit, I couldn't set it on the car seat for the drive to work until the car had warmed up, and I couldn't carry it in my outer pocket. One would think that the battery performance was better these days, or else Alaska would be on Apple boycott by now and we'd know all about it, but maybe it's a combination of cold plus another stressor (age, etc)
posted by aimedwander at 7:40 AM on January 23, 2016
- in your hand while you fiddled with it
- in an outer coat pocket or a purse
- in your hip pocket while wearing a short jacket
- in an inner pocket near your body heat with a layer of insulation outside
I had an old ipod that did this like crazy, while I lived in Chicago. It was fine for light snow and near-freezing, but on days when the weather was single-digit, I couldn't set it on the car seat for the drive to work until the car had warmed up, and I couldn't carry it in my outer pocket. One would think that the battery performance was better these days, or else Alaska would be on Apple boycott by now and we'd know all about it, but maybe it's a combination of cold plus another stressor (age, etc)
posted by aimedwander at 7:40 AM on January 23, 2016
I have this happen when I'm out in the cold and my iPhone 6 is in my hand. This week I went out for a run and my battery (at 68%) shut off after 15 minutes. I was holding my phone in my hand (doing intervals and using the timer), and the phone was quite cold. Plugged it in and it was back to 68% when it turned on. I've had the same thing happen after a longer time period in less cold temperatures. Otherwise, my phone battery seems fine. Maybe the temps are just colder than you realize, or maybe you were keeping it warmer somehow before, or maybe the cumulative effect of cold exposure has made it more sensitive to cold than it used to be. Alas... I am looking for a solution as well.
posted by DoubleLune at 7:46 AM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by DoubleLune at 7:46 AM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
It might be cold+moisture: this has really only happened to me during snowstorms or right after. See: boston's snowpocalypse last year.
posted by lydhre at 8:02 AM on January 23, 2016
posted by lydhre at 8:02 AM on January 23, 2016
This always happens to my husband's iPhones when he's out for a walk in the winter, snow or not. It happened with his old 4S and happened with his new 6S just this week. It would probably happen to mine too but I'm not outside in the cold like some kind of lunatic. It's not really draining the battery; once you're inside and the phone warms back up you'll see the battery percentage pop back up.
posted by something something at 8:20 AM on January 23, 2016
posted by something something at 8:20 AM on January 23, 2016
How old is the phone? Phone batteries tend to die and when they do it can be quite precipitous. Weather or other factors may or may not be coincidental.
posted by flug at 8:24 AM on January 23, 2016
posted by flug at 8:24 AM on January 23, 2016
How a cold snap makes our smartphone batteries go flat.
posted by cecic at 8:40 AM on January 23, 2016
posted by cecic at 8:40 AM on January 23, 2016
As you say, it's not particularly cold, and you've been out in colder temperatures. Snow doesn't do this.
There's something wrong with your phone. The weather is a coincidence.
posted by caek at 9:11 AM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
There's something wrong with your phone. The weather is a coincidence.
posted by caek at 9:11 AM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Last weekend I was out hiking at -15ish and was carrying my iPhone in a protected interior pocket. Took it out to take a picture and it started up fine but before I could even compose the shot - maybe 10-15 seconds - the phone shut itself down. This is an aging iPhone 5c.
posted by lakeroon at 10:56 AM on January 23, 2016
posted by lakeroon at 10:56 AM on January 23, 2016
As I understand it, you can adversely damage a Lithium Ion or Lithium Polymer battery by charging or discharging below the safe operating temperature range through a process called lithium plating.
So if you take your phone in from the cold and immediately throw it on the charger, chances are really good that the core temps of the batteries did not come up to room temperature before the charging cycle began, even if your phone is warm to the touch on the outside. There's a lot of thermal mass in a battery pack and it can take a long time to warm or cool.
I've ruined about three different lithium ion and lithium polymer USB battery bank batteries this year by doing just this by throwing them on one my solar panels early in the morning before things have warmed up.
The effect is especially bad when the battery is almost completely discharged and also too cold for charging. It introduces a nasty "memory" at that discharged state that seemingly turns that low charge state into the maximum available charge, drastically reducing total working capacity. (Memory is in scare quotes because I may be misusing the term, as memory has a different definition for other battery chemistries like NiCad and NiMH.)
Ideally ou really want any/all lithium chemistry batteries to be at about 60-70 F before charging for maximum longevity and charging capacity.
Incidentally, this is one of the reasons that electric/hybrid cars (and space satellites and probes) use battery heaters. It's not just to increase chemical activity on discharge through heat, but to keep the battery within safe operating temperatures for charging as well.
posted by loquacious at 12:27 PM on January 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
So if you take your phone in from the cold and immediately throw it on the charger, chances are really good that the core temps of the batteries did not come up to room temperature before the charging cycle began, even if your phone is warm to the touch on the outside. There's a lot of thermal mass in a battery pack and it can take a long time to warm or cool.
I've ruined about three different lithium ion and lithium polymer USB battery bank batteries this year by doing just this by throwing them on one my solar panels early in the morning before things have warmed up.
The effect is especially bad when the battery is almost completely discharged and also too cold for charging. It introduces a nasty "memory" at that discharged state that seemingly turns that low charge state into the maximum available charge, drastically reducing total working capacity. (Memory is in scare quotes because I may be misusing the term, as memory has a different definition for other battery chemistries like NiCad and NiMH.)
Ideally ou really want any/all lithium chemistry batteries to be at about 60-70 F before charging for maximum longevity and charging capacity.
Incidentally, this is one of the reasons that electric/hybrid cars (and space satellites and probes) use battery heaters. It's not just to increase chemical activity on discharge through heat, but to keep the battery within safe operating temperatures for charging as well.
posted by loquacious at 12:27 PM on January 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
I've had the experience as DoubleLune. The other day I went for a run, temperature was -5ºC, had the phone out in my hand a lot and in a hoodie pocket where it may have not been well insulated and not getting any of body heat the rest of the time. Battery apparently went dead, but when I got back inside it booted up showing 72% charge remaining. Next run, same temp out, I kept in my pants pocket where it could get a bit of my body heat and had no problems.
posted by rodlymight at 2:57 PM on January 23, 2016
posted by rodlymight at 2:57 PM on January 23, 2016
Anecdata: The Weather Channel reporter just said on air that it's so cold that his phone turned off. So it's a known thing.
posted by Jacqueline at 3:57 PM on January 23, 2016
posted by Jacqueline at 3:57 PM on January 23, 2016
It might be a combination of the cold + overtaxed cell towers, especially if lots of people are home, and using their phones online heavily. When I went to the Inauguration in Wash DC a few years ago, my phone was completely dead after 3 hours, as it was constantly pinging for a signal, and the towers were overtaxed.
posted by spinifex23 at 4:35 PM on January 23, 2016
posted by spinifex23 at 4:35 PM on January 23, 2016
Oddly, I have the exact same problem, same model of phone, same onset, same weather (15–20" here), same crazy severity.
posted by waldo at 5:08 PM on January 23, 2016
posted by waldo at 5:08 PM on January 23, 2016
After reading through the answers, and the linked articles, I realize that I've been carrying my phone differently in the snow. Normally it's in my jeans' pocket, warmed by my leg. But working out the snow today, wearing lots of layers to deal with the blowing snow, I've kept my phone in the pocket of my windbreaker, where my body heat is negligible (if the lower layers are doing their job) and the jacket does nothing at all to provide insulation for the pocket. Perhaps this would have been a problem all along, if I'd kept my phone basically exposed to 24°F temperatures.
posted by waldo at 5:14 PM on January 23, 2016
posted by waldo at 5:14 PM on January 23, 2016
Cold temps and battery chemistry and how they work are definitely the problem, here, and a known thing and problem in the world of batteries.
Unless you have some old clamshell phone or candybar, pretty much all modern phones use lithium ion or more increasingly lithium polymer, or LiPo battery technologies. They are very sensitive to temperature ranges as described in the graphs in the article I linked above.
And you can and will damage the battery if you charge it at too low of a temperature. It doesn't really matter how smart the charge controller is or if it's an iPhone or Android. As I understand it, it can be somewhat doubly dangerous to charge at lower temps due to the change in resistance sending false information to the smart/active charging circuit, which may under/over charge in response.
And this is actually kind of a problem.
The way these membrane-based batteries work they can be weakened and lose internal membrane insulation properties due to chemistry changes and bad charge cycles, which might actually make the battery more prone to later catastrophic failure and thermal runaway due to stresses in the higher temp range, too much amperage draw or overcharging.
Or simply no longer holding a charge.
If anything the iPhone 6 and similar ultra-thin aluminum case phones are going to freeze the fastest due to their surface area and how effective aluminum is as a thermal conductor and heat/cold sink.
There's probably going to be a plague of people with dead batteries due to doing stuff like leaving them in their car seat or dashboard while charging and the car is still below freezing temps.
posted by loquacious at 5:58 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Unless you have some old clamshell phone or candybar, pretty much all modern phones use lithium ion or more increasingly lithium polymer, or LiPo battery technologies. They are very sensitive to temperature ranges as described in the graphs in the article I linked above.
And you can and will damage the battery if you charge it at too low of a temperature. It doesn't really matter how smart the charge controller is or if it's an iPhone or Android. As I understand it, it can be somewhat doubly dangerous to charge at lower temps due to the change in resistance sending false information to the smart/active charging circuit, which may under/over charge in response.
And this is actually kind of a problem.
The way these membrane-based batteries work they can be weakened and lose internal membrane insulation properties due to chemistry changes and bad charge cycles, which might actually make the battery more prone to later catastrophic failure and thermal runaway due to stresses in the higher temp range, too much amperage draw or overcharging.
Or simply no longer holding a charge.
If anything the iPhone 6 and similar ultra-thin aluminum case phones are going to freeze the fastest due to their surface area and how effective aluminum is as a thermal conductor and heat/cold sink.
There's probably going to be a plague of people with dead batteries due to doing stuff like leaving them in their car seat or dashboard while charging and the car is still below freezing temps.
posted by loquacious at 5:58 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Once when it was really cold (-30? -40?) I took my iPhone out and I got a message along the lines of "iPhone is too hot and needs to cool down I figured it had just gotten confused.
But it doesn't sound like your phone was that cold.
posted by leahwrenn at 1:12 AM on January 24, 2016
But it doesn't sound like your phone was that cold.
posted by leahwrenn at 1:12 AM on January 24, 2016
FWIW, after writing last night about how I was having the same problem, today I headed out for snowbound chores (watering the hens, sweeping the snow off the solar panels, shoveling the walk, etc.), and this time I kept my phone in the front pocket of my jeans instead of my uninsulated jacket pocket. And problem solved—my phone battery has been fine today.
posted by waldo at 5:35 PM on January 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by waldo at 5:35 PM on January 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
I've had the same thing happen to me while snowshoeing. If I keep my phone (a 6s) in a pocket close to my body it's fine, but if I take too many pictures, or keep it in a pocket that's in my coat (a couple layers of insulation away from me) it'll shut down for "lack" of battery. I've been able to "revive" it without needing a recharge simply by putting it back in a pocket close to me and waiting for 30 minutes or so to warm back up.
posted by togdon at 8:18 AM on January 25, 2016
posted by togdon at 8:18 AM on January 25, 2016
Trick used at ski mountains – get toe warmers that have a sticker on one side and stick it to the back of your phone when it's cold outside.
posted by zeikka at 4:10 PM on January 25, 2016
posted by zeikka at 4:10 PM on January 25, 2016
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