Apple made it easy to keep an eye on battery health with the Battery Health tool in iOS. This is why battery health has become important to iPhone users. If the battery life on your iPhone shows 85%, you might not know if this is good or bad. So, your phone is no longer useful, right? Can it still do its job? It goes into great depth about what “battery health” means, how it impacts your life, and what you can do to fix it.
How to Check the Health of an iPhone Battery
When you compare how much power your iPhone’s battery has left to when it was brand new, battery life shows you. Say you have a brand-new iPhone. Its battery is 100% healthy, which means it can hold the full charge it was made to hold. As you use and charge your iPhone more, the battery will get worse over time. Chemistries break down over time.
Apple says that a battery is good if it keeps at least 80% of its total power after 500 full charges. Apple checks that a battery meets this level to see how well it works.
What Does “85% Health” Mean for a Battery?
How Healthy Is an 85% Battery? This means that your iPhone’s battery can hold 85% of the charge it did when it was brand new. When you first got your phone, a full charge would let you use it for 10 hours. Now, it would only let you use it for 8.5 hours.
What this means in practice:
- If the battery level is 85%, it’s still good enough, but it’s beginning to show signs of wear.
- Age: 85% is a common number for iPhones that are more than 2 years old. The drop could mean that you use your phone a lot or don’t charge it properly if it’s less than a year old.
Is an 85% battery health good or bad?
Let’s look at this question from both points of view to answer it:
When the health of a battery is 85%
- Damage from normal use: If your iPhone is two to three years old, the battery life at 85% is fine. These levels of power loss are standard for lithium-ion batteries.
- User-Friendliness: Your iPhone should still work fine with 85% battery life. Peak performance will be maintained, and it will not be necessary to slow down its working speed.
- How you use your phone: If you mostly browse the web, watch movies sometimes, and play games sometimes, keeping the battery at 85% won’t change much about your daily life.
When a battery’s health is 85% is bad
- Heavy Usage: If you use your iPhone for a lot of heavy tasks, like games, editing videos, or switching between tasks all the time, the 85% battery health could mean that the battery lasts less long when you’re doing these tasks.
- Thoughts on Replacing the Battery: If the battery life of your iPhone has dropped to 85% in a year, it could mean that you overcharged it, left it in too much heat, or used it too often. If this happens, you might need to change how you charge the battery or think about getting a new one sooner than planned.
- Charging Often: If your iPhone is only 85% charged, you may need to charge it more often, especially if you use apps that use a lot of power.
Things That Affect the Health of a Battery
What factors affect how quickly your iPhone’s battery dies?
- Two charge rounds are added to the total every time the battery goes from 0% to 100%. The battery gets weaker with each use, and most iPhones can only handle about 500 uses before the battery quits working completely.
- Recharging Habits: Always charging to 100% can drain the battery faster. Your iPhone can also get damaged if you leave it plugged in for a long time after it’s fully charged.
- Temperature: Either too hot or too cold can hurt your battery. If you leave your iPhone in a hot car or use it a lot in direct sunlight, it may get old faster.
- When Apple releases new versions of iOS, most of the time, the battery life improves. However, bugs or features that push the limits of your hardware can sometimes make your battery die faster.
How to Keep Your Battery Healthy
These tips will help you keep your battery in great shape:
- Don’t charge your phone too much. Unplug it when it hits 80% to 90%, especially if you’re charging it overnight.
- Turn on Optimized Battery Charging. This iOS function learns how you usually charge your phone and keeps the charge at 80% until you need it.
- Use Chargers of Good Quality: To keep the battery safe, only use chargers that are approved by Apple or ones of similar quality.
- Deal with heat: Keep your iPhone away from very hot or very cold places, and don’t use it a lot while it’s charging.
- Charge in Short Bursts: Instead of letting your battery die all the way, charge it when it gets to 20–30% and unplug it when it gets to 80–90%.
When Should You Get a New Battery?
Apple says to get a new iPhone battery when the health level goes below 80%, because that could cause problems with how well it works. You don’t need to change your battery right away if its health is at 85% unless you have problems like
- Sudden shutdowns
- Short battery life
- Overheating when not in use
- Slow performance because of battery throttling
You can get a new battery at an Apple Store or an approved service shop. It doesn’t cost too much and can make your iPhone last a lot longer.
How to Check the Health of a Battery?
To see how healthy your iPhone’s battery is:
- Go to Battery in Settings.
- Click on Battery Health & Charging.
- Check the Maximum Capacity number and any alerts about how well the battery is working.
What Does “85% Battery Health” Mean? Should You Be Worried?
Many times, a battery that is 85% healthy is not a reason to worry. Like all electronics, your iPhone will break down over time, but it’s still fine to use normally. However, if your phone isn’t meeting your daily needs or if its health is quickly declining, you may need to change how you charge it or think about getting a new battery.
How “good” or “bad” an 85% battery life is relying on how you use your phone and what you expect from it. Even if it’s only 85% charged, your iPhone can still work well for months or even years if you take good care of it.