We know that keeping our smartphones and tablets plugged in over night, well past the point of a full charge, will deplete precious battery life. But who among us purposely gets up in the middle of the night to unplug?
The team at UsBidi assumes very few, which is why its developers believe they have something special with a charging cord that automatically cuts off the power to a device when the battery is full.
UsBidi apparently has struck a cord with backers on Kickstarter. The UsBidi intelligent charger already has more than 1,000 backers with 41 days left and has well surpassed its $25,000 goal.
For smartphones alone, accessories are a $21 billion industry with $2.1 billion of that representing batteries and chargers. Many charging solutions, such as battery cases and portable power banks, focus on the mobile device user on the go.
Photo: UsBidi
The makers of the UsBidi cord feels it can extend battery life with “healthier” charges. The automatic shut-off is similar to an “auto-unplug” function. The cord will let you sync your phone or tablet with the touch of a button. Touching it again to turn of the sync feature and speed up the charging.
The braided cord also features LED indicators to tell you whether your phone is syncing, fast-charing or fully charged.
The price to Kickstarter backers is $18, about half the expected retail price. The cord is available with Lightning or micro USB connectors. UsBidi expects to ship in February.
David Pierini is a former newspaper writer and long-time photographer. Considered a luddite by most of his friends, they did not believe him when he broke the news that he would be writing for a technology website. He is fascinated by human nature and would love to cultivate stories about the people driving the tech bus. Reach out to him at [email protected].
8 responses to “Power-cutting cord gives your device battery the perfect amount of juice”
What’s with the “everybody knows…” attitude on leaving phones connected after a full charge will deplete battery life? This is the first I’ve heard about it and I read CoM and several other Mac-related sites every day. Is this battery depletion thing real or simply rumor or conjecture? I’ve never seen anything from Apple about it. If it is indeed a problem, I’ve damaged my battery considerably by leaving my phone plugged in at my desk for days at a time. Can anyone verify this claim of depletion?
Is Cult Of Mac selling snake oil these days?
It is a well debunked myth that leaving your device plugged into a charger damages the battery. Modern chargers actively top-off, switch-off, then rinse and repeat to protect batteries.
The product being advertised is completely unnecessary.
Do people really think that today’s iPhone dumbly overcharges the battery overnight? It’s called trickle charging people, and every smart phone and tablet made in the last 7 years does it. Put a wattmeter between the charger and the wall outlet and you can see for yourself, the power drops to milliwatts when the battery is fully charged. (Also, fully charged is a fuzzy zone so wait a few minutes after the percentage indicator reads 100% because (again) every smart phone and tablet made in the past 7 years reports 95-97% state of charge as “100% so that it can trickle between 95-actual 100%.) It will pull less charge than it needs to operate until it reaches the state of charge they call 100% and then trickle up to real 100% and repeat. This doesn’t damage a battery at all.
Well, I posted a link to an article that discussed common smartphone charging myths, including the overnight charging, but apparently it was denied.
Essentially phones are too smart these days to let something like overnight charging degrade them.
“We know that keeping our smartphones and tablets plugged in over night, well past the point of a full charge, will deplete precious battery life.”
This statement is completely, absolutely, utterly incorrect. Incorrect. Maybe •some• devices with unsophisticated charging circuits can cause Li-On batteries to suffer from overcharging, but •not• Apple iPhones, iPads, portables or any of the devices they’ve produced for years.
“We know that keeping our smartphones and tablets plugged in over night, well past the point of a full charge, will deplete precious battery life.”
With that one sentence you blew all your credibility as a tech writer.
Unsupported statements of “fact” make me question the legitimacy of all cult of Mac articles. This article is just rubbish trying to sell rubbish.
What complete utter garbage. If anything this cord would eat MORE battery life. If the cable “turns off” and lets the phone use the battery again, it’ll drop %’s as it normally would, adding to what the techies know as ‘charge cycles’
Basically the more %’s you go up and down, the more you wear your battery out. Keeping it full or storing it (for long periods of time, like months) at 50% is the best way to retain it’s longevity.