Smartphones have become an essential part of our life. And with OEMs bringing bigger batteries in their smartphones, the devices also have started to last longer. But the downside is charging. Many phones support fast charging today, but many don’t. And if you don’t charge your phone correctly, it can take almost 2.5 to 3 hours to fully charge a smartphone even if it does support fast charging. Why would that be the case? Here are 6 reasons due to which your phone is charging slowly.
Reasons your phone is charging slowly
1. Using an incompatible Charger.
Time and again, it has been said that the best charger for your phone is the one that comes inside the box. But since OEMs have started to remove chargers from their boxes, it has become more important than ever for you to know the different types of fast charging standards that are used by different companies. If you try to cross them with each other, such as, say using a Samsung fast charger with a OnePlus smartphone, it will simply not work and will restrict it to 10W, taking an eternity to charge. Also, using cheap third-party chargers can be dangerous, since they are not designed to handle high power in newer smartphones.
Qualcomm Quick Charge- This charging standard has been developed by Qualcomm and is compatible with most of the smartphones using a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. You can find the list of compatible devices using the Qualcomm Quick Charge technology here. You will need a certified Qualcomm Quick Charge adaptor to work, and devices are backwards compatible i.e. if a phone is Quick Charge 5 certified, it can work on Quick Charge 3 chargers also.
Samsung PPS- This charging standard is in use for Samsung smartphones and tablets and ranges from 15W to 45W of charging. PPS stands for Programmable Power Supply. This allows for stepwise changes in current and voltage. It decreases the conversion loss during charging, ensuring the charge is more efficient.
USB Power Delivery (USB-PD)- This is a universal standard that is being developed by the USB implementers forum. The newer USB PD 3.0 standard has brought support for PPS charging also, so you can seamlessly charge your Samsung devices with these chargers. Many of the standard devices such as Apple products, flagship smartphones from OnePlus, and even laptops support USB-PD.
VOOC/Warp/Superdart Charging- This standard is exclusively used by the products of the BBK group, namely OnePlus, OPPO, Realme, Vivo and iQOO smartphones. This technology differs from other standards, which increase the voltage during fast charging.VOOC uses a higher current than standard USB charging. This lowers the temperature of the charging adapter, and creates an interface from the adapter to the phone, which improves the speed of charging upto 65W.
2. Wireless Charging
While wireless charging is really convenient, it comes with a lot of caveats. First, the charging is restricted to 15W (Barring new smartphones from OnePlus or Huawei). Moreover, since wireless charging is dependent on the induction coil, it produces a lot of heat, which inadvertently slows down charging and affects your battery in the long run. So, it’s best to charge the old fashioned way.
3. Using the phone when charging
If you use your phone heavily while charging, especially playing BGMI or Call of Duty, it’s wise to stop doing it. Since gaming can use the GPU heavily, alongside using data, not to mention the flow of notifications in the background. This generates a lot of heat, which slows down the charging to prevent overheating and affects the battery health of your smartphone. Likewise, if you are using your phone heavily, such as navigation in a car connected to a car charger, this might also slow down charging to prevent overheating.
4. Damaged Port
Loose connections and damage to your charging port can result in providing improper charging speeds to the device. In such a situation, it is better to get the charging port replaced by the service center. Prolonged usage of damaged hardware can result in fatal consequences like electrocution and cause irreparable harm to the battery.
5. Optimised Charging
Many users are unaware, but in newer smartphones, OEMs have enabled optimised charging by default in smartphones. This trickles down the charging after 80%, hence slowing down the rate of charging. You can disable this in settings.
