September 26, 2006
Phone charged? Unplug it!
Authored by Dan Moren at 3:58 PM
Category | Phone & Wireless
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We're all about conservation here at Gadgetbox. Just because we love our gadgets doesn't mean we want the world to go the hell in a handbasket for our fetish. So when we heard that we could save enough energy to power 60,000 households if merely 10% of the population unplugged our cellphones when they were done charging, we yanked that cable out of our Motorla so fast, our phone nearly flew across the room.
This brings up a bigger issue: design. Couldn't the cellphone makers have concocted a simple way for, say, the phone to shut itself off, or stop drawing power once it's reached a certain charge level? I realize the device's battery will still discharge if the device is left on, possibly creating a never-ending loop, but how about a sleep function, or at least some sort of power reduction? I leave my phone plugged in pretty consistently when I'm not out and about with it, to make sure that it always has a charge—as a result, I've very rarely had the battery die on me. But I don't want my habits to be responsible for excessive fuel consumption when I had the means of preventing it.
Manufacturers seem to be on top of this idea now, but it doesn't really do anything for all of today's phone owners. So remember to unplug once in a while.
[via Lifehacker]
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Comments
For the most part, it is not the phone drawing power from the charger, it is the charger drawing power from the outlet whenever it is plugged in. It is typically 1-3 watts for the charger whenever it is plugged into an outlet.
For more info see http://www.homepower.com/files/phantom.pdf
Posted by: Linda Irish | September 26, 2006 9:54 PM
Leaving your phone plugged also reduces the life of the battery. Plugging your phone/laptop, etc., even those using the new "memory-free" Lithium batteries, before the charge is nearly drained will kill your battery's charge life faster than if you let it discharge near empty before charging. My friend works at Nokia and he's confirmed this. A technician at Apple also confirmed the same thing for laptop batteries. So don't charge unless it's saying "please recharge"--unless you're planning a long trip.
Posted by: vip malixi | September 27, 2006 1:55 AM