Smartphone cases, while convenient, can also shorten the life of your phone. Indeed, some smartphone cases cannot dissipate heat properly. When your phone is charging, it tends to heat up due to the process. If you charge your phone with your case on, it will not cool effectively.
Thermal degradation is why components like batteries often degrade faster, even if you use good charging practices, like turning off fast charging when you don’t need it or capping the maximum charge to limit strain on the battery. If you notice that your phone is getting too hot, it’s high time to give it a bit of a break and air it out. If you’re worried about running out of a case, remember that phone cases aren’t always necessary anymore. The fact is that smartphone manufacturers have significantly improved their durability over the past decade. Many high-end phones are therefore built with shock and drop resistance and are less likely to break if accidentally dropped.
Not all phone cases harm the health of your device’s battery
If you want to find a phone case that you can leave on without overheating the hardware and affecting the health of your device’s battery, you’ll probably want to avoid heavy-duty cases and leave them on while charging. Phone cases made from materials like leather, silicone, wood, rubber, metal, and even some low-grade plastics can be avoided because they trap heat inside the case. Anything tightly bound or too thick (like heavy-duty cases) can hinder airflow or provide poor ventilation. When in doubt, it is best to avoid loading or running CPU-intensive tasks when these cases are in use, as they do not handle excessive heat well.
Of course, these are general rules, as some manufacturers purchase higher quality materials that help dissipate heat and keep them thin enough that heat can still be transferred to the environment. If you charge wirelessly, good MagSafe cases will prevent overheating, the main cause of deteriorating your smartphone battery health. But of course, you’ll need to make sure it’s still thin enough, that it’s aligned well, and that the materials used don’t trap heat.
As a precaution: consider changing your charging habits
Not using a case while your phone is charging or for general use does you no good if you don’t change your usage habits, as your phone will still generate heat naturally. Phones usually have an optimization setting that makes it easier to set the charge limit to 80%. The 80% limit is designed to protect the phone from high voltage stress during the last 20% of charge.
Some phones have a bypass charging feature that helps you manage a newly set limit, as you might be tempted to turn it off when you feel like you need that extra 20% when playing a game or doing a battery-draining task. Bypass charging powers your phone without using your battery, as long as you’re plugged in, reducing stress on the battery from overuse. Then, of course, you’ll need to be judicious with fast charging, as it can generate more heat than normal charging.
The final tip for good charging practices is to use high-quality chargers, whether those that came with your device or those that are highly rated. This way you know you are getting the proper power and regulated current needed to charge the battery. If it doesn’t meet standards, your phone might be exposed to unstable voltage or the charger might not be able to dissipate heat properly (due to poor build quality).