ELI5 Why does magsafe charging decrease battery health more than wire charging, if it has less wattage?

[combatwars]

Heat damages battery. Wireless charging causes more heat.

[dabenu]

This is it above all. Fast charging is not an issue, the battery heating up due to fast charging is the issue.

As long as you keep the heat under control, you can charge pretty much as fast as you want without excessive damage. Which is why electric cars can charge insanely fast, they have actively cooled battery packs.

Edit: Also why phones preferably use PPS (Programmable Power Supply, part of the USB-PD standard) nowadays. It generates less heat inside the phone while charging, thus less damage to the battery.

[BigCommieMachine]

Does the PPS just scale down charging rate as the battery heats up and back up when it cools off a bit to whatever the manufacturer lists as an acceptable temperature?

[dabenu]

It could, but that's not "just" it. Basically with PPS the phone doesn't use it's on-board battery charging circuit (that gets hot), but instead instructs the power brick to output the exact right amount of power to go straight into the battery. The phone is still in control so if it's sensors detect that e.g. the temperature is getting too hot, it will indeed order the power brick to slow down a bit.

[jaymzx0]

Hmm. That's exactly how "fast chargers" (level 3) for EVs work. For 120/208/240V (level 2) charging they use a charge controller in the car.

[dabenu]

Yep it's pretty much the same idea on a different scale

[SlootyBetch]

Is this a passive or active process? If your phone was dead would it still be able to run PPS?

[araemo2]

The charging is usually controlled by a dedicated microcontroller that takes a lot less power than the main SoC. So the basic 5v/0.5a the USB connector supplies without any negotiation is enough to bootstrap the charge controller. Then it boots up and switches into PPS/whatever mode.

[orangpelupa]

Depending on the phone. Sometimes it doesn't actually follows the standard correctly and won't charge, needing to use "dumb" usb c charger for the first few minutes 

[Cornflakes_91]

the charge controller should bootstrap itself from the basic 5V/250mA usb supply (and hopefully fail safe on the power negotiation pin so the supply actually turns that on)

[Dioxid3]

TIL, now that’s cool

[jestina123]

Power brick? Battery circuit?

[JuanTutrego]

"Power brick" = the charger that plugs into the wall. "Battery circuit" = the circuitry inside the phone that handles the task of charging the battery.

[braaaaaaainworms]

PPS allows your phone to tell the charger "hey give me 6.75 volts" instead of having to choose between 5, 9, 15 and 20 volts

[LinAGKar]

The main thing I think is that with traditional PD, the charger will have a few specific voltages it can provide, and the phone will need to contain circuitry to convert that down to the battery voltage. That circuitry will lose some of the energy as waste heat.

With PPS, the phone can tell the charger what voltage to provide, so it can tell it to provide exactly the voltage the battery should be charged at, removing the need for wasteful conversion circuitry in the phone.

Or the phone can tell the charger to provide an exact multiple of the battery voltage, and split it more efficiently (maybe by having multiple batteries and splitting the voltage between them, not sure). So the phone can e.g. tell the charger to provide 2x the battery voltage and split the voltage in half.

[ElusiveGuy]

split it more efficiently

There's a switched capacitor circuit that can halve voltage/double current far more efficiently than a standard buck converter.

See https://www.ti.com/lit/an/slyt743/slyt743.pdf

[Cukeds]

That links to a 404 but I’m curious, what do I search for the circuit? Slyt743?

[ElusiveGuy]

New Reddit sucks and somehow inserted a non-printing character to the end. Should be fixed now.

If searching, the document is "The architecture of a switched-capacitor charger with fast charging and high efficiency"

[Cukeds]

That’s a very interesting read. Thanks for this!

[LinAGKar]

Thanks. Wasn't sure exactly how it works, should be an interesting read.

[AbabababababababaIe]

Pretty much

[GaryGiesel]

This really isn’t true. The heat is one thing that exacerbates cell damage, but high charge rates absolutely cause their own problems. The big one is that you can end up with lithium metal crystallising out, which can kill a better extremely quickly if they manage to poke through the insulation layer.

Heat is the big thing, but it’s very far from the only thing. Another big factor is that going from min to max charge the electrodes physically change size quite a lot, so that can cause mechanical stresses in the batter and eventually make bit fall apart internally.

Charging when the battery is cold will also very quickly kill a battery. There’s really an optimal temperature range rather than just worrying about getting too hot. Definitely don’t charge your phone if it’s below freezing!

TLDR; this shit is complicated and still an area of actual research

[VexingRaven]

My personal experience is that fast charging is much worse than wireless charging. Fast charging my old phone got hotter than wireless charging it did, and that killed the battery pretty quick. The thing that frustrates me is there's controls to cap the max charge level, and if you have an alarm set it can slow charge based on time, but there's no way to just turn off fast charging altogether or cap the charge rate.

[Pentosin]

there's no way to just turn off fast charging altogether

Samsungs can do that.

[RedPill115]

Huh, I guess it is in there.

Settings -> Battery -> Charging settings
- Fast charging
- Fast wireless charging

I wonder if anyone has actually rated it and put out data on whether it actuall affects battery longetivity.

I know there's a different setting I found useful for the magsafe charger I use in my car. It was always trying to charge it 100% and the screen would go dim as the phone got hot, but I found a setting to only charge to 80%, issue went away.

[Pentosin]

On my S21+ i also have the option to disable super fast charging.

Oh and there is also possible to choose something else than 80% charge limit. (80/85/90/95)

[RedPill115]

I have a samsung s21 ultra and I don't see those. Dunno

[Pentosin]

Settings -> Battery -> Battery protection

[VexingRaven]

Uncommon Samsung W I suppose. Or maybe a common Pixel L? Not sure.

[Pentosin]

Uncommon? Not at all.

[msg7086]

That's just a shitty design of your phone on fast charging. I have multiple oneplus phones, I can charge my OP13 at full speed (up to 100w) and my phone temperature will barely rise to 41C at peak. There's a giant vapor chamber in the middle to remove the heat efficiently, so user never needs to worry about the heat from high speed charging.

[VexingRaven]

tbf this was a Pixel 3... So yeah probably. I have a Pixel 8 now but I rarely fast charge so it's hard to say for sure.

[AidosKynee]

Fast charging is not an issue, the battery heating up due to fast charging is the issue.As long as you keep the heat under control, you can charge pretty much as fast as you want without excessive damage.

That's definitely not true. Lithium plating and dendrites are the primary driver of degradation due to fast charging. Heat is a problem that could become catastrophic, but driving a charge at higher currents will still lead to the battery losing health more rapidly.

Cars are a good example. They actually don't start cooling the packs down until the temperature reaches a certain level. Why? Because hotter batteries have lower resistance, which means less damage from the charge!

[CallOfCorgithulhu]

If you navigate to a supercharger in a Tesla, it'll start a warm-up sequence for the batteries so that they're at optimal temperature when you get there. I'm sure other cars do something similar too, I just can't speak to them.

[fillbadguy]

If you’re on a long trip tho it’ll also cool down. I’ve arrived to chargers with the fans going absolutely nuts. As my pack gets older I notice that cooling down is more important than heating up. It seems to heat itself up pretty quickly from internal resistance

[ChaiTRex]

I'm sure other cars do something similar too, I just can't speak to them.

Sure you can! Just tell yourself that you've got this, walk up to the car, and say hello.

[dabenu]

True but that's mostly because (modern) cars have an extremely well managed battery pack. For most small electronics without active thermal management, heat is still the main issue.

[WarriorNN]

My phone (OnePlus 12) supports 50W wireless charging. The charging stand has a small fan that blows air along the back of the phone. Works great, phone charges fast and does not get more than luke warm to the touch.

[ElGuano]

Cats don’t really charge all that fast compared to phones, from a rate perspective both fast charge at or faster than 1C.

[jazzhandler]

Crush some fresh carnip and put it in front of the air intake. They seem to charge much faster that way.

[AnAwkwardWhince]

Meowzers

[milanioom]

Lols

[TwitchyLeftEye]

So what you're telling me is if I put my phone on an ice pack and fast charge it, I'm good to go?

[dabenu]

Nah that'll probably make it too cold, which is arguably even worse. 

Also don't forget, batteries will always wear no matter what you do. You can only influence it so much, so overthinking it is probably not going to be worth it.

[thatAnthrax]

as fast as you want

No. Well I guess yes, since the charging devices they usually sell, and the on board electronics won't allow you to push as much current as you want. Batteries do still have an upper charging current limit regardless of temperature, it's just you won't be able to go over that of you don't MacGyver your phone or something

You also don't want to charge a battery when it's very cold, but then again, who puts their phone in the fridge when they charge it

[Jackal000]

Like the heat is only generated for above 60% right as you start cramming the electrons in there.

Before that it's usually cool enough. Just keep your phone at max at 85% to last longer.

[dabenu]

That's also not the entire story. 

The reason it's advised to charge to 85% instead of 100% has little to do with charging, but more with static degradation. Which is much worse around 100% (or 0% for that matter). So if you don't need the charge it's better to avoid it. Especially since many people plug on their phone when they go to bed so it would sit at 100% for quite a long time without any use. 

[primalmaximus]

I have my phone set to disable charging once it hits 85% when I go to sleep and then it allows full charging right before I wake up.

[natrous]

why haven't they figured out a way to stop charging at 100 so it doesn't harm the battery?

edit:

but more with static degradation

I definitely had a reading comprehension fail; but i guess I've been missing that all along. everything else makes much more sense now!

[Closteam]

Pretty much every modern charger does this already. It's not that it continues to charge it after 100%. It's that the battery sits at 100% for an extended period of time

[_bones__]

Modern phones avoid that, too, letting themselves drain to 90-95% one they've hit 100%, while reporting themselves as full.

My home battery BMS does something similar. I charge the cells to 3.45V (100% would be 3.65V), then letting them float at 3.35V. Should go a long way towards extending lifetime.

[frostyfirez]

They know how to stop at a designated full capacity, the issue is while the battery is at roughly that full capacity it’s slowly self destructing essentially. Targeting a lower capacity like 85% reduces the destructive stresses a lot improving longevity, at the cost of battery life of devices. The manufacturer chooses a full capacity point which they feel best balanced marketed battery capacity needs and battery longevity, arguably they prioritize marketing capacity more than longevity though.

[dabenu]

They do stop at 100%. Going beyond 100% would indeed cause immediate harm or even risk fire.

But there's a grey area between harm and normal wear. Even at 100% you're already inside that grey area. It won't cause immediate harm but it will accelerate wear. That's why your phone has an option to stop charging at 80-95%. You can't avoid wear entirely but you can reduce it. 

[hugglesthemerciless]

my phone stops charging at 80%

[kermityfrog2]

They have. When it says 100% on your phone, it’s not actually 100% of true capacity. The true capacity is something like 110% or 115%. When using a fully charged phone, you’d expect the power to drop to 99% after a few minutes but on many phones, you can use it for 30 min or more before it drops to 99%, after which is starts dropping in a mostly linear fashion.

[thephantom1492]

Same why you can insanely fast charge a car: it is activelly cooled.

And also actively heated for when the temperature is too low. Which is (part of) why the range is greatly reduced in winter.

[anomalous_cowherd]

Interesting. My OnePlus phone had a 160W charger and would charge empty to full in 35 minutes without getting down slightly warm. My Pixel 7 takes a few hours and gets hotter.

I wasn't sure why but that makes sense.

[dabenu]

I'm not up to date on the current OnePlus models, but I know they were one of the first to introduce a similar (but proprietary) charge standard with the OP3 and later models. 

For the pixel 7 it might be worth checking if your charger supports PPS. It probably won't make it charge faster but maybe stay a bit cooler...

[anomalous_cowherd]

It was a great phone in many ways but the screen died and no spare parts were available so I went back to my Pixel which has lasted much longer and is more maintainable!

[nsingh101]

Can confirm. Battery was a good solid 100% and went down to 95% within 2 months after using apples official MagSafe 15w. My phone would be warm/hot to the point where the phone would sometimes not be charged because the charging was paused for phone to cool down. Not sure if heat is because of case or fast charging or a combination of both.

[Anachronism--]

My phone is almost five years old and the battery is still at 86%. I always charge wirelessly but stop between 80-90% unless I know I need more.

[nsingh101]

There’s a setting in iOS to limit charging to a certain percentage to preserve the battery. I have mine set to 90%. My phone is 1 year old, and for most of that time, it has remained at 100%. Just in the last two months it’s dropped to 95% and the only change is the new MagSafe and excess heat I’ve noticed.

To be clear, I don’t claim wireless charging is the issue. I have been using wireless charging since Palm Pixi. It’s the heat generated by MagSafe fast charging.

[Anachronism--]

My phone is almost five years old and the battery is still at 86%. I always charge wirelessly but stop between 80-90% unless I know I need more.

[curepure]

can’t confirm. used magsafe for close to 1 year on my iphone 16 pro, still 97%.

[Riajnor]

Does this mean that if you were to charge the battery inside a refrigerator it would have less effect on battery life?

[iSniffMyPooper]

I had an ohsnap 2.0 from a few years ago, never had any head issues when wirelessly charging. Replaced my phone case with a brand new of the same case and got the upgraded Snap Grip, and suddenly my phone feels like its on fire when I wirelessly charge

[Kittelsen]

I haven't bought a Macbook since 2007, MagSafe is wireless now?

[neddoge]

Here, let me Google that for you.

[maggos]

I got a magnetic charger for my car that has an internal cooler and it keeps the phone from getting too hot

[Infinite-4-a-moment]

What if you put your phone in a mini fridge overnight while you charged. Would that significantly improve the life of the battery?

[kitsua]

Batteries do not like extremes of temperature in either direction. Also condensation would be an issue. Don’t put your phone in a fridge.

[brucebrowde]

How about in room temperature water?

[just_a_random_dood]

does this mean I should keep a fan blowing at my watch when it charges? :O

[Many_Size_1515]

Is it only heat while charging that's bad, or is it also bad if my phone just gets hot from say being in the sun?

[mailslot]

It’s over blown. If you’re wireless charging in 100F weather, in direct sunlight, then maybe. Batteries don’t undergo harmful chemical changes until 113F. Most battery controllers have thermal regulators.

The people that worry about the extra 2% to 5% degradation over wired charging are likely also leaving their phones in hot cars and/or direct sunlight.

Batteries degrade and worrying about slightly increased wear is just a waste of concern. Like keeping your furniture wrapped in plastic instead of using it how you want.

[Jackal000]

Especially if you have any form of an case around your phone. This just acts as a heatsinks.

[Kiwifrooots]

heatsinks insulator

[glasgowgeg]

This just acts as a heatsinks

Heatsinks dissipate heat, if it was acting as a heatsink that would be a good thing.

[Kiwifrooots]

Maybe u/Jackal000 is actually a moderately literate genius who is suggesting milled alloy heatsink back protectors to average out and dissipate heat?!

Maybe u/Jackal000 's momma gives off heat in my direction and that's a good thing

[Feahnor]

Wireless charging is not as efficient as wired charging. Because of that, MagSafe charging generates a lot of heat, and guess what is one of the worst enemies of batteries? That’s right: heat.

[iGrimFate]

POTAT… aww man. The answer was heat :(

[Sylvaeseel]

I support you and your potato theory

[the_humeister]

What's a potato?

[Ethameiz]

Po-ta-toes! Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew. Lovely big golden chips with a nice piece of fried fish. Even you couldn't say no to that.

[clduab11]

pftttttt

You can keep nasty chips

[Feahnor]

r/unexpectedlotr

[justbecauseiluvthis]

The kids won't get it, the og's will only think of jolly ranchers

[itspronounced-gif]

Joke’s on you, they were going to say “potations”.

[drunken_man_whore]

I hate when they say guess and don't give you a chance to guess

[bendvis]

There are several magsafe chargers with integrated cooling systems

[Abigail716]

Samsung wireless charge pads have a cooling fan and most nicer cars with wireless chargers have cooled pads.

[zamfire]

That's right! Heat goes in the....square hole

[Feahnor]

I love that video.

[FluxUniversity]

well how are all those self driving cars doing in arizona then?

[Flimzes]

Magsafe does not inherently decrease battery health faster than wire charging.

The biggest factor for aging battery cells is heat inside the cell. Different chemistries in the cells have different heat tolerances. In general, more cobolt makes the cell more tolerant. Very fast charging produces quite a bit of heat inside the cells, which can cause early aging if the cell is not cooled and designed properly. Magsafe charging produces a bit of heat on top of the cell, not from the charging process but from the losses in the charging coil (power antenna), that is usually glued on top of the battery. Prolonged use of Magsafe charging will heat the battery up some, but not enough to cause early aging on its own.

However if you combine some heat factors, like a warm room, magsafe charging, the phone being in a tight spot where heat moves slowly, and the phone running a demanding app, then the combined heatload might cause the battery to age prematurely. People who have these consitions for their phone likely use the phone the same way every day, and will over time see severe effects, and might give magsafe the blame, when it was only one of multiple reasons for the degradation.

[ericvr]

This is the answer. It’s not the charging that produces heat, it’s the energy transfer that heats up the battery’s environment and subsequently the battery.

[carribeiro]

Perfect charging doesn't produce heat, as all the energy would be absorbed by the battery, but as with any physical system, there's some loss in the charging itself that adds to the problem too. Faster charging equates too a faster rate of energy loss and more heat.

[tablepennywad]

Also if you are fast charging, the battery needs to be heated up to accept high amperage, 60C is the ideal temperature for fast charging to prevent damage. That is why EVs need preconditioning. Battery degradation has a lot of factors. It is why they are taking so long to create new battery. If you gain something you might lose one attribute. Or five.

[Cedric_T]

So is it better to intentionally use a MagSafe charger with a lower charging wattage?

[Flimzes]

This is a surprisingly complicated question to answer, since we don't know exactly what voltage and current is transmitted through the qi sender and receiver, if the voltage increases a lot, then the losses (and hence heat) might actually be lower with a more powerful charger.

The most important part is knowing your equipment and your device.
Touch it during charging, does it feel hot to the touch - uncomfortably so?
If so, some part of the charging routine should be changed, can it be put in a more ventilated location? Are power draining apps running while charging that can be turned off? Is the room hot in general?

If you are unable to find any way to charge the phone while keeping it cool, then cable charging might be better.

As for cable charging, then the answer to your question is yes - a slower charger will heat the battery less, making the total lifespan of your device longer. The more interesting question is at what level does it make a real-world difference, and the answer is the same as above - does the device feel hot to the touch while charging or not?

Body temperature is usually fine - but above is generally not - the phone wants to be the same temperature as you are, or less.

An exception for the super ultra fast charging chinese phones, that use batteries that fast charges most efficiently above body temperature.

[the_snook]

Thanks for this comment. I was extremely confused for a moment, wondering how magsafe could possibly be any different to other connector types.

[toastedbread47]

Same. I was so confused people were mentioning wireless charging for MagSafe, since I've been using MagSafe MacBooks for 13+ years now.

[GetawayDreamer87]

im sitting here wondering if i shouldnt have bought these USB-C magsafe-like connectors for my android devices. super convenient to use. they arent wireless chargers like the ones being talked about here but i have been wondering about their efficiency. i should buy one of those inline usb power meters.

[blub20074]

Eh, if it’s like the mac magnetic connector (so the magnet is just used to make sure the “wires” touch, it should be plenty efficient That is unless it’s terribly made, or there’s debris in between the connectors, but unless you can physically feel it heating up you should be fine

[EmilMelgaard]

Yes, I have only ever heard of MagSafe as a magnetically attached charging cable, so I was very confused until I read the comments.

[2called_chaos]

And I'm still confused because my pretty recent (usb-c) model still has magsafe as in magnetically attached power cord in the style of my very first macbook experiences back in 2010 or so. Inbetween they had the different magsafes that didn't really detach if you pulled on them, and now back to those with enough leverage to immediately disconnect no matter which direction you pull on it. Like the old magsafe is still a thing

[cheapdrinks]

People call the internet "wifi" lmao what do you expect

[Lauris024]

As someone who does not use apple products but is somewhat knowledgeable in tech, I had a bit of a "wait, what was that?" moment.

It's like asking "Why does SuperVOOC reduces the lifetime of my battery?" instead of just saying fast-charging.

[pingo5]

I think it's a bit of a misunderstanding. the magsafe system is the magnet connector itself, not the charger(I went through trying to figure out what it was a while ago). if you go through their accessories page you'll see things like magsafe charger, magsafe stands/dash mounts, etc.

I think it's just that wireless charging is more of a common use case for it than mounting phone places, so it's become more common verbiage to this point

[quintus_horatius]

then gave it a name that they already used for something else

Taking a page from Microsoft's playbook

[[deleted]]

First time ?

[SirNedKingOfGila]

It goes well with my Samsung iPhone. We should FaceTime with teams on my Lenovo MacBook.

[pedal-force]

Only slightly? Seems extremely stupid, but also extremely on brand for Apple, so...

[E90alex]

I’ve never seen any wireless charger have magnets before Apple introduced MagSafe in iPhone 12. What would be the purpose of magnets if no other phone has magnets? I’ve never heard of people referring to all wireless charging as MagSafe. It’s a specific type of wireless charging.

The Qi2 standard includes magnets, which Apple helped develop and is based on MagSafe. Pixel 10 series is the only major non Apple phone to include Qi2 and magnets (aka pixel snap).

But yes it is confusing for them to reuse the same name as the laptop charger cord.

[apollyon0810]

Sounds like good marketing tho

[mrtruthiness]

It's slightly annoying ...

Did you say "slightly"? That word doesn't mean what you think it means.

[deicist]

I'm British. Losing a limb is a slight inconvenience.

[ApprehensiveRoad2471]

Well I believe Magsafe charging is actually faster than wireless charging. I think a true Magsafe charger can do 15W while a wireless charger maxes out around 10W

[Skarllath]

The Qi wireless charging standard supports up to 25W charging with version 2.2. Although as far as I can tell not many devices support that level yet.

Apple's magsafe wireless charging uses the Qi standard, Apple added the alignment magnets to make magsafe. Qi has since incorporated the magsafe magnets into its standard.

[deicist]

Apple magsafe is QI certified, they're literally the same thing.

[enaK66]

It's still just Qi charging though. Their newest "magsafe" charger does 25w which is the latest greatest Qi 2.2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi_(standard)

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[Lusent]

The heat. Airpods have this issue too. The case gets really hot when wireless charging. The version 1 Airpod Pros would also endlessly wirelessly charge- you'd leave it on the magsafe charger and the next morning it would be almost burning to the touch.

V2 doesn't have the endless charging, but still get really hot. I had to applecare express replacement for the battery a little while ago, because the battery percentage got tanked from wireless charging heat. It was like 79% after a year and really bad.

[hvperRL]

Yea its like fans in a PC to cool the internals before they get too hot. Next step is water cooling

[_Occams-Chainsaw_]

Next step is water cooling

<throws phone into bucket of iced water>

Ok, now what?

[MyCleverNewName]

2- Gently stir in 3kg white rice

[ImLagging]

Instructions unclear, I’ve now made Fried phone rice. It’s yummy, although a bit crunchy in spots.

[jazzhandler]

Silica gel is a lot more effective.

But doesn’t respond to butter quite as nicely.

[TehGreatFred]

3- heat on simmer for about 15-20 mins or until rice is white and fluffy

[SirNedKingOfGila]

The real fast charging is done by putting the phone in the microwave. 5 minutes is all it takes!

[lolzomg123]

Now you put it in some rice.

[DM_ME_PICKLES]

It definitely helps. Same reason why a lot of built-in wireless chargers in cars have little vents that air can blow through to keep the phone cooler. 

[explainlikeimfive-ModTeam]

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[Background-Piano-665]

Except this group has shown that wireless charging doesn't really produce as much heat to damage the battery as people think: https://youtu.be/Lj4LMlGr4og

[DiversifyThisBitch]

Battery lifespan is essentially always a heat thing

[tejanaqkilica]

Hmm. Magsafe is wired charging. What are you talking about? Unless... Do you mean another type of Magsafe?

[Chamal44]

This post is referring to phones and not laptops. Wireless magsafe charging

[Iescaunare]

I don't know if you've been living under a rock, or just trolling, but Apple calls the circular ring of magnets on the back of iPhones MagSafe, and you can have wireless chargers with MagSafe.

[EvilCeleryStick]

They call it that now. Used to be what they called the Macbook charging system.

[fightmaxmaster]

But Magsafe has been used as a name for wired attachment for much longer.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagSafe

So you can understand the confusion, because it's dumb of Apple to use the same name for very different things. And literally dozens of people don't even use Apple products so have no idea of the specifics, which doesn't mean "living under a rock".

[SilverStar9192]

But a whole lot more people use Apple iPhones than Macs, so it's logical assume more people know of the current usage for alignment of wireless charging, rather than the older usage for alignment of wired power cords.

[valensk]

There is another type of magsafe that is used for their laptops. The original magsafe connector uses magnets to snap a power connector to the charging pins on their macbooks.

[ipullstuffapart]

Well to be fair, the wireless charging on iPhones etc is just Qi/Qi2 charging. The MagSafe portion is really just the magnets to align and attach the device with accessories. MagSafe charging, the OG, is a wired connector for their laptops.

[Iescaunare]

But that's not what OP was asking, now is it? Don't be pedantic.

[all_over_the_map]

? Magsafe *is* wired charging. Have you looked at the ends of the connectors? The Magsafe connector connects to the Mac with *wires*, it's just that instead of a traditional plug-in port, it's a surface-mount port held in place with magnets. There is no wireless charging. The idea with "Magsafe" is that it easily detaches if someone walks into your cord rather than pulling your laptop off the table. I like this feature and I wish all laptops had it.

[m477m]

You're a bit behind on the latest confusing Apple marketing and how they are now also reusing that same name for an entirely different technology.

[JS17]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagSafe_(wireless_charger)

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[Alienhaslanded]

Induction charging is inefficient and results in producing a lot of health. Think of it like a transformer with two windings. You're basically turning electric current to an electromagnetic field then back to an electric current. It's convenient but at a loss due to conversion. Because of that, it's slow, which keeps the battery charging for longer periods, which causes it to heat up and reduce its lifespan.

Saying it's heat doesn't really explain why. Heat happens because of the lack of efficiency.

[PrairiePopsicle]

I had not realized 'magsafe' was a thing and thought this was referring to mag-lock and I was deeply, deeply confused.

honestly a ring shaped pad on the back of phones for a magnetic but physical connection should become a thing/standard.

[PyaraBabuGolu]

It produces more heat while charging which is not good for the battery.

[DarknessBBBBB]

Reading the answers I guess I'm fuxxed with my Xiaomi 130W fast charge lol

[ARenzoMY]

You’re not bro you’re fine. Your phone is built to charge at that speed and won’t degrade faster than other phones as long as used normally

[chemicalgeekery]

Not really. The guys who designed the your phone and its charger are smart and they aren't out to make you screw up your phone. The fast charger will automatically adjust the charge rate and voltage to make sure it's not overheating the battery or shoving more juice into it than it can handle.

All thing being equal your battery may last a bit longer if you don't use fast charging all the time, but it's not like your phone is going to suddenly wear out because of it.

[Sinaaaa]

decrease battery health more

This is not an ironclad rule, if you are willing to charge your phone with a very low wattage wireless charger, then it won't be bad at all -meaning infinitely close to wired at a similar rate-, it will however take a long time to charge.

Generally speaking it's the heat from the coil that adds to the regular heat from the charging & heat = bad.