This is funny?
Sadly funny, because everyone can relate at some point of their smartphone ownership.
Get a dental pick and use it to pull the lint out of the charging port
worst case scenario, the usb port is replaceable on most phones without soldering
I tried this on my previous phone, Samsung S9, it made everything worse. I bought and replaced a daughterboard with usb, microphone, antenna, and some other stuff. I was very careful, know my way around electronics, found a perfect iFixit video instruction, but afterwards my antenna didn’t work anymore. My partner told me to just take it to a repair shop and let a professional handle it. I tried two and they both said “we don’t do dat repair because it’s too difficult. It can’t be done without breaking something else in the phone”. So there it is
…did you try cleaning the port?
Step 1: clesn out the lint from the charging port
Step 2: make sure you actually got all the lint out and there isn’t any hiding to the side.
The sim ejector pin that used to come with phones can sometimes just barely fit between the center blade and connector housing. Otherwise a paperclip with a slight hook bent into the end can work well.
Also consider getting a wireless charger for nightly charging if your phone supports it.
To add to this, get yourself a USB-C nubbin to protect it going forward.
I prefer a toothpick. Wood won’t scratch the metal or cause a short, but it’s still stiff enough to scrape any lint that’s stuck. And lint sticks a bit to the toothpick, so that helps get it out.
Sometimes the toothpick tapers too quickly though and I have break it or shave a bit off to make it fit all the way into the port
Neither will the plastic of a floss pick. And the floss pick is narrower so there is much less risk of deforming the interior parts of the plug. Also, less risk of splinters.
another good choice
I just shave the end of a match down. It’s flat and you can make it pretty thin easily.
Toothpick is absolutely the best solution for this. 3d printed cleaning picks are also usable but aren’t as strong in my experience
The port on my old phone broke entirely but it still had wireless charging so I got three more years out of it. Then the display failed and since phones have switched to USB C I figured it was time to upgrade
time to upgrade
They fucking got ya. That’s like a $30 repair and you just threw it in landfill and gave them another grand or more. Weaksauce.
Ouch. Why don’t you remind them that their dog is dead as well. Really lay into them.
Given that the phone didn’t have USB-C that most likely means it was from like 2016, so it’s fair to say that it’s time to upgrade. Phones have gotten so much better since then, especially the cameras.
If the connector hadn’t changed I probably would have gotten it repaired. But since there’s not aftermarket port swaps I figured I should bite the bullet.
Maybe by 2032 I’ll be ready for a new one again.
A comment like this one saved me from giving up on my aging phone.
No matter how convinced you are you definitely cleaned it, there still could be a little bit more stuck in there.
Everyone raves about usb-c but despite my hating everything Apple, the lightning port’s physical design is so much better.
Who thought putting a thin circuit board projection inside the port was a good idea?
Lightning is an amazing design but I fucking hate that my XS Max is USB TWO SPEEDS
That’s the signal interface like the number of pins and active termination circuitry.
Physically there’s no reason for USB c to have a male nub inside a larger female jack and the reverse for the male end. It makes it more fragile and harder to keep clean.
I ended up having to use an actual sewing needle since the lint was compacted and the ejector pin was too wide
Also electrical contact cleaner if it’s really nasty
DeoxIT, they have a name and we respect it around here.
Wireless charging WILL wear out your battery faster.
For longevity, use a slow wired charger. This will put the least thermal strain on the battery.
How exactly?
Also, my phone charges slower with a wireless charger.
Magnetic charging loses some energy in the form of heat on both coils.
Technologies like MagSafe lessen the severity of energy loss via ensuring the coils alligned however there is still some energy lost in the form of heat.
This is just a limitation of electromagnetic induction.
That’s an interesting theory. I’d like to see some numbers because I really doubt that this heating could be anywhere close to the many other kinds of heat produced through normal phone use. Especially considering that you’re unlikely to be stressing the biggest sources of heat in your phone (the screen and the processor) while it’s sitting in a wireless charging cradle. Also, the charging circuits certainly monitor and adjust for this kind of heat dissipation specifically and are able to control it far better than, for example, the sun hitting the screen or a warm pocket.
The charging circuit will maintain a “safe” temperature, sure, but using any battery monitor app you like, you can clearly see for yourself that when wireless charging, the phone will sit at a higher temperature during the process, than when wired charging. And every fraction of a degree matters. Not when you use the feature once, but if you do it every day, always charging at a higher temperature, it WILL shorten the lifespan of the battery.
The battery does not suffer as much damage from heat when discharging, or when just sitting there, not that that is good for it, either. But every extra bit of thermal strain WHILE charging, causes more damage than if it were running cooler. That’s simply a fact of lithium ion batteries.
I remember LTT wanting to find out the damage that wireless or fast charging does but found that the way we charge our phones mattered more or something: https://youtu.be/AF2O4l1JprI
I found the segment and may have summarized it incorrectly but I can’t rewatch the video entirely right now.
I can only offer you my experience-based evidence, but three magnetic chargers I’ve used have all made my phone significantly hotter then charging it at the equivalent speed with a cable.
This has been true across 6 Android devices. Two from Google. Four from Samsung. However, I will also say that because of this trend, I stopped using wireless chargers about a year and a half ago, so it’s quite possible they might have improved since then.
Yes, the tech has gotten a lot better. 6 phones over about 12 years (rough length of time since debut of inductive charging in smartphones) averages to about 2 years per phone. If you weren’t getting the flagship phone each year that lifetime would be shorter. That was comparable to the lifetime of each over my phone’s during that same time, none of which had wireless charging. The phone I have now is the first I’ve had to use inductive charging and it has already lasted twice as long as any of the others and shows now signs of deterioration.
So your anecdotal evidence trumps everyone elses, as well as actual knowledge of the chemistry involved?
The problem is heat, not charging speed. A wired charger heats the phone less than wireless charger, and a slow charger heats it less than a fast one.
I don’t know but anecdotally I’ve experienced this with every single phone I’ve had that’s been wireless charging.
It just shortens its life somehow. I thought I was crazy. It didn’t make sense unless it does fancy shit with the crystals inside or it heats it badly
That is a deeply unsatisfying non-answer.
Seeing as you’re unhappy with the actual answers, I’m thinking you just wanted to be agreed with.
I’m unhappy with the answers because they just parrot the first comment and provide little evidence.
Which only states that wireless charging will wear out your battery faster than wired. Not that it’s critically damaging the instant you opt to use it, or that it will shorten the lifespan of a device to nothing.
There is a difference, that’s straight up true. One method has the battery sitting at a temperature that is worse for the chemistry involved. That is indisputable. Super fast fast charging that only slows down to keep an already hot battery from becoming dangerous, essentially redlining it for the whole process, has the exact same downsides in terms of thermals, except that wireless charging, being inherently slower for equivalent temperatures, keeps the battery warm for longer.
What exactly the difference ends up being, varies from application to application, and from device to device. Obviously, if you lower the charge speed of wireless until it doesn’t heat the battery any more than wired, there wont be a difference, but then you could just do the same for wired charging, and have the battery last even more cycles.
Bottom line, whatever option runs the battery the coolest on a given device, WILL CAUSE THE LEAST WEAR. That’s simply true.
I’ve charged my Pixel 6 wirelessly every night for 3 years and had zero battery loss. Simply not true.
Then you are truly, talking out your ass.
Within the first year, even with slow wired daily charging, the battery would have lost at least a few percentages of capacity. By year three, losing around 10% is basically unavoidable, but typical loss at that point is closer to 15 or 20% simply due to age.
You can use something like AccuBattery to measure the current real capacity of your battery. It will measure the amperages going in and out of the battery, calculate the milliamphours, then average it over several battery cycles.
Even when new, the real capacity will vary several hundred milliamphours from cell to cell, within the same exact model. Batteries are a chemical device, some inconsistency from one cell to the next is unavoidable. That’s why cell monitoring and balancing circuits are so critical in multi-cell packs.
You may not have noticed a difference, but the capacity loss that your battery has suffered is almost certainly worse than it would have been if you’d charged wired and slowly.
talking out your ass
Batteries are a chemical device
I have a Ph.D. in battery chemistry
you may not have noticed
Ok that’s what matters in a device. A 10% falloff on a 2 day battery life is not significant.
charged wired and slowly
You can charge wirelessly slowly. I had the system set up to charge to full over the course of the entire night which is a rate around C/10.
Then you’re not exactly using wireless charging the way the average person does, are you?
A “hotter” charger will degrade the battery more. Have I at any point claimed something beyond that?
The average Qi charger wont trickle at the slowest speed possible to meet a schedule, unless a user specifically sets it up that way. Comparing the average use cases and user habits, the cooler charging solution will net you more cycles.
Does your doctorate allow you to somehow claim otherwise?
There’s a wide temperature range where these materials function optimally. You’d need to get them to the point where they’re burning to touch before any significant degradation occurs. For reference 50 °C is a good temperature for tea.
Now that, is much better than walking in with “my battery has had ‘zero’ degradation in three years”.
Why did you lead with something that sounds like obvius anecdotal bullshit if you knew this?
That said my phone sits between 55 and 65 degrees when wireless charging at even just 5 watts. I don’t think it’s ever not been hot to the touch when picking it off a wireless charger.
When we had real headphone jacks the phone lasted longer because you didn’t use the same port for both audio and charging, wearing it out faster.
It’s time to move on. It’s not coming back.
Get a wireless charger. If your phone is less than ~6 years old or probably supports wireless charging. Can find them for as cheap as $10-15…
So much easier.
For me:
USB-B : always doing this rather quiclky
USB-C : never does this
What about you?
B 2.0 or B 3.0?
Yeah my phone is in this stage, so I mostly charge it wirelessly now.
I switched over to magnetic charging cables a few years back, and would never look back. Keeps the port protected, protects against wear out, and the cables are now universal with Micro USB and lightning devices.
This exact type of adapter fried one of the USB C ports in my macbook pro, lol
https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/motlhn/magnetic_usbc_cables_are_not_recommended/
I’m having trouble seeing how this works and what difference it offers compared to a regular cable. Don’t you just plug a cable into the port regardless? Sorry for the silly question
I think that the magnetic thing sits constantly in the port, so there’s no risk the charging port gets filled with pocket lint.
Ah, right. Just like those little aux plugs with funny animals attached for phones and stuff but with additional functionality
You should use the usb until you can’t, wireless charging will burn out your battery and you’ll be in the same place you’re in now, but if your port stops working you’ll have the wireless to fall back on.
You may have responded to the wrong comment.
How do you the plugs eliminate fire risk?
Keep them clean. There’s no more inherent rush than a regular connector, since the magnetic ones are just the same with a magnet holding them in place instead of friction.
Also, if they were to break, it’s far easier to replace them instead of the port on the phone. I recommend the ones that are just adapters and not the whole cables though, since they let you use the cables you already own.
Do they break fast charging?
Nope, far charging works just fine, though you do have to be selective if you want video passthrough, since not all of them have that feature.
Apple devices also don’t always recognize that the cable is capable and will supposedly limit functionality for the data connection.
I use the ones that add on to an existing cable, that way I’m not bound to one cable type. Snatched like 25 of them when they were $2 on AE.
I just bring it to a phone repair place, and they spend about five minutes in the back cleaning it for free.
I just used my new phone to take a picture of my old phones charging port, which worked only with some cables at certain angles, and, yeah… It’s a horror show up in there
I’m just looking at this picture of the Hulk wearing himself as a hat.
My steam deck just started doing this…
9 times out of 10 it’s just compacted dust in the charging port.
or a bad/cheap charger. Rarely is it the socket itself
Used to be the socket with micro USB, but USB c is much more resilient. And any damage usually occurs on the cable end and not the socket. So worst case just replace the cable
It’s honestly a bit of a miracle. The whole male port design looks like it would be asking for trouble compared to a female port like lightning, but the engineering seems to hold up.
My wife has an iPhone, I have Android. I’ve easily bought her twice as many lightning cable replacements over the years, compared to USB C ones.
Micro USB is another story, that port never should’ve existed
Can a steam deck be charged wirelessly? I got a wireless charge pad for my Galaxy S-10e when the charge port started being wonky and it’s worked for a few years now.
If not, order a new charge port, it shouldn’t be more than $15, and remember to remove your sim card before trying to disassemble the case.
Can’t be charged tirelessly, no
German has a word for this: Wackelkontakt
Of course there is
There is a synth module designed specifically to replicate this effect for audio jacks:
https://bastl-instruments.com/eurorack/modules/wackel-kontakt
I have enough DIY Wackelkontakte already without ever trying…
