We’ve probably all been there. Your phone is charging and you feel its temperature and can’t avoid asking yourself: why does my phone get so hot while charging?
I hope your doubts will be cleared in this article and you’ll also learn how to keep your phone at lower temperatures.
Check out our articles on charging a smartphone and explaining fast charging.
Table of Contents
- Should A Phone Be Hot?
- Usual reasons for your phone to heat up while charging
- How to cool down your phone while charging
- Is it bad to use your phone while charging?
- Wrap up
Should A Phone Be Hot?
For those who have never gone through this experience, it can be hard to distinguish whether your phone is warm or hot. Instances like gaming for minutes might leave the phone warm, but in some cases, you might experience overheating. And in extreme situations, the phone shuts down.
You can monitor your phone’s temperature using mobile applications designed for this purpose. Most applications will provide detailed information about the software and hardware.
If you use an iPhone, you can get the Battery Monitor App. Android users can get Ampere. As a reference point, while your phone is on light usage your battery’s temperature should be around 86° F (30° C) or lower.
Back to the question of this article: why does my phone get hot when charging?
Usual reasons for your phone to heat up while charging
High temperatures inside a phone have many causes. Let’s go over them.
Two main ways to generate heat
There are two main reasons for your phone’s temperature to rise.
One of them is your phone’s hardware activity. Doing tasks that require high processing power, heat will be generated. That’s what happens while watching high-resolution videos and playing games.
The other reason is charging. The higher the charging rate, the more heat it’s generated. If you’re interested, read our article on How To Get A Phone To Charge Faster.
Actually, there is one more: combining the two.
Using a cell phone while charging
In case you’re wondering, yes, using a cell phone while charging will generate more heat.
The temperature will be even higher while using high-demand apps while fast charging simultaneously.
Background activity
Even while you’re not using your phone some apps might be running in the background. How do you avoid it?
Check out your phone’s battery usage and see which apps are spending more energy. In modern Android phones, you go to the app settings and disable the permission for the application to run in the background.
If you’re not using a WiFi network, you can shut it down. The same goes for Bluetooth or mobile data.
Why is that? Because the phone will be scanning for WiFi networks around it. The same goes for Bluetooth devices.
Do you need 4G? If not, you can switch to 3G. It’s considerably slower for downloading big files but in normal usage, the difference is a lot slimmer.
External heat and direct sunlight
Whether you’re charging at home, at the office, or in your car, avoid direct sunlight.
Putting your phone within an environment of high temperatures promotes discharge, which can lead to overheating as the phone system tries to strike a balance between charging and discharge.
Keep your phone away from sunlight and heat sources.
Note that your phone casing can accelerate heating besides the temperatures within the environment.
How to cool down your phone while charging
Unless there’s a fault with the battery or the charger, there’s still hope. You can do many things to reduce overheating. You should consider as many of these remedies as you can:
- Lock your phone, turn off the screen and leave it to rest;
- Dim the screen brightness while using;
- Turn off WiFi, mobile data, Bluetooth, and NFC, if you’re not using them;
- Change the battery settings to optimize the app’s activity;
- In terms of mobile data, restrict data usage from apps in the background;
- Avoid using power-hungry apps;
- Keep your phone away from sunlight and heat sources;
- Remove unused apps and unnecessary personal files like photos and videos;
- Keep your phone and apps updated;
- For faster cooling, besides leaving your phone resting, you can go even further by removing its cover.
If your phone is suffering from high temperatures and on top of everything that has been mentioned previously, you can stop the charge for a few minutes. Since the charging process generates heat in the battery, this is an effective way of reducing heat.
Is it bad to use your phone while charging?
In normal circumstances, no, there’s no harm in using your phone while charging it.
Ok… so is it bad to use your phone while charging or not?
Well, I would recommend avoiding playing games while charging. Both of these will generate heat. Doing both simultaneously will cause more heat.
Although there is nothing wrong with using a phone while charging, as mentioned before, it will charge faster if it’s sitting idle.
Wrap up
With this article, you now know why your phone gets hot. And you also know how to cool down your phone while charging.
Check out how you can How To Get A Phone To Charge Faster.
