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Anick Jesdanun explains in his article that  developers are in a constant battle between making phones that meet the desires of the consumer, but also that can stand up to the wear and tear of daily use. Instead of trying to edit the original design of the phone, an edit of the construction of the phone is needed. Functionality and performance should be the priority. Making the phones slimmer may appeal to consumers, but hinders the options developers have on improvements. By changing the construcion of the phone, developers may have the ability to make the necessary changes to improve the construction strength of the phone.

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Change how the phone is built. Make it easier to recycle and cost less. If the phones are made of more recyclable materials then when a phone breaks, the materials could be reused in new phones. If the materials were stronger then it could also make it so breaks happened less often so the need for replacements would decrease. It would also make it a better investment because the life of the phone would increase.

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The main problem with phone lifespan is how they are built. Most new phones are the built the same as old ones. The same materials are used, the only difference is different features are added. Using stronger materials would help lengthen the lifespan of the phone. Eventually the phone will still break, but with better materials it could be recycled and used to make a new one. Reusing materials could help bring down production cost and then lower the overall cost of the phone. If the lifespan of the phone is increased, it will also make the investment better because it wouldn't be something that would need replaced after only a few short years.

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System Thinking: Today's problems are often yesterday's solutions.

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System Thinking: Today's problems are often yesterday's solutions.

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The way phones are built continue changing to try to keep up with new needs. People want bigger screens to see better, but they don't want the phone to feel like a brick so they want it to be thin. Which leaves less room for the battery and makes it easier to break. The battery has to be small enough to fit in the phone but big enough to power the new motherboard and software.

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Old phones can't handle new software.

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Older phones get phased out after so many years.

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Protective cases and screen protectors can help prevent breaks.

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Phones don't do well in water.

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Phones are starting to be made to be water resistant.

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Batteries lose power in extreme temperatures.

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Wenz, J. (2018, September 18). Scientists may have found what makes batteries degrade over time. Retrieved February 09, 2021, from https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a23135177/lithium-ion-battery-degradation-study-nature/

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Stanford University/3Dgraphics

If you've ever used a smartphone for more than a year or two, you know that the lithium ion batteries degrade over time and refuse to hold a charge like they used to when they were new-but the reason why has been little understood. But research published today in Nature Materials could have a few answers.

A group of researchers at Stanford University, the University of Bath, and MIT used the SLAC National Accelerator Lab's facilities at Stanford to monitor the movement of ionic lithium through batteries, charting its course.

William C. Chueh, an assistant professor at Stanford who performs research at SLAC describes batteries as, fundamentally, a negatively charged electrode, a positively charged one, and a separator in between the two. This creates an area of high energy and an area of low energy that lithium ions move between. The lithium is stored in a solid state, but moves through a liquid into the solid reservoir.

Lithium was thought to be anisotropic in these states, which means it has a preference for how it moves through the battery. But as it turns out, that's not entirely the case. Instead, it plots a messy course, leading to areas where it creates a hot spot in the battery. This damages the battery, reducing its power storage capacity, given how heat is a battery's worst enemy.

"We used very powerful X-rays from an accelerator, and we're using these X-rays to look into these individual nanoparticles," Chueh says. "Our original expectation was that lithium moves in certain directions only. We actually saw lithium move in the direction it's not supposed to move."

One of the problems could be that our understanding of the movements of the lithium compounds used in batteries is rather poorly understood, especially because looking at the ions at nanoscale hasn't been possible until recently.

As Chueh puts it, "Previous models don't really explain how the liquid interacts with the solid. Kind of like in space, we think about how the particle behaves in a vacuum. But a battery doesn't operate in a vacuum-it operates in a liquid."

But there is good news-by understanding all of the transport pathways of lithium, the team can help build a smarter battery. "Our conclusion from the paper is that in order to have good lithium transport, then you need to till this transport pathway-not turn it on but turn it off," Cheuh says. This includes designing selective transport channels, additional shielding on batteries, or a battery additive that would prevent against corrosion or the formation of hot spots.

This, in turn, could help increase the efficiency and longevity of batteries that go in hybrid and electric vehicles, and rechargeable batteries designed to store solar energy when the sun isn't out. These sorts of changes may take more than a decade to show up in batteries-but the team is hopeful that their research is adapted into battery manufacturing. And beyond this, there's still plenty to learn.

"Despite batteries being so ubiquitous, people don't know how they work," Chueh says. "It's kind of a miracle batteries work at all."

Source: Nature Materials, DOE, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

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Scientists May Have Found What Makes Batteries Degrade Over Time

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Stanford University/3Dgraphics If you've ever used a smartphone for more than a year or two, you know that the lithium ion batteries degrade over time and refuse to hold a charge like they used to when they were new-but the reason why has been little understood.

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Hildenbrand, J. (2018, March 01). Why does battery life get worse over time? Retrieved February 09, 2021, from https://www.androidcentral.com/why-does-battery-life-get-worse-over-time

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I'm sure you've noticed that you see a noticeable difference in how well a phone battery holds a charge after a year or so. If you keep a phone long enough, its battery may not even have enough charge to survive a whole day. Have you ever wondered why?

Batteries: How do they work?

Electricity isn't magical. In fact, it's a pretty boring subject for most of us and we only want it to be there when we need to use it. But to understand why your phone needs charged more now than it did when you first got it, you need to know a little bit about how a battery works. Don't worry, we're going to stick with the basics here.

Electricity, like any sort of energy, isn't a thing you can create. All the things we think of as "making" electricity are really only converting one form of energy into another, and a battery uses a chemical reaction (energy) to build an electrical charge that can be metered out over time. Different materials can be used to build this charge and they will produce different results. In our phones, we use lithium-based batteries because they provide a decent level of output for a reasonable cost.

The estimated life of a phone battery is just that - an estimate.

Inside a phone battery, you'll find three components that are important for what we're talking about: a negative electrode (called an anode and typically made of graphite), a positive electrode (called a cathode and made from a mix of lithium and other metals), and an electrolyte solution. The chemistry between these three things is simple at its base and is why they can be used to store energy. When you apply a charge to the electrodes (from your charger) lithium ions are positively charged and are attracted to the negative electrode. When you pull a charge away from the battery these lithium ions lose their positive charge and are no longer attracted to the negative electrode. The longer you pull the stored energy away from a charged battery, the number of lithium ions that are no longer charged increases until there just aren't enough of them left to produce any output and the battery is dead. Plugging it into a charger resets this cycle.

"Cycle" is an important word here. Because batteries are designed to store a charge it's difficult to measure their usable life as a unit of time. A battery that lasts two years for you may only last six months for someone else because it's being used differently. So that we can have an estimate of how long to expect them to last, battery longevity is measured by charging cycles. A phone battery is typically designed to last around 500 to 600 cycles, and a cycle is defined as charging a completely dead battery to 100% then draining it to zero again. Charging a battery that has 50% charge left on it, then draining it back to 50% is a partial cycle, which is why you'll hear people telling you to charge your battery before it gets low and also hear people telling you the opposite as ways to game the system and stave off that 500th cycle. Of course, it doesn't work that way because the battery doesn't actually count the number of charge cycles. Five hundred is just an estimate.

But longevity can be measured in cycles because of what happens when you charge a battery and how it affects future charging cycles, the amount of energy that can be stored and the potential (think the number of volts) of the stored charge.

Oxidation and efficiency hate each other

Because electric vehicles are a real thing and the batteries they use are insanely expensive, plenty of studies have been done about why lithium-ion batteries degrade during their lifetime. Thankfully, this also applies to the less-expensive (but still expensive!) batteries inside our phones, and it's because of chemical changes that happen during charging the batteries.

We know that charging a battery positively charges lithium ions which are then magnetically (electricity is magnetism) attracted to the negative electrode. As more and more charged ions are attracted, the difference of potential between the negative electrode and positive electrode increases. That's how you measure voltage - the difference of potential energy between two electrodes. Once it reaches a specific reading the battery is considered fully charged. The opposite is true while discharging a battery and the difference of potential decreases until it reaches zero because no more positively charged ions are present at the negative electrode. But that doesn't mean the negative electrode is clean and exactly the same as it was before you started.

Electrodes oxidize. The same way water and air can cause iron to rust (which is where the word oxidization comes from), lithium, graphite and electrolyte salts will cause an electrode to oxidize. When every positively charged ion is stripped away from the anode in a battery a microscopic layer of particles is left behind and has been chemically bonded to the graphite anode. These particles are made from lithium oxide (lithium bonded with oxygen) atoms and lithium carbonate (lithium bonded with carbon) atoms, neither of which has the same chemical or electrical properties as graphite. This layer interferes with the charge/discharge cycle and both the difference of potential (voltage) and the number of charged ions that can be attracted changes. Eventually, the changes are enough to notice. If you continue to use the battery and charge it as you normally would, you reach the point where there isn't enough electrical energy being stored to power your phone.

Charging a battery essentially changes the composition of the electrodes and affects the way it will charge in the future.

Different types of lithium-compositions, as well as different salts used in the electrolyte solution, have an effect on how much of these deposits are left behind on the electrode. But the materials that make for a cleaner cycle aren't necessarily the best because they can't provide as much stored power. We want high-capacity, low-power batteries in our phones because they are safer than high-power batteries (and cost less) and we want them to provide power to our phone as long as they can. An electric vehicle can use high-capacity, high-power batteries because they are protected by a solid frame and aren't as likely to be damaged. They're necessary because a car needs to be able to go long distances between charges. But the cost of a replacement battery for a Tesla Model S is $12,000, too. Part of that cost comes from the expensive materials used to build a lithium-nickel-cobalt-aluminum-oxide battery as opposed to the basic lithium-cobalt batteries used in a phone that don't last nearly as many cycles before they degrade.

Voltage matters

One of the biggest factors that can influence how many cycles a lithium-ion battery will last is its voltage. Phones and cars aren't the only things designed to run on rechargeable lithium batteries, and in 2015 the U.S. Department of Energy spent a lot of money and time to see exactly what causes problems and how to mitigate them because satellites use lithium-based batteries and solar chargers. Studies found that after the composition of the battery itself, the next biggest culprit that can affect battery longevity is the charging voltage and the voltage of the held charge.

The chemistry that makes a lithium battery work naturally degrades the anode, and that's what we talked about above. But if you charge a battery with more than 3.9 volts, or store a charge with a difference of potential higher than 3.9 volts, the same sort of degradation happens to the cathode (positive electrode). This essentially cuts the longevity of a battery in half. Charging voltage and held voltage are essentially the same thing because you're exciting all the components of a battery, but charging also introduces heat, and the higher the charging voltage the hotter it will be. Heat applied when a battery is excited higher than 3.9 volts further worsens the degradation of the cathode.

There is no secret cabal of battery makers who are trying to fleece us; it's all chemistry.

In other words, the voltages necessary to power a modern phone and quickly charge its battery mean it's almost impossible to "fix" things. Anyone with a battery-powered drill has seen this in action. The 12 or 14-volt batteries used in a tool don't last nearly as many cycles as the ones in our phones. They store and operate at a higher voltage, charge at a higher voltage and much hotter, and can be noticeably affected after just a few charging cycles. They use the same basic lithium-based batteries as a phone because using the sorts of materials we see in a Tesla S battery would make them more expensive, and they just don't have a very long lifetime. Thank goodness we can recycle most of the materials in them and we're not drowning in a sea of discarded Makita and Porter-Cable batteries with lithium being more expensive than gold.

The good news is that all the companies who make lithium batteries are working on making things better. Whoever can come up with the first battery that lasts significantly longer will make a lot of money from it. All we can do is charge our phones when they need to be charged, and know that there isn't some conspiracy between battery manufacturers to get us to buy new products more often.
These Android phones have the best battery life

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Why does battery life get worse over time?

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I'm sure you've noticed that you see a noticeable difference in how well a phone battery holds a charge after a year or so. If you keep a phone long enough, its battery may not even have enough charge to survive a whole day. Have you ever wondered why?

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Ahaskar, A. (2018, June 22). Why Android updates stop beyond a point. Retrieved February 09, 2021, from https://www.livemint.com/Technology/ssHFuxjZGjtD1T9D1hZsxL/Why-Android-updates-stop-beyond-a-point.html

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New Delhi: Rahul Kumar, a 31-year-old senior software engineer at a Noida-based MNC, owns a Moto X Play that runs on Android Nougat, introduced nearly 21 months ago. His phone is unlikely to receive any more OS upgrades, so he has no option but to invest in a new device that runs on the latest Android version. Kumar is simply a case in point. About 94% of Android smartphones run Android 7, or older versions, according to a report on Android Developers Blog, published in May 2018.

The problem is that the Android ecosystem involves multiple stakeholders. After Google releases the code for the latest version of Android, it is customised by the chipmaker for various versions of chipsets. Then it is passed on to the phone makers so they can optimise them with their custom user interfaces (UIs). "For OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), the underlying issue is of economics, including huge time and cost implications, for updating older versions of Android. OEMs have to add a lot of code to Android to bring in new features, and they have multiple devices to develop for," says Prabhu Ram, head (industry intelligence group) at research firm CyberMedia Research.

Users with older Android smartphones miss out on a number of useful features. For instance, the picture-in-picture mode feature in Android Oreo allows users to adjust the size of the app window and move it to any part of the screen unlike the not-so-convenient split screen option in Android Nougat. Besides, app developers stop supporting older versions. For instance, WhatsApp recently said its app won't work on phones running Android Gingerbread or older versions.

Shambhu Yadav, 32, an official in the home ministry, who uses the LG X Screen running on Android Marshmallow, does not care much about the version of OS as long as apps on it work smoothly and the phone has all the features he wants. "But for a millennial interested in the latest rich features, smartphones with older versions of Android would set them back," says Ram.

Another issue is that phones with custom UIs- like Xiaomi's MIUI or Asus's ZenUI-have unique features not available even on the latest version of Android.

"Custom UIs add superb usability extensions to the experience that a stock Android OS phone cannot offer. This bridges the gap between older OS versions and key new features that even the latest stock Android isn't able to offer," said Dinesh Sharma, director (mobile product centre) at Asus India.

Google routinely rolls out security patches to protect Android phones against new vulnerabilities. But if phone makers do not make these updates available to users, they put the device at risk.

Google's recently launched Project Treble is aimed at making chipset makers and device manufacturers work on updates simultaneously. So if your phone does not have the latest Android version, you may want to reconsider the phone brand.

Subscribe to Mint Newsletters

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New Delhi: Rahul Kumar, a 31-year-old senior software engineer at a Noida-based MNC, owns a Moto X Play that runs on Android Nougat, introduced nearly 21 months ago. His phone is unlikely to receive any more OS upgrades, so he has no option but to invest in a new device that runs on the latest Android version.

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Jesdanun, A. (2015, September 29). Why phones break: Screens get stronger, yet we demand more. Retrieved February 09, 2021, from https://phys.org/news/2015-09-screens-stronger-demand.html

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This Aug. 26, 2015 photo shows an Apple iPhone with a cracked screen after a drop test from the DropBot, a robot used to measure the sustainability of a phone to dropping, at the offices of SquareTrade in San Francisco. Despite engineering breakthroughs, screen breakage has become a part of life, the leading type of phone damage. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

Ask a roomful of people to take out their phones, and you're bound to see several with cracked screens.

Despite engineering breakthroughs, screen breakage has become a part of life, the leading type of phone damage.

In part, we're to blame. We want phones that are bigger, yet thinner, offsetting strides made in strengthening glass. We also want phones to be sleek: A phone that's rugged enough to withstand drops just won't match what we expect smartphones to look and feel like.

"The tradeoff is phones get a lot bigger and bulkier," said Rick Osterloh, president of phone maker Motorola. "Without a really big innovation and technological breakthrough, it's going to be hard to (make a really tough phone) in a size people expect."

That's not to say phones aren't getting stronger.

In fact, given how frequently we use phones throughout the day, juggling them as we commute, run errands and chase after small children, it's amazing screens don't crack even more.

The latest phones from the two leading phone makers-Apple's iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, and Samsung's Galaxy Note 5 and S6 Edge Plus-mix zinc into the aluminum frames for aerospace-grade strength. The frames will absorb more of the shock that would have gone to the glass, not to mention help prevent the phones from bending in pockets.

The displays also use ion-strengthened glass. Samsung uses Corning's Gorilla Glass 4, which gets heated in a process that replaces sodium ions on the surface with potassium ions. Because potassium ions are larger, they press together to create a stronger surface-akin to a layer of armor to protect the interior. Apple turned to Corning for a custom glass that goes through two rounds of ion exchange for greater strength.

Even some budget and mid-range phones, including Motorola's, are now using strengthened glass, though made with older, weaker formulas.

With strengthened glass, you can still pierce the armor with enough pressure, but it's harder than with normal glass.

In this Aug. 26, 2015 photo, pressure is applied to a phone with a BendBot, a robot designed specifically to test the bendability of today's most popular smartphones, in San Francisco. Despite engineering breakthroughs, screen breakage has become a part of life, the leading type of phone damage. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

SquareTrade, which offers protection plans for consumer electronics, said that while phone screens used to crack after one or two drops, the latest iPhones and the Note 5 survived 10 drops each from six feet in tests last weekend, at least when dropped on their corners. SquareTrade also said the new iPhone screens are more durable than last year's models. (It didn't test the Note 5's predecessor for comparison.)

But for all three new phones, the screens broke right away when dropped face down on concrete. The stronger glass improves the odds, but the risk isn't zero.

Scott Forester, director of innovations for Gorilla Glass, said Corning has made strides in withstanding the types of surfaces most likely to puncture glass, including asphalt and concrete. But he said that's offset by glass getting thinner and screens bigger over the years in response to consumer demand.

"It's always this fine balance between practicality and design," Forester said.

SquareTrade said half of its damage claims are for screen cracks. That doesn't include cracked phones people hang onto because they don't want to pay a $75 deductible.

Melissa Lefas has dropped her iPhone 5s a few times, but its screen survived until the phone slipped out of an open backpack while she was carrying groceries and leaning over to unlock a bike. It landed on a New York sidewalk made of stone-a jagged surface perfect for puncturing glass.

"I heard it and knew it was a goner," she said. "I've seen so many people with cracked screens. I felt it was a matter of time."

Aware of consumers' frustrations with breakage, HTC is offering one free replacement for any damage, including cracks, to its HTC One smartphone within the first year. Unlike standard warranties, accidents are covered.

For other phones, we might simply have to get a case, insurance or both.

In this Aug. 26, 2015 photo, Chelsea Wickline, Associate Creative Director at SquareTrade, places a phone atop a DropBot, a robot used to test the durability of a phone, at SquareTrade offices in San Francisco. Despite engineering breakthroughs, screen breakage has become a part of life, the leading type of phone damage. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

Cases offer no guarantees, but they help. When Ben Wilson's iPhone 5 fell out of a private plane he was co-piloting at 9,300 feet, the case shattered but the phone survived. It helped that the phone landed on a pasture in northern Texas rather than a stone sidewalk.

"It surprised me," Wilson said, talking on that still-functioning phone nearly two weeks later. "I thought it would be in quite a few pieces."

Can more be done? What about ditching glass for something stronger?

Plastic is one candidate, but it's prone to scratching.

In this Aug. 26, 2015 photo, Chelsea Wickline, Associate Creative Director at SquareTrade, operates a DropBot, a robot used to test the durability of a phone, at SquareTrade offices in San Francisco. Despite engineering breakthroughs, screen breakage has become a part of life, the leading type of phone damage. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

Then there's sapphire, a mineral that's just short of diamond in hardness. It's extremely scratch-resistant, but its resistance to cracking is up for debate. It's also tough to manufacture, especially in larger sizes for phone screens. Apple uses sapphire for the smaller displays found on pricier Apple Watch models, as well as for the home button and camera lens cover on iPhones.

The material used isn't the only factor in durability. Apple has received a patent for using internal motors to rotate a phone as it drops so that the glass part doesn't hit the ground. There's no word, though, on when we might see this in iPhones.

In this Aug. 26, 2015 photo, Samsung and Apple cellular phones undergo a slide test at SquareTrade's offices in San Francisco. Despite engineering breakthroughs, screen breakage has become a part of life, the leading type of phone damage. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

It might ultimately come down to priorities. Yes, people want phones that don't crack, but they also want better cameras and better video playback, not to mention a sleeker design. Manufacturers have to innovate in all of those areas.

"I give manufacturers a lot of credit for continually striving to make durability a major component of their new designs," said Jessica Hoffman, a spokeswoman for SquareTrade. "However, it just seems they can't keep up with us."

© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Why phones break: Screens get stronger, yet we demand more

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Ask a roomful of people to take out their phones, and you're bound to see several with cracked screens. Despite engineering breakthroughs, screen breakage has become a part of life, the leading type of phone damage. In part, we're to blame. We want phones that are bigger, yet thinner, offsetting strides made in strengthening glass.

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Why after so long the phone will no longer update and stop working properly?

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How can phones be built stronger and harder to break?

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Why do phone batteries begin to degrade and not last long?

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Phones usually only last a few years before they have to be replaced.