Don’t Leave Your Phone in Your Car This Summer

With record temperatures increasing this summer, it is not only you who are in danger – your delicate electronics, and especially your phone, are also vulnerable. While keeping it out of direct sunlight is obvious, there is a heat trap that people often neglect: the car.

Leaving your phone in your car can ruin your battery

Although you probably already know that the interior of a car becomes pretty during the summer, you might not realize how extreme heat can become.

According to a research document in 2018, with an outside temperature of only 85 ° F, the interior of the cabin reaches approximately 115 ° F after only one hour of direct sun, the dashboard reaching a huge 156 ° F. If you leave your phone in the glove box or in any storage compartment near the dashboard, it can reach similar temperatures over time.

The worst is that 85 ° F is not even so hot in certain places, so your car could become even warmer than that. Parking in the shade helps, but it is generally not enough to completely protect your phone from thermal damage.

But what exactly does the heat do to the phones?

In simple terms, the heat damages the battery a lot. Most modern phones use lithium-ion batteries (Li-ion), which are extremely sensitive to high temperatures. Although the risk of self -combustion in a hot car is relatively low, it is not zero.

This is due to a phenomenon called thermal running – a chain reaction where heat accelerates chemical reactions inside the battery, which in turn generate more heat. This creates a vicious circle of increasing temperatures and chemical activity which can quickly become uncontrollable.

In addition to putting a risk of fire, excessive heat puts serious stress on the battery. This will cause a rapid power drain – I discovered it at the hard when I locked my wife and my phones in the glove box by a sunny day of 100 ° F while we were going to the pool.

My phone was completely dead, and my wife’s Samsung Galaxy S23 + only remained about 15% battery, as well as a phone overheating a phone. Fortunately, I was able to complete the two phones with my superfast car charger once they have cooled.

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In addition to all this, these internal constraints accelerate aging, definitively reducing the maximum battery capacity even from a single exposure to heat. The battery of my aging phone was already quite bad, so I cannot say if there is a notable difference. But my wife says that her battery life has never been the same since that day (although I always keep my fingers crossed that it is only a calibration problem).

By the way, you are not clearly if your phone uses a carbon silicon battery (found in some more recent phones such as the OnePlus 13T). They are in fact at an even higher risk of thermal runnway due to their increased capacity. In addition, these batteries can inflate their original size to three times, which can strengthen significant pressure inside the phone.

What if your phone overheats

As with humans, quickly cooling your hot glass plate is not a good idea, as it can cause problems such as a cracked screen or accumulation of condensation inside the phone. Placing it in the freezer is the worst thing you can do, and it is not very effective anyway, given how long your phone may have been exposed to your knowledge.

If the battery is completely dead and you can’t turn on your phone, don’t panic. The last thing you want to do right now is to load it, as it can cause even more heat construction.

Instead, turn off the phone, remove the housing and let it cool gradually with the ventilation mouths of the car blowing fresh air (but not frozen) on it. Leave it for 10 minutes or more – even if it is no longer warm to the touch, the interior can always maintain the heat which should dissipate at a safer level before starting to use it.

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Precautions if you have to leave your phone in the car

It is quite understandable if you want to leave your phone in your car despite the heat – Take it from me. Despite all the problems I encountered with our phones, I will always leave them locked in the glove box when I go swimming. I don’t want to try my luck to have them fly while I don’t pay attention. In addition, it is pleasant to move away from technology from time to time.

Instead, a little precaution goes very far here, because there are easy ways to keep your phone reasonably in cooling even when it is left in a hot car. To start, turn off the phone to minimize the amount of heat it generates and wrap it in a light-colored fabric or towel to reflect the light, then place it in an isolated pocket (the type you would use for a sandwich) or a dedicated thermal phone pocket.

If you can, leave the phone in a cooler part of your car, as under the seat instead of the glove box, because this area becomes much less hot.

If you want to go further, you can put your phone in a Zipling bag and place a reusable cold pack below inside an isolated pocket. It doesn’t need to be frozen because it can also harm the battery. The Ziplock bag protects the phone from the condensation forming on the cold pack, while the cold pack helps keep the battery cool.

Leaving your phone inside a hot car by accident for about an hour is not the end of the world. You will probably not encounter any major problem with a single body. However, if you regularly leave your phone in the car, be sure to take all the necessary precautions to avoid poor battery life or, a risk of meat, a risk of fire.

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