With the summertime sun on the horizon, people everywhere try to protect themselves but protecting your smartphone is a different story. After all, sunscreen might be good at protecting your skin, but it’s considerably less effective when it comes to things that aren’t skin.
As we go into the summer months with spending more time outside, the risk of your phone going from hot to dangerously hot increases. Extreme temperatures can have a big impact on your phone’s internal components. A phone getting too hot can cause data loss or corruption, and repeated exposure to heat could permanently slow down your device. Heat can even cause battery leakage, potentially putting your personal safety in danger.
You’d take care of yourself in very warm weather (we’d hope), so make sure you take care of your smartphone too. There are a few particular scenarios to watch out for when it comes to your handset overheating, as well as a few tricks you can use to guard against it, and cool the device down when needed.
What Makes Your Phone Overheat?
You probably have experience with an overheated phone if you’re reading this post. Knowing why, then, is advantageous. Phone environment determines its temperature, and it has few options for coping with extremely hot or cold temperatures.
Another source of heat is the phone itself. Even while your phone is hidden, the processor and other chips continue to work hard. The heat rises from all the digital processing going on in such a constrained area. While modern operating systems are quite efficient at controlling thermals through process throttling, some phones are more prone to heat buildup than others. All those phone innards are still extremely good at warming things up.
How to tell when your phone is overheating
A good place to start is by knowing the safe operating temperature for your phone, information which the manufacturer should make available somewhere on the web: For iPhones, it’s between 32ºF and 95ºF (that’s 0ºC to 35ºC). Whether you’re on the beach or in the car, that gives you an idea of how hot is too hot.
There are numerous circumstances in which your phone could warm up or even get hotter. Depending on the device, this may happen while streaming or recording video, charging (particularly wireless), or running apps or games that place a lot of strain on the phone’s processing. These problems can get worse as devices age.
Another demanding task that causes a phone to heat up quickly is GPS step-by-step navigation. In this case, you should pay close attention to the temperature of the phone because it may also be charging and exposed to direct sunlight (through the windscreen of your car).
Most phones will occasionally get warm to the touch—particularly when under strain—and there’s no exact science for working out when hot is too hot. In general, extended periods of overheating are a concern, and so is a phone that’s overheating to the extent that you can’t comfortably hold it in your hand.
In some cases, your phone will tell you when it’s too warm: For example, iPhones throw up a warning when they’re too hot to charge safely, when restoring from an iCloud backup has pushed the temperature too high, and when they’re too hot to use in general. Operations are paused until the device cools, though emergency calls can still be made.
Here are some basic but easy to overlook tips for keeping your iPhone or Android cool this summer.
Take your phone out of your pocket
On a hot day, you shouldn’t keep your phone in your pocket if you want it to cool down. Not only is it unpleasant, but your natural body heat will work against the cooling process. Just like while charging, you’re better off putting yours in a shaded position away from insulating materials. In a worst-case scenario, an overheated phone’s battery can start to leak or catch fire, putting you at serious risk.
Stop using your phone, or put it in airplane mode
It’s not just external temperature that can cause a phone to overheat. If you’re playing games or making lots of calls, your phone will be working harder and generating more heat as it does. Combined with warm surrounding temperatures, this can lead to overheating. To help your phone cool down, put it in airplane mode and stop using processor-intensive apps like games — or better yet, stop using it altogether for a while.
Toggle your display’s brightness to reduce battery strain
Your phone’s battery will work less if the display’s brightness is lowered, and a battery that works less is a battery that stays cool.
Your phone’s display puts a ton of stress on the battery, so if your goal is to avoid the dreaded overheating alert, the first thing you should do is manually set its brightness to the lowest level you’re willing to put up with.
This is obviously easier said than done when it’s a hot one and you’re dealing with seven inches from the midday sun, but what you’ll lose in screen visibility you’ll make up for in battery conservation. Remember: A cooled-off battery makes for a cooled-off smartphone.
Don’t leave your phone in the car
A car acts like a greenhouse on a hot day — one recent study found that a car parked in the sun on a 95 degree day can reach temperatures of 116 degrees in just one hour. Apple recommends not to use an iPhone when it’s above 95 degrees, and says you shouldn’t store it anywhere higher than 113 degrees. Other smartphone manufacturers recommend similar steps. (Hot cars are, of course, also a threat to people and pets.)
Don’t charge your phone in direct sunlight
As you’ve probably experienced, charging your phone can cause it to heat up. If you leave your phone in direct sunlight while it’s charging, the heat from the sun will add to the normal heat that’s a side-effect of the electricity transfer to your phone’s battery. That can cause the phone to heat up far more than it normally would.
Don’t charge your phone under your pillow
For the same reason, you shouldn’t leave your phone under any kind of pillow, blanket or other warming material. On a hot day, the heat given off by a charging phone can climb to dangerous levels if it’s not allowed to dissipate efficiently. Make sure to charge your phone in the shade, preferably on a hard, cool surface.
Don’t put your phone in the freezer if it gets too hot
Rapid temperature shifts are also bad for your phone. One reason for this is condensation: water is more likely to become trapped inside your phone, causing problems, if you put it somewhere like a freezer when it’s very hot. A better bet is to turn off your phoen and leave it in a cool area for a while so it returns to room temperature at a more natural rate.
What to do if your phone is overheated
If all your preparation and techniques fail, and you do end up with an overheated phone, don’t fret. Chances are that every bad omen can be reversed. If you’re staring at a heat warning on your screen or your phone is hot to the touch, you may be wondering, “How do I cool down my phone safely?” Here’s what we recommend you do:
- Turn off the phone if it hasn’t automatically shut off already. This will immediately kill all heat-producing processing inside the device.
- Get your phone to a cool, dry place. Cool doesn’t mean cold. That means no freezer or fridge. Someplace indoors, or even under a nice shady oak, should suffice.
- Remove any cases or charging cables. Pumping more electricity into the phone is not a good idea at this point, and a case is only going to trap excess heat further.
- Let it sit for as long as necessary to cool down your phone. This usually is only a few minutes, maybe up to an hour or two.
- If available, letting cold AC, or even just a fan, blow over the device is a great way to speed up the process and cool down your phone.
