Your iPhone should take between three to four hours to charge fully. But as your iPhone gets older, its battery starts to degrade gradually. This causes your iPhone to occasionally start experiencing hiccups in its charging speed or not charging altogether. This issue is common among iOS gadgets and can ruin your overall iPhone experience.
This issue of slow charging speeds of your iPhone can be very annoying and is usually caused by several factors.
1) Faulty or incompatible charging accessories.
2) A weak power source.
3) A destroyed charging port.
4) Degraded battery.
5) You’re using a wireless charger.
6) You’ve enabled optimized charging.
Read on below as we take a detailed look at the reasons that might be causing the slow charging of your iPhone. Let’s get started.
Faulty or Incompatible Charging Accessories
After buying your new iPhone, it usually comes with original charging accessories, including a USB/lightning cable, power brick, and charging mat/pad for wireless charging. If you use an incompatible or damaged charging accessory, your iPhone’s charging speed will suffer. This is because your iPhone isn’t getting the maximum capacity from these accessories.
If the original charging cable that came with your iPhone gets destroyed, you’ll be forced to get a new one. This is because damage to the lighting cable is also responsible for the slow charging speeds of your iPhone. But when upgrading the charging cable from the local stores or Amazon, confirm it’s Apple-certified; otherwise, it’ll be no good at quickly charging your iPhone.
You also need to confirm that the power brick is working perfectly well and should ideally have a power output of 2 to 3 amps. Doing this will guarantee that your iPhone charges rapidly as the manufacturer intended.
A Weak Power Source
A slow power source can also cause the slow charging speed of your iPhone. For instance, your iPhone will charge much slower when getting power from the car’s port, which usually has lower amperage. This also happens when charging your iPhone through your computer since the USB 2.0 and 3.0 also have low energy output.
Therefore, connecting your iPhone directly to a wall power source is best to ensure it quickly gets the needed charge. Ideally, iPhones require at least 20 watts for fast charging. If a particular socket isn’t charging your iPhone rapidly, try a different wall outlet. But if this issue continues to persist, then the slow charging speed is being caused a different issue.
Destroyed Port
A clogged charging port is another cause of your iPhone’s slow charging speed. This is a common problem because dirt or lint from your pockets or bags can quickly accumulate in the charging port of your iPhone. With your iPhone, you can easily remove all this dirt using a toothpick or sim removal tool.
If the accumulation of dirt and dust in the charging port is a bit severe, you should consider blowing out the unwanted buildup using a compressed air can. Once you’re done cleaning it, try to charge your iPhone to see whether the charging speeds are back to normal.
Degraded Battery
A dying battery is another reason for the subpar charging speeds of your iPhone. This might most likely be the case if your iPhone isn’t new and has served you for a couple of years because the battery’s efficiency and capacity slowly degrade over time. When this happens, your iPhone won’t drain charge faster but also charge slower than before.
The charging speed and device’s overall performance for iPhones will fall significantly when the battery health hits 80% or lower. And to check your iPhone’s battery health, you should go to “Settings”> “Battery”> “Battery Health”. If the battery health’s Maximum Capacity is 80% or lower, you need to have the battery replaced to restore your iPhone’s normal charging speed.
The replacement of your iPhone’s battery can be done for free if it’s still under warranty from an approved Apple Service Center. You’ll be expected to pay for a battery replacement if the warranty has expired.
Using a Wireless Charger
It’s no doubt that wireless charging is a convenient feature to have on your iPhone. However, wireless charging speeds usually aren’t on the same level as those delivered by the lighting cable. This happens due to the loss of power during the wireless power transmission, meaning the maximum energy output delivered to charge your iPhone is only 7.5 Watts.
Fixing this issue is simple as you need to switch to using your iPhone’s normal wall charger. Consequently, your iPhone’s charging speed will increase dramatically.
You’ve Enabled Optimized Charging
Although unknown to most iPhone users, enabling optimized battery charging is also responsible for slow charging speeds. This feature is designed to reduce charging speeds once the 80% level has been reached.
The purpose of optimized battery charging is to protect your iPhone battery from quickly charging to 100%, thus wearing out a lot faster. With the reduced charging speeds, your iPhone will only reach 100% by the time you’re about to wake up.
But while optimized battery charging is helpful when charging your iPhone during inactive hours, it’s a stumbling block when you want your phone to get charged quickly. Therefore, you need to switch it off by following these steps:
- Open the “Settings” app.
- Go to “Battery”.
- Click on “Battery Health”.
- Toggle off the option “Optimized Battery Charging”.
With this feature disabled, there’ll be a noticeable boost in your iPhone’s charging speed even after the 80% mark has been reached. Therefore, you no longer have to wait very long for your iPhone to be fully charged.
Summary
Nothing is quite as irritating as your iPhone taking forever to charge fully. And when this happens, you’re left asking yourself what could be the issue with your smartphone. This will especially be concerning if this is something that happens often. As a result, you’re left worried and frustrated while simultaneously wondering what the problem could be.
But after reading over this in-depth guide, you now understand what might be causing the slow charging speed of your iPhone. Therefore, you can know the best troubleshooting solution to address this issue. This will resolve your iPhone’s charging speed issues, and you can now enjoy the whole iOS experience when using your device as the manufacturer intended.
