How to Keep Your Phone Cool and Prevent Overheating

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As we start rolling through the warmer months of the year, you'll likely find your days heating up. But while you begin wearing your summer clothes so you can bask in the hot weather, electronics like your mobile phone have totally different needs.

If you let your phone overheat, you may find yourself suddenly draining the battery or forcing the phone to shut down. Batteries can get damaged, and the phone's central processor can even melt, permanently destroying the phone.

The last thing anyone needs is to suddenly have to buy a new phone, Optimum Mobile is here to share some useful tips for preventing your phone from overheating. 

How to keep your phone from overheating 

You might be someone who loves to bask in the summer sun, but your phone absolutely does not share this preference. Sun exposure can cause the battery to overheat and lose its ability to charge, which can be an expensive repair - or even require that you buy a new phone. Your battery may leak or catch fire, which can be costly and dangerous.

This goes hand-in-hand with not leaving your phone in the sun. If the effects that heat can have on your battery are not enough to elicit more caution from you, consider how your phone is made of metal and glass - both materials that are prone to melting at higher temperatures. You can cause your touchscreen to lose sensitivity or even completely stop working, while the memory and processing hardware in your phone can also melt and stop functioning.

Scaling back your power use on a hot day can reduce the demand on your battery, and help your phone stay cooler. One of the biggest culprits driving up processor and battery demand is your smartphone's screen, which is why dimming it can help.

Once again, the same activities that can drain your battery may also cause your phone to overheat. You can turn off or even uninstall apps you're not using, or you can adjust the apps running in the background, all from the Settings menu on your iOS or Android device. This can help minimize the work your battery and processor need to do, which makes it easier for your phone to stay cool.

Using a manufacturer-approved charger is a good way to make sure the power transfer is optimized for your phone's needs and serves as a layer of quality control for the charging device you use. Also make sure you charge on a hard, flat, cool surface; chargers tend to run a bit hot, and so making sure they have adequate ventilation helps them stay cool.

Games or media with heavy graphics, high engagement with working memory, and lots of rapid processing put some of the heaviest loads on your phone's processor and battery. This can cause your phone to overheat. Take regular breaks to make sure your phone never gets too hot.

Your phone is already prone to overheating when you are either gaming, streaming, or charging; combining any of these activities may only make it worse. Try to take breaks from your activities so your phone has a chance to cool off. Remember, chronic overheating will cause long-term damage to your phone.

Whether it's app updates or operating system updates, stay up-to-date so you catch the latest fixes designed to optimize battery life and phone performance. These updates strive to continually enhance your phone, with the goal of making it run more efficiently and effectively. In turn, you lower the risk of your phone overheating.

Unsurprisingly, if your phone starts to overheat, you'll want to cool it down. Move it out of direct sunlight and be sure to place it on a cool hard surface to help maximize airflow. Consider putting a fan nearby or even blowing directly on the phone to encourage the heat to quickly dissipate.

Pro-tip: Try to avoid extreme, sudden changes in temperature as it may damage the phone.

Cell phone cases don't maintain the best airflow on your phone, and they may contribute further to an overheating issue. If you think your phone is overheating, consider temporarily removing the case to help bring it back to a healthy temperature. If your phone consistently overheats, consider an alternative to your current case; you may find that another option works better to help it cool down.

People often report that running devices - laptops, tablets, phones, and other personal electronics - close to each other can turn up the heat. This is likely a perceived effect that results from how electronics need good airflow around them to allow heat to dissipate; putting multiple devices close to each other, particularly in a confined space (such as a handbag) can dial up the heat.

As long as Bluetooth is enabled, your phone will constantly scan to find a potential connection. This adds to the phone's workload and can make an existing tendency to overheat worse. Consider turning off Bluetooth, even if only temporarily, to give your phone a chance to cool down.

To help your phone cool down even faster, don't just turn off Bluetooth; set your phone to airplane mode to stop it from scanning for Wi-Fi or cellular data. Giving your phone a break can help it cool down.

Charging your phone can warm it up, but the good news is that the opposite is true as well. If you notice your phone needs to cool down and it's plugged in to charge, go ahead and unplug it for a quick cool-down. As mentioned previously, make sure you're using the original charger or a manufacturer-approved model, since many off-label chargers are not optimized for some phones (or may not be assembled to appropriate quality standards).

If you don't turn off your overheated phone, you might be forced to since many smartphone models now include an automatic shut-off feature that is enabled when the phone crosses a particular temperature threshold. Being proactive and turning it off yourself helps make sure all your apps shut off properly, which in turn helps protect your phone in the long run.

Optimum Mobile offers the latest mobile phones from Apple, Samsung, Motorola, and more. With four plans to choose from, Optimum Mobile offers big carrier benefits without the big price. When you get Optimum Internet and add Optimum Mobile, you'll save monthly on your Internet bill. You can call us at 866-200-7004 or visit the Optimum store nearest you.
 

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