Android smartphone turned on or off at night?

Hi all; :wave:

I have a question about how to best treat an android smartphone at night.
My smartphone is the Samsung Galaxy A04.

With me it is like this:

As soon as I go to bed, I don’t need the smartphone anymore. In fact, I always leave it in another room. So the argument that you can be contacted at night as well is pretty irrelevant to me. :blush:

Now I ask myself: what is better for the smartphone itself (or the battery):
switch it completely off overnight (every night) or leave it in standby mode, so to speak? :thinking:

A friend of mine told me that when buying her phone, she was advised against switching it off every night.
That would not be good for the device… :astonished:
Hmm, that was a few years ago, and I actually I cannot believe that.

So I did some research on the internet and here: https://praxistipps.focus.de/handy-nachts-off-dar-sollten-she-es-tun-125840
I found the following statements:

Turning the phone off at night is better for the device

[…] there are several good reasons to do this [switch off overnight]:

  • During normal operation, a lot of temporary data is collected. Apps and processes
    run in the background. In the long run this is done at the expense of the speed and
    error-free operation.

  • Turning off the device causes background processes to be closed,
    Data litter is deleted and apps are restarted. Regularly
    switch off the device to ensure that the mobile phone remains fast and runs smoothly.

  • Charging when switched off protects the battery and prolongs its
    lifetime. Because a mobile phone turned off will be charged evenly and with a
    constant charging current.

  • If the phone is switched on and even used during charging
    part of the charging energy will be used for the operation of hardware and software.
    Since the required power changes, the flow of energy that the battery receives changes too.
    This irregularity affects performance in the long run

(translation via “TranslateLocally for Firefox” add-on)

My questions are:

  • what do you think of these statements :question:
  • how do you do it (on or completely off overnight) :question:

Thanks a lot in advance for your help.

LG
Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

Unless I forget, my phone will be switched off, and sometimes not restarted, for several days. Sometimes forgetting things can be a blessing!!! If the phone should not be turned off, then do away with the start switch.

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Thanks Daniel for your reply, :wave:

I see. Well, for me it´d be the case of switching it off during the night and then switching it on the next day (around noon).
So it seems that wouldn´t be a problem then.

Many greetings from Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

I have a Samsung Galaxy A51 that is a few years old.

I think I would agree with your thought that it can’t make very much difference to power it off and on each day. It seems like it would be a good idea to power off and on or restart every so often, maybe once a week or so. I’m not sure it really does any cleanup of temp files and such, but it would force all apps to start fresh and memory may be less fragmented. If your phone has less memory than some of the high-end phones it may help with that.

I am not an “on call” person but do need to be available at night. So, I leave my phone on, but I use an app with a schedule to turn down the volumes at night so the whole house can’t hear it.

I don’t charge the phone overnight. My charging happens during a 30-minute window in the morning when I am using the bathroom and another 30-minute window at night in the bathroom. I may not spend exactly 30 minutes, but you get the idea. That usually gets me to 100% charge or close enough. Everyone’s phone may not charge as quickly as mine and some folks may use a larger percentage of the phone during the day, so it may not reach 100%.

Anyway, turning a phone off and on seems like a good idea.

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I do agree that power off is good for the phone ( well documented) only problem is I too also forget to switch it back on, not saying how long it was off for though one time but I had a visit someone I knew who asked if I’m OK, because my phone had been off for quite a while, you have inspired me to do that (switching off at night)
and how will I remember to switch it back on,
Ding
When I got this second hand Samsung S10+ phone while ago the salesman changed it for me to ‘always on display’ between 0700 and 1900 (my pick hours) so during the day if I don’t see it could be it’s not switch on,
that will be a good reminder.

Charging the battery is best done between 70 and 30% never down to zero, if my memory serves well I think that salesman said that three times.

From what I understand it’s similar to Linux distros update a reboot goes a long way resetting all those little things running the background ( got into that habit from EndeavourOS etc)

Thank You Rosika for the reminder

Kind Regards

artytux

edit
It would be good if there was a setting to power off and back on, my old Nokia flip had that ability until the screen cracked into fragments, not ever dropped just cracked up.

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Hi again and thanks a lot for your very detailed answers, :wave:

@pdecker:

O.K., that´s good to know. So basically I couldn´t do anything wrong either way.

That´s certainly a benefit.
For a doing bit of housekeeping I found Cache Cleaner in the f-droid store:

Cache Cleaner can request all installed user and system apps and it replaces all manual actions related to clean cache using Accessibility service.

Haven´t tried it yet, but it sounds promising.

I took a look at the specs: it has 32 GB of internal memory…

Thanks a lot for your clear statement. :+1:

@artytux:

Great. A clear statement from you as well. Thanks a lot. :heart:

Yes, thanks. I try to remain within these limits.

The automation app (also from the f-droid store) helps me with that. I created a rule which plays a predefined text when the battery level hits a certain percentage mark when loading. That´s good enough for me.

In this case however the phone cannot be switched off, I guess, as the automation app wouldn´t run then.
But that´s another case. I always charge during the day. I just want to turn the phone off at night… :wink:

You´re welcome. I´m glad if my question has been something of an inspiration to you.

Many thanks to all of you and many greetings
Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

Hi @Rosika,

I usually turn my phone off at night that way I do not have to recharge it as often.
Sometimes tho, I place the phone in airplane mode at night. That way it is a quick re-start in the morning (take out of airplane mode) plus the phone uses less battery because it is not pinging the cell tower of updating (running) anything.

2 Likes

@easyt50:

Hi Howard, :wave:

Thanks. That was my thinking as well. It´s so good to have another expert for confirmation. :+1:
As far as the airplane mode is concerned, I´ll have to look it up. A quick glance at my user manual didn´t produce any entries with “airplane”… :thinking:

Thanks for the explanation.

Many greetings from Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like

Hi @Rosika,
I found this on the web. I called it airplane mode but it is “flight mode”.


Slide two fingers downwards starting from the top of the screen. Press the flight mode icon to turn the function on or off. Press the Home key to return to the home screen.

[

Samsung Galaxy A04s - Turn flight mode on or off

](Samsung Galaxy A04s - Turn flight mode on or off | Vodafone UK)

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Not really an option for me - I’m guessing work will put me back on the on-call roster…

Not only that - I keep it on charge at my bedside, and I don’t have a clock or a wristwatch, so if I wake up and feel like I can’t sleep, I can check how far off sunrise is and whether there’s any point going back to sleep…

It’s a shonky 2nd hand Galaxy S9+ I got off e-bay… it’s been okay I suppose… I really like having access to DeX (Samsung’s desktop mode on Android - even if I really do hate Samsung).

Anyway - I’ve seen a few Samsung devices go into a boot loop (mostly tablets) so I’d avoid turning them off, if it was me…

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I’ve been using Airplane mode (for years) at night as I haven’t noticed much difference when I turn off my phone vs leaving it on Airplane mode.

Plus turning on and off the phone seems a hassle to me whereas you can turn on and off Airplane mode instantly.

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Hi all, :wave:

@easyt50:

Thanks, Howard, for looking that up for me.

I have two manuals for my smartphone as pdf-files, one in German and one in English.
The English one has a “flight mode” entry and the German manual clumsily translated it
to “Offline Modus” (i.e. offline-mode). No wonder I couldn´t find it. :wink:

The link you kindly provided offers much better help as it gives some explanation of what the flight mode does:

You can turn off all wireless connections so your phone can’t cause any interference with sensitive equipment in a plane or a hospital.
You can use many phone functions when flight mode is turned on, but you can’t send messages or make calls.

Thanks a lot for that, Howard. :heart:

Your explanation:

is actually what I was looking for. :+1:
I´ll give flight mode a try.

@daniel.m.tripp:

I see, Dan.
Well, in your case keeping the phone on overnight certainly makes sense.

Uh, that seems unfortunate. :roll_eyes:
Could you do anything about it? Could the problem be solved in the end?

@sudoersagar :

Welcome to the community. :heart:

Thanks for your reply.
O.K., I´ll try flight mode as well. Perhaps it´ll suit my needs.

It certainly takes a little bit more time, that´s right.
After pressing the side key (on/off key) it takes my phone 45 secs to boot the phone.

Thanks again and many greetings
Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

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I don’t think anyone has mentioned the feature which allows setting power on/off times eg off at 11pm, on at 7am, on Android 7. I have not checked whether a alarm would work at say 6am. Clive

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Hi Clive, :wave:

thanks for the suggestion.

I´ve got to look it up but haven´t found it in a quick search.
Do you have any idea what´s it called?

Many greetings
Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

Hi Rosika on my phone its in Settings and its called Schedule Power On & Off.
Clive

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Thanks, Clive, for looking it up for me.

I looked in the manual and on the phone itself but I don´t seem to have that setting/option available.

Never mind. It was worth a try. :wink:

Thanks again and many greetings
Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

I turn my Moto G7 Power off every night. Seems to be OK. Battery life has been reduced over 3 years of use from 6 days to 4 days between charging. :electric_plug:

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If its an Android phone you can just set the scheduler for when it comes on and powers down. You can also set the state in which it comes on i.e. silent mode for the morning

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I depend on my phone to wake me in the morning so turning it off wouldn’t make sense for me. Also my disabled sister depends on being able to call me at any hour. The down side of course is that the infidels can wake me up at any time of the day or night wit h robo-calls and such.

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Hi all, :wave:

thanks so much for your latest replies. :heart:

Sorry that I couldn´t reply earlier.

I re-set up my system during the past 2 days (fresh/clean install).
Had to do it by April at the latest but now was a more convenient time for me.
Well, now I have a running system (Linux Lite 6.2) with most of the main things running again . :blush:

@Quagmire1946 :

thanks for letting me know. I´ve decided to do the same. Seems good.

@jguy :

Yes, it´s an Android phone.
I looked through the manual but the only things related to scheduling seem to be

  • calendar
  • applying dark mode
  • eye comfort shield
  • software updates

Hmm… perhaps my phone is lacking the feature you were referring to… :thinking:

@DouglasGoodall :

Hi Douglas, and welcome to the community. :heart:

Yes, I understand.
Well, personal situations are quite different and in your case it certainly makes sense to let the phone on during the night.

Thanks to all of you and many greetings.
Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

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