Chargie protects your Android phone’s battery like an electric car

Chargie is a device that aims to bring the smarter charging features offered by a few Android phones to all smartphones – and to add even greater flexibility and intelligence. For a limited time, you can get it on sale for Black Friday.

The same smarts can be added to literally any device you own which is powered by lithium-ion batteries, and that’s most portable gadgets …

The smartphone charging problem

Smartphones use lithium-ion batteries. The benefit of li-ion is that it’s highly efficient, packing a lot of power into a small space. The drawback is that these batteries need careful charge-management to give them the longest possible life.

Lithium-ion batteries can be damaged in one of two ways. The first is completely depleting them. If you frequently run a battery down to zero power, that will significantly shorten its life.

The second is by keeping them at 100% for a long time – which is something that will easily happen if a device is left on charge for extended periods.

Optimized battery charging

A handful of smartphones offer a built-in optimised battery charging feature. Google’s Pixel 3 and later, for example, and the OnePlus 7 and up.

The feature aims to prevent your phone from fully charging to 100% as soon as you plug it in. Instead, the battery will charge to about 80%. This means it will stay at around 80% for most of the night, even though it is connected to the charger the whole time. Just before 8 AM, the phone will then finish charging and should hit 100% just as you take it off the charger to get on with your day.

While this is a great starting point for the few devices that offer the safeguard, it’s a fully automatic process, without any flexibility. It works fine if you have a consistent schedule, especially if you charge your phone overnight, but that isn’t the case for everyone. Some people have their phone on charge at their desk, for example, taking it with them for internal or external meetings on a variable schedule.

This is where Chargie comes in.

Chargie makes any phone charger a smart charger

Chargie is a small device you fit between your charger’s power brick and your charger cable.

It links by Bluetooth to an app on your phone. You can then set the percentage you want to charge to manually, just like the feature offered in high-end electric cars like Teslas. 

Or you can schedule your device to be topped up manually, at a time you know precisely. For example, you can keep your phone at 50% throughout the night (much better for the battery) and top it up to 90% or whatever level you find suited for the next day, thus completely avoiding high charging states and using the two-step charging process. Even if you need 100%, it’s much better doing it this way than plainly keeping it charged at that level for the entire night.

Universal Battery Protection

Not only can you protect smartphone batteries with this gadget, but all sorts of other “dumb” devices you may have: flashlights, older GPS navigators, Bluetooth speakers, wireless headphones, smartwatches, and more. Most of them have no smart charging limits at all and can spend days or even weeks with batteries that are 100% charged, which leads to much lower battery life. Chargie can also be used with basic lithium-ion applications created by hobbyists and makers. 

Chargie protects the environment, as well as your wallet

By extending the usable life of your battery, Chargie saves you the hassle and expense of replacing your smartphone battery.

That doesn’t just save you money, though – it also helps the environment. Batteries use rare minerals which need to be mined, and also create an e-waste problem when it is time to dispose of them. Chargie reduces or eliminates battery replacements, so is kind to the planet.

Chargie is also manufactured in an environmentally responsible way. The process is lead-free, and both the circuits and contacts are gold-plated to protect against oxidisation, prolonging the life of the device itself as well as your smartphone.

Chargie is inexpensive

Chargie costs just $29.99, and you can use it with any of your existing chargers and charging cables. It’s compatible with any USB-A cable, with a USB-C one available here. 

They also have a Black Friday discount right now, don’t miss it!