Why Does My Phone Get Hot?

Does your phone constantly get hot? You could be wondering where the problem could be or how much hot is too hot.

Whether using an Android or iOS device, find out why your phone keeps getting hot, how to troubleshoot the problem, and prevent the same from happening again.

The question of why your phone gets hot is a common issue that does not have a single answer.

Gaming for a long period of time
Streaming content
Failure to optimize your settings
Environmental factors
Apps that require updating
Malware

There are numerous reasons why phones get hot. However, there are times when your phone will experience some warmth-this is perfectly normal.

Simple physics might explain that since phones are electronic devices, the movement of electricity throughout the phone ends up creating some heat.

You must, therefore, be able to differentiate between normal warmth and overheating to the point where you can no longer hold the phone comfortably. If it gets to this point, it can be an indication of a more serious issues hence the need to establish the cause of such overheating.

Why Does My Phone Hot and Why Am I Losing Battery Power?

In most cases, Android devices overheat because of a number of problems such as rogue apps and malware. This could be the reason why your Android phone battery keeps getting hot.

Things are a little different when dealing with an iOS device. Since Apple disallows the installation and use of non-approved apps, this would mean that Apple devices do not have viruses. This leaves many people wondering; why is my iPhone overheating?

Where is the Heat Source?

When there is a surge in the temperatures on your phone, the heat sources would most probably be the battery, screen or the processor. These are the phone’s components that generate heat.

The phone’s battery: The chemicals inside the battery are the ones that generate heat.
The phone’s processor: The processor is involved in information transfer at lightning speeds thereby generating heat.
The screen: By virtue of emitting light, the screen is also a heat source.

Based on where the heat is coming from, you can easily tell what is causing your phone to overheat. For example, if the overheating occurs mainly at the back of the phone, then definitely the phone’s battery is the cause of the problem.

Mobile phones have lithium-ion (Li-Ion) that despite their small size, are quite powerful.

Li-Ion batteries are safe to use but an extremely hot battery needs replacement. If it is the bottom of the phone that keeps overheating especially when you are charging the phone, it is the charger that could be causing the problem.

It is recommended that you always use the original charger from the manufacturer to prevent such a problem from happening.

This does not disqualify third-party chargers as they are still effective as long as they are from genuine sources. Besides the battery and the charger, other causes of overheating could be related to either external forces or the phone itself.

Can Overheating Damage Your Phone?

Knowing whether your phone is overheating or just warm is not easy especially if you are less tech-savvy. The general temperature range of a phone’s internal temperature is between 37 and 43 degrees Celsius.

These temperature levels that are considered normal for most phones. Before you start wondering whether your phone is overheating or just warm, there are several reasonable ways of establishing that.

First, you can install the nitty AIDA64 app for Android phones that will provide information about the phone’s status including the temperature. iOS devices on the other hand have the Battery Health menu that also gives useful information about the phone’s software and hardware but does not provide a temperature report.

Since it has already been established that certain heat conditions on your phone are normal, the best way of determining overheating should be based on how often the phone keeps getting hot. You should be able to tell when the temperature on your phone gets uncomfortable. If the phone keeps getting hot for no apparent reason, then that calls for concern.

Overheating Issues on Different Phone Models

For iOS users, one of the main causes of overheating is the ageing aspect of the phone. Older phone models have been found to overheat as they struggle to match current updates and other related apps.

A specific example is the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 that was subjected to investigations by the Transport Security Administration after several battery explosions.

The model is still banned from flights up to date. Before buying a new phone device, it is always a good idea to check for sprcs to make sure there are no issues with the model with regards to overheating.

Causes of Overheating on Phones

There are several reasons why your phone requires more power subsequently causing the device to warm up more than normal. Some of these reasons include:

Gaming for a long period: If you are an avid gamer, then you should expect nothing less than your phone constantly overheating. Of course, finding yourself deep into a game of Candy Crush or Chutes and Ladders is totally understandable especially if you are traveling using public transport.

However, it is important to know that high-intensity games on your phone tend to use the phone’s graphics-processing unit as well as the phone’s central-processing cores that will cause the phone to heat up.
Streaming content: Streaming content is another cause of your phone heating especially if you are streaming your content from apps such as YouTube and Netflix. If you happen to stream the content for a long period of time, you are technically overworking your phone’s processor which is a sure way of your phone overheating. By streaming your content, the phone has to load the video content and be forced to keep the content on display for a longer period.
Failure to optimize your settings: The phone’s settings also affect how much energy will be used up in the long-run. If you have your screen’s brightness optimized or running animated wallpapers, consider dialing down on some settings that are not necessary. Such settings only end up adding the load to the phone’s CPU. Your phone will still work perfectly when the screen brightness is average or even when you are running fewer widgets.
Environmental factors: Leaving your phone exposed to extremely high temperatures such as direct sunlight or in your car can cause overheating. However, such overheating should be the least of your concerns. Once you leave your phone exposed to extreme heat, you can expect that the touch screen will cease to operate in the right way. Another effect is that your battery will start draining faster over time. Exposure to water is also another cause of phone overheating.
Apps that require updating: When an app requires updating or has other underlying issues such as bugs, then it can cause your phone to overheat as it will constantly overuse the processor of your device. Remember, there are still other apps using the same processor. When an app and the operating system is updated, such updates come with extra features that include bug fixes. If the apps on your phone remain updated, the device will operate more effectively and is less likely to overheat.

What Do You Do When Your Phone Overheats?

Once you have an overheating phone, there are some quick-fixing techniques that can help fix the problem. First, try and remove your phone’s cover.

The reason for this is not because the cover is causing the overheating but rather, it could be trapping the heat. This means that removing the cover will help bring down the temperatures.

After you are done removing the cover, turn the settings to airplane mode so that the features that quickly drain your battery are deactivated.

Some of these features include: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, wireless radio and cellular signal search. Turning the phone to airplane mode is probably not the most logical option but it will cool down the phone almost instantly.

If your phone is overheating, NEVER consider exposing it to extremely cold temperatures such as putting it in a freezer. Of course this sound like an amazing idea and the right temperature control measure but such exposure can cause irreparable damage to the phone.

It is way much better if you consider fanning or blowing the phone (although this option is limited in terms of its effectiveness).

Android and iOS phones are designed to operate between 0 and 35 degrees Celsius. This means that exposure to environmental factors outside the above temperature range can damage your phone. If exposure to direct sunlight is what causes your phone to overheat, just move it away from sunlight.

There are some other measures that you can undertake to make sure that your phone does not overheat. Such measures include:

Using less power on the phone: The battery-saving mode on Android phones and low power mode on iPhones are some of the options you can use so that your phone uses less energy.
Install a junk-cleaning app: A junk-cleaning app minimizes the number of features draining your phone’s power. Such applications will effectively remove pre-installed apps from your phone that you hardly use for improved performance.
Dim the screen brightness: Of course, dimming the brightness of the screen improves the energy efficiency of the phone. Dimming the brightness reduces the load on your phone’s battery and to your eyes too.
Turn off Bluetooth, WI-Fi, and GPS: features such as Wi-Fi and GPS tend to drain the battery’s power, and turning them off will reduce the load to the phone’s battery allowing the device to cool off.
Remove malware: The presence of malware and bugs on your phone tend to slow down major applications and cause the phone to overheat. a quick fix to this problem is scanning the phone for malware and subsequently initiating the removal process.
See a phone techy: There are instances that you will try all the quick fix techniques when your phone overheats and the problem still persist. Under such circumstances, consider seeking professional advice from an expert just to make sure that you don’t make the overheating issue worse than it already is. If the phone’s battery is where the problem is, consider getting a replacement.

How Do You Stop Your Phone From Overheating?

The best strategies when dealing with an overheating phone is to solve the problem first then explore ways of preventing further overheating issues in future.

To prevent future overheating problems, you need to develop a phone-care plan that can enhance your phone’s life and ensure that you don’t spend unnecessarily on phone replacements. Here are some of the ways you can care for your phone to prevent overheating:

Your phone’s charging system matters: as mentioned earlier, you should always use the right charger for your phone-in this case the charger that came from the manufacturer. Apart from using the right charger, always ensure that you charge the phone the right way.
Avoid putting the charger on surfaces that conduct heat: It is not a bad idea to charge your phone overnight instead of frequently charging it at intervals during the day. Even if you don’t disconnect the charger from the power source, smartphones have specialized chips that ensure that the phone stops charging once it is 100%.
Make sure your apps are updated: if your phone has not been having any issues and all of a sudden it starts overheating, the first culprits should be some of the recent apps you had installed on the phone. Some of these apps may have bugs that cause your phone to overheat. if you cannot update the said apps, try uninstalling them just to verify if they are the reason why your phone is overheating.

Conclusion

Proper care of your phone is paramount and some of the ignored issues could be an indication of an even greater problem with your phone. This is why you should never brush aside your phone overheating. You really don’t have to be a technical wiz to stop your phone overheating, consider the quick-fix measures.

If all else fails a support call to your phone manufacturer may be in order to find out if there is a hardware issue with your phone.