Should You Really Leave Your Charger Plugged In Without Your Phone? Three Reasons to Think Twice
You probably do it without even thinking about it.
You finish charging your phone, unplug the cable from the device, and leave the charger sitting in the wall.
Maybe it stays there overnight.
Maybe it remains plugged in all day.
Maybe it has been occupying the same outlet for months.
After all, if the phone isn’t connected, what could possibly happen?
At first glance, the answer seems obvious: nothing.
The charger isn’t charging anything, so it must not be doing anything.
But there is a little more to the story.
Modern phone chargers are designed to use very little electricity when they’re plugged into an outlet without a device connected. They don’t normally draw the same amount of power they would while actively charging a phone.
That means the popular warning that an unplugged phone charger will suddenly cause a major fire is greatly overstated.
However, that doesn’t mean leaving chargers connected indefinitely is always a good idea.
