Many iPhone users wonder if they should turn off their iPhone 12 at night or just let it sleep. There are good arguments on both sides of this debate. Turning off your iPhone completely can save battery life and give you a better night’s sleep without distractions. However, leaving your iPhone in sleep mode allows it to still receive calls, texts, and alarms while using minimal power. In this article, we’ll look at the pros and cons of turning off your iPhone 12 versus letting it sleep overnight to help you decide what’s best for your needs and preferences.
Battery Life
One of the biggest reasons to turn off your iPhone at night is to conserve battery life. Here’s a comparison of how much battery power is used in different states:
| iPhone State | Battery Usage |
|---|---|
| Turned off | None |
| Sleep mode | 1-2% per hour |
| Idle with screen on | 5-7% per hour |
As you can see, turning your iPhone fully off saves the most battery since it’s not powering any components. Sleep mode uses a small amount of juice to maintain basic functions. And leaving your screen on uses battery life the fastest even if you aren’t actively using the phone.
Over a full 8 hour night of sleep, letting your iPhone 12 sleep could drain 8-16% of your battery life. Turning it off would save all that energy. For iPhone models with smaller batteries like the iPhone 12 mini, this extra 8% could make a noticeable difference in how long your phone lasts the next day before needing to be recharged.
Other Factors that Impact Battery Life
A few other considerations around battery life include:
– Battery health – Batteries degrade over time. Older iPhones may see faster drain in sleep mode.
– Charging status – If you fully charged your iPhone before bed, the extra battery drain overnight is less significant.
– Usage habits – Power users who heavily use their iPhone throughout the day are more impacted by the overnight battery drain versus light users.
Overall though, turning your iPhone 12 off for the night does conserve battery life compared to letting it sleep. For people who need maximum battery capacity during the day or who charge infrequently, this can be a compelling reason to power it down at night.
Connectivity Overnight
The flip side of turning your iPhone off is that you lose all connectivity overnight. Letting your iPhone 12 sleep allows it to still receive calls, texts, notifications, alarms and run any apps in the background overnight. Here are some key considerations around connectivity:
Calls and Texts
Leaving your iPhone on overnight allows you to receive phone calls and text messages while you sleep. This can be important if you use your iPhone as your main phone number for family, friends or work. Turning it off means missing any attempts to contact you overnight.
Alarms and Alerts
Many people rely on their iPhones for morning alarms to wake up. Sleep mode allows these alarms to still go off on schedule. Other alerts for calendar events, medicine reminders, and more can also happen in sleep mode. With your phone fully off, these alerts will be missed.
Background App Activity
Apps that rely on background activity like email syncing, cloud backups, health/fitness tracking and more can still occur over night if your iPhone is sleeping. This isn’t possible if it’s powered down.
Emergencies
Having connectivity overnight allows people to contact you in case of an emergency, disaster or other urgent situation where communication is critical. Keeping your iPhone in sleep mode ensures you can be reached if something truly urgent comes up while you’re sleeping.
Overall, leaving your iPhone 12 in sleep mode helps maintain connectivity, alerts and access while still minimizing power usage at night. For people who need to be reachable or use key apps overnight, this is a benefit over powering the iPhone down completely.
Convenience
Leaving your iPhone 12 in sleep mode overnight is generally more convenient than turning it off. When you turn your phone back on in the morning, here are some downsides:
Waiting for iPhone to Boot Up
It takes time for your iPhone to fully load back up when you power it on in the morning. You’ll see the Apple logo screen for around 30 seconds as it restarts, which delays you using apps and features right away when you wake up.
Re-opening Apps
With your iPhone off, any apps you had open will need to fully reload when you turn your phone back on. This can take a bit of time versus the instant access of apps that stayed open in sleep mode.
Reconnecting to WiFi
You’ll need to reconnect to any WiFi networks in the morning after turning your iPhone back on. With sleep mode, it stays connected overnight for instant access to your home or work WiFi.
Login Screens
Expect to see login screens for your iCloud account, email accounts and any apps with passwords when powering back on. Sleep mode avoids most of these repetitive logins each morning.
For many busy people, this extra few minutes of waiting and setup in the morning can feel disruptive. Leaving your iPhone 12 sleeping overnight avoids these delays allowing you to start using it immediately when your alarm goes off.
Notifications and Disturbances
One motivation to power down your iPhone at night is avoiding distractions and notifications while you’re trying to sleep. Even in sleep mode, incoming calls, texts, emails and app notifications can light up your phone overnight, potentially disrupting sleep. Here are couple factors to consider around notifications:
Using Do Not Disturb Mode
The Do Not Disturb feature on iPhones allows you to silence all notifications while still keeping your phone on and active overnight. This gives you the connectivity of sleep mode without the disturbances. You can allow exceptions like repeated calls or chosen contacts to override Do Not Disturb if needed.
Temptation to Check Notifications
For some people, knowing notification are coming in overnight can lead to the temptation to check their phone, disrupting sleep. However, turning your iPhone off completely removes this temptation entirely since it will be inactive until morning.
Overall, the Do Not Disturb option balances connectivity and peace of mind fairly well for most people. But for those who want total separation, powering their iPhone down may help avoid overnight distractions.
Security
From a security standpoint, turning your iPhone off makes sense in some situations. When powered down completely, it becomes virtually impossible for anyone to remotely access your phone. Here are cases where extra security could be beneficial:
Traveling
When traveling and away from home, powering down your iPhone avoids any potential remote access if it was lost, stolen or hacked. Airlines and hotels also recommend turning off devices that could potentially interfere with equipment.
High Risk Locations
In locations where hacking or device access is a larger threat like public events, foreign travel or work environments, turning your iPhone off provides an extra layer of protection against your data being compromised.
Shared Living Spaces
If you live with roommates or in a hotel, turning your device off at night prevents anyone from messing with your iPhone while you sleep if it was left unattended.
While fairly uncommon, the threat of remote hacking or interference does exist with phones left in sleep mode overnight. For times when extra security gives peace of mind, powering your device off eliminates this risk.
Conclusion
So should you turn off your iPhone 12 at night? Here are some key takeaways around the pros and cons:
– Turning your iPhone off saves the most battery life overnight, around 8-16% versus sleep mode. This can help extend battery the next day.
– Sleep mode maintains connectivity for calls, texts, alarms and background functions which is lost with a powered down iPhone.
– Leaving your iPhone on overnight avoids startup delays, reloading apps and reconnecting to WiFi in the morning.
– Do Not Disturb mode allows you to silence notifications overnight even in sleep mode. But powering off removes any temptation to check your phone.
– For travel or high security situations, turning your iPhone off provides an extra level of protection against hacking or interference.
Overall, letting your iPhone 12 sleep overnight offers the best combination of connectivity, convenience and minimal battery usage for most people. The exceptions would be extended travel where connectivity isn’t essential, times you want zero distractions overnight, or when battery life during the day is critical and needs to be maximized. In those cases, manually powering your iPhone off makes more sense for your specific needs and preferences.