Travel Guides Outdoor Adventures Camping
Jenna Busch
If you’re an avid hiker or camper and you travel in cold weather, you’ve likely been in a situation where your electronics refuse to charge properly or they drain power faster than usual. That can be a mere annoyance when you’re just relaxing at the end of the day with a phone game or a text chat. But it can also put you in a life-or-death situation if you end up lost, injured, or in some sort of trouble with no way to get in touch with the rest of the world.
Perhaps you did what you were supposed to, which is to make sure all of your devices are initially charged and to use your backup charger to keep your devices topped up. But then imagine that you pull out your phone and set it up to charge … and your charger is dead, or your phone’s battery percentage won’t move. The issue here is the cold weather, which can wreak havoc on your battery’s ability to take and hold a charge. Luckily, there is a great tip for cold-weather travelers to avoid this: You should keep your electronic devices at the bottom of your sleeping bag to keep them warm.
Don’t let that battery get cold
Evgeny Atamanenko/Shutterstock
You probably know that hot weather can temporarily shut down your devices, though putting them in a cool place can often fix that. The cold, on the other hand, can be much harder to come back from. Live Science explains that the lithium-ion batteries (sometimes listed as “Li-ion”) used in many of our devices work by discharging electric current. The ions move through the battery from the anode to the cathode as the battery drains.
We don’t know exactly how the cold stops the charge; but when temperatures drop below freezing, this chemical reaction slows down. That makes it harder to charge your battery and drains it faster. In fact, the cold weather will shorten your battery’s lifespan because you have to charge it more frequently.
Putting your devices in the bottom of your sleeping bag keeps them away from the colder temperatures. The fabric and padding should help keep them warmer than they would be inside a thin pocket or outside. Of course, the warmth of your body helps as well. Just keep in mind that you shouldn’t have anything plugged into chargers while they’re inside your sleeping bag to reduce the risk of fire.
