Why Your Phone (and Other Gadgets) Fail You When It’s Cold

Across the Midwest today, hundreds of schools and businesses are closed, dozens of flights and trains have been canceled, and the governors of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan have declared states of emergency as a bone-chilling, breath-taking Polar Vortex bears down on the region. Besides everyday items like a phone and laptop, you might also have a fitness tracker, smart watch, Bluetooth headphones, digital camera, e-reader, vape pen, drone, or rechargeable bike lights, just to name a few. But those same properties become a problem as soon as temperatures dive below 32 degrees F. “Lithium-ion batteries suffer so badly in freezing temperatures because they have very little internal resistance,” says Hanumant Singh, an electrical engineer at Northeastern University who builds cold-weather robots for places like Antarctica and Greenland. But vehicles like drones and electric cars, which demand very high power for shorter periods of time, can generate enough warmth to keep the batteries going, just at a greatly reduced level of performance. Companies like Lime monitor the performance of their fleets, including battery life, but say they are not yet aware of any trends coinciding with this week’s plummeting temps.