Technology gets more powerful and impressive every day. Every time you blink, a new iPhone is being released. Each one has more cameras, high-capacity batteries, and faster microchips. Does this mean the power consumption is increasing as we go or are things getting more efficient?
Below we will discuss and test iPhone wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts is an iPhone?
An iPhone uses a maximum of between 5 to 20 watts when charging.
The exact number depends on the size of your iPhone and its adapter. All iPhone 11 and earlier editions arrive with a 5W adaptor. This means the maximum power consumption it draws when changing is 5W.
iPhone 12 and new editions use a 20W adaptor to enable fast charging. This means the power consumption will be higher (20W) but the phone charges quicker.
How to Find Out Your iPhone Wattage
There are 2 ways you can work out the wattage of an iPhone.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the iPhone’s specification. The watts (W) is usually written on a sticker on the base of the adaptor. If not, you can check the user manual or Apple’s website for technical details.
- Use a Wattmeter
A wattmeter is brilliant for getting a live wattage reading and tracking total energy usage of any device. You can simply plug it into your iPhone to get instant information.
I used one to test my iPhone which gave a live reading of 7.2W.
iPhone Wattage Examples
Let’s take a look at specific examples of iPhone adapter power ratings.
| iPhone Adapter Model | Power Rating (Watts) |
| Apple 5W USB power adapter | 5 |
| Apple 18W USB-C power adapter | 18 |
| Apple 20W USB-C power adapter | 20 |
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different iPhones and chargers. So you should take the time to check your own device.
How Much Electricity Does an iPhone Use?
You can use iPhone wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to run your iPhone.
A watt (W) is a measurement of power at a single point in time. A watt-hour (Wh) is the total amount of electricity used in an hour. For example, an iPhone drawing 5W would use 5Wh when charging for an hour. Plus we can also find a phone’s total battery capacity in Wh.
Electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So a 5W iPhone running for 1 hour uses 0.005kWh.
In reality, it takes 2 hours to fully charge an iPhone from a 5W adapter as the total battery capacity of a modern iPhone is about 10Wh to 15Wh.
If you fully charge an iPhone battery 200 times a year, that’s 2 or 3kWh of electricity a year.
That’s a rough electricity cost of $0.30 to $0.45 a year when fully charging your device 200 times.
Charging an iPhone Off-Grid
If you’re planning to use your iPhone in an off-grid situation like a car, power outage, RV, camping, or similar, the information above is important. It enables you to pick the correct power products and know how many charges you can achieve.
You can either use a vehicle DC outlet, power inverter, portable power station, or generator for electricity.
To make sure everything runs smoothly you should check two things on this equipment – wattage capacity and total energy capacity.
Your power source, like an inverter or power station, should have a wattage capacity of at least 20% more than your iPhone. This ensures it will be able to deliver enough power as they are never 100% efficient. To recharge your phone, you can use an adapter or power inverter with at least 5W capacity or 20W for fast charging.
Secondly, you need to ensure your energy sources, like a battery or power pack, has enough energy to fully charge the iPhone. As we already know, it will require 10Wh to 15Wh per charge cycle. This is the equivalent to 0.8Ah to 1.25Ah on a 12V battery.
How Many Watts Does an iPhone Use Summary
I hope you now have a clear understanding of how many watts an iPhone uses.
As you have discovered, the introduction of functions like fast charging dramatically increases the power consumption of the iPhone. In fact, the adaptors are 4 or 5 times more powerful. Adding to this, battery capacity continues to grow to keep up with the energy your device sucks up!
The good news is that they are still very efficient devices. Considering we use our phones for everything, from playing games to banking, it still only cost a couple of bucks to keep them fully juiced over a year.
