How Long Can a Vape Pen Battery Go For

Using a vape pen has so many advantages compared to smoking, and lower cost is definitely one of the biggest. A thing about switching to vaping, though, is that the cost advantages aren’t necessarily evident right from the start. The savings tend to play out over the long run because you can’t get started until you’ve invested in a bit of vape hardware. There will also be future costs when you eventually end up replacing your vape pen, either because a new device with more impressive features has come along or because your current device no longer works. In order to plan your long-term budget, it’s helpful to understand how long a vape pen battery lasts.

When you look for information about how long a vape battery lasts, you’re really asking a question with two parts. You want to know how long you can expect the battery to last in total, and you also want to know how long the battery will last on a charge. That’s important for your convenience because you don’t want the battery to spend all of its time on the charger, and it’s also important for the long-term durability of the battery because how long a battery lasts before it stops holding a charge depends in part on how many times you charge it.

So, how long does a vape pen battery last? Let’s dig in.

How Long Does a Vape Pen Battery Last on a Charge?

An average vape pen battery delivers around 100-200 puffs on a full charge.

To estimate how long a vape battery should last, you need to start by finding its capacity, which is measured in milliampere-hours or mAh. A battery with a capacity of 1,000 mAh can deliver a current of 1,000 mA – one amp, in other words – for one hour. The best 510 vape batteries tend to have capacities of at least 500 mAh unless they’re designed to be extremely small and discreet.

Next, you need to know the resistance of the atomizer or cartridge that you’re using. A typical vape cartridge has a resistance around 1.0-1.5 ohm.

Finally, you need to know the operational voltage of the vape battery. Your battery may have a single operational voltage, or it may allow you to change the voltage. A vape battery that only operates at a single power level is usually regulated to work at around 3.6 volts.

Once you’ve gathered the required information, you can put it all together with an Ohm’s Law calculator. Let’s suppose, for instance, that:

• Your battery’s capacity is 500 mAh.
• Your battery operates at a constant 3.6 volts.
• Your cartridge’s resistance is 1.5 ohm.

If you plug the resistance and voltage into the calculator, you’ll see that your cartridge draws 2.4 amps from the battery during operation. You already know that a 500 mAh battery can deliver a one-amp current for a half hour. With a little math, you’ll find that your vape battery will last about 12 minutes before dying if its operational current is 2.4 amps.

What does that mean in terms of real-world usage? Suppose you puff on your vape pen an average of three seconds at a time. In that case, you can expect your vape battery to give you 240 puffs before it dies. Easy, right?

How Long Does a Vape Pen Battery Last in Total?

It’s reasonable to expect a vape pen battery to last around a year before it needs replacement.

Now that you know how long your vape battery should last on a charge, it’s time to learn more about the battery’s total longevity. On average, you can charge and discharge a lithium-ion battery about 300-500 times before it effectively becomes unusable due to diminished capacity. Now that you know how long your vape battery should last on a charge, you should know approximately how often you need to charge it —and from there, you can estimate how long the battery will last in total.

Depending on your personal vaping habits, you may find that you need to recharge your vape pen battery anywhere from once a day to once a week. If you only puff on your vape pen a few times a day, though, it’s important to understand that you may not get the exact number of puffs that you calculated in the section above because the device will draw a small standby current even when you aren’t using it. Based on the expected total lifetime of 300-500 charge cycles though, it’s reasonable to expect a vape pen battery to last around a year before the capacity is so diminished that you need to replace the device.

You can tell when it’s time to replace a vape battery because the diminished charge capacity will eventually make the device unusable. You’ll know that’s the case because the battery will die almost immediately after you remove it from the charger. In some cases, a severely degraded vape battery never actually finishes charging because it can no longer reach its target voltage.

How to Make a Vape Battery Last as Long as Possible

How long a vape battery lasts isn’t just a matter of how many times you recharge it; you also need to take care of it because lithium-ion batteries are sensitive to usage and storage conditions. Remember these final tips to help your vape batteries last as long as they can.

• Keep your vape battery away from extremely hot or cold temperatures. Cold temperatures drain a battery’s charge, requiring you to charge the battery more often than you ordinarily would. Hot temperatures hasten the chemical processes that eventually cause the battery’s demise. A lithium-ion battery always performs best in the same types of room-temperature environments that you’d find comfortable.
• Don’t charge a vape battery with the same type of quick-charging wall adapter that you use for your mobile phone. Charge the battery only with your computer’s USB port or with a manufacturer-recommended wall adapter.
• If possible, try to top up your vape battery’s charge before the battery is completely dead. A lithium-ion battery will tend to last longer if you avoid deep discharges.