# How long does it take your Fire to charge?



## kkay5

My Kindle Fire takes FOREVER to charge!  I am wondering if that's just the way it is or if there is something wrong with the battery.  I had it plugged in for two hours and it only went up 20%.  How long does it take your Kindle Fire to completely charge?


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## Ann in Arlington

I usually plug it in over night so don't necessarily time it. . .but today I plugged it in while I was on the computer; it was down to around 15% and a couple of hours later it was at 97%.  Might be worth a call to Kindle CS to ask. . . . .


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## sparklemotion

Mine charges very fast. I usually let it charge overnight for a full 8 hours, but the times I have plugged it in when it got lowish, it's generally fully charged in a few hours. Like Ann suggested, I'd give CS a call.


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## ellesu

As Ann and sparklemotion (_love_ that phrase!) said - mine only takes a few/couple of hours.


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## Meemo

I've never timed it, but it's always done before I expect it to be, even if it's given its funky little sound to let me know the battery is way low.  I'd guess 2-3 hours.  

You're charging with the wall charger, not USB, right?  Because USB is a lot slower.


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## rcasewst

Charging in the car is very fast, i find the car charger 3x as fast


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## Bob327

Gosh I may have turned my Fire OFF maybe a dozen times in the month or so that I have owned it    I do however put it to sleep after each use during the day...

I just plug in the charger at night....and don worry about it...

non Issue for me...

Bob G


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## mkelley

kkay5 said:


> My Kindle Fire takes FOREVER to charge! I am wondering if that's just the way it is or if there is something wrong with the battery. I had it plugged in for two hours and it only went up 20%. How long does it take your Kindle Fire to completely charge?


Just thought I'd mention this in case you are still watching.

Today my wife's Fire got the low battery warning so she plugged it in and quickly pressed the power button once to turn it off. Two hours later and it had only gotten about 5% more of a charge.

She came to me (she thinks I know everything about... well, everything) and asked what was wrong. Remember, the power button was briefly pressed, and the orange light for the charge was glowing. We checked the charge by pressing the power button once again, went to the system and then devices. Okay, so only at 19% after two hours. Weird.

I had her completely power the Fire down by holding down the button until it asks you whether you want to turn it off or not. Now the orange light was no longer on and she asked "Is it still charging?" and I said most likely, although the absence of any indication isn't helpful. We waited 30 minutes and it was now at 80% (took another 20 minutes to completely charge).

So... You are all the experts here, but the only thing I can relate this to is my iPhone where even though the power may be off (in terms of no screen display) it is definitely still on. Background apps can continue to take up power, sometimes lots, and in the iPhone you can see what apps are running (and "exit" them completely) whereas I haven't yet found how to do this on the Fire. I'm guessing there are some apps that take up a lot of power while they run regardless of whether it's in sleep mode or not (good candidates would be anything with "push" notifications, like email or in my wife's case, I suspect the weather app she uses a lot). These apps poll the net as long as the Fire isn't completely turned off, and could not only run down the battery faster but make it take longer to charge.

This would also explain why some folks don't have to completely power off their Fire to get it to charge in a reasonable period of time (they aren't running those kinds of apps). In any case, if it's taking a long time for any Fire to charge, you might consider powering it completely down (now I have to research how, if possible, to completely exit out of running apps).


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## Ann in Arlington

You say she "plugged it in and quickly pressed the power button once to turn it off."

Really, there's no need to do that.  Just plug it in and keep using it if you want. It might be that you confused it by doing that.  When mine has gone to sleep, it wakes up briefly when I plug it in.  If it's already awake, it just happily sucks up wall power. And I can keep reading. Or whatever. 

Also, you don't need to plug it in as soon as you see that. . .the warning is at 15% and really leaves you enough time to read for probably another hour or more.  I suppose it's less if you're doing something like playing a game or watching a movie.  Mine warned me the other day and I just kept reading. . .it did finally just turn itself off, at which time I plugged it in.  The light went on in about 10-15 seconds and then the Fire restarted itself.  I switched to another Kindle to keep reading the book I was in, but it was fully charged within 3 hours.

Still, as with any electronic device, if it's acting oddly, a full restart will often chase away any gremlins.


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## sparklemotion

mkelley said:


> Just thought I'd mention this in case you are still watching.
> 
> Today my wife's Fire got the low battery warning so she plugged it in and quickly pressed the power button once to turn it off. Two hours later and it had only gotten about 5% more of a charge. She came to me (she thinks I know everything about... well, everything) and asked what was wrong. Remember, the power button was briefly pressed, and the orange light for the charge was glowing. We checked the charge by pressing the power button once again, went to the system and then devices. Okay, so only at 19% after two hours. Weird.
> 
> I had her completely power the Fire down by holding down the button until it asks you whether you want to turn it off or not. Now the orange light was no longer on and she asked "Is it still charging?" and I said most likely, although the absence of any indication isn't helpful. We waited 30 minutes and it was now at 80% (took another 20 minutes to completely charge).


I think it's possible that is the case, that apps were still running.

However, if I just turn mine off to sleep mode without shutting it down it still charges relatively quickly to a full charge. Also, if I shut mine down completely, and then plug it into the wall charger, my fire turns itself on automatically at that point. The light is always on when I'm charging it, even if I had powered it down before plugging it in. I'm surprised yours stayed in shut off mode when charging with no light on.


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## mkelley

I think it does come down to what apps you might be running.

Best research I can find at the moment is that Android services, similar to the iPhone, can continue to send and receive data even while the device is "sleeping".  Android folk differ in their feelings about completely shutting down apps (which they say can be done from the Applications menu -- haven't poked around enough on her Fire, which she is using at the moment, to see this).  Some say it HURTS battery life to shut apps down (which sounds like hogwash to me -- "Oh, yes, it will help your battery to keep all your apps running.").  I think the thinking is that loading in an app takes more power than leaving it in memory, but that also sounds like someone doesn't know what they are talking about.

In any case, it says that services (separate from apps) can also be shut down or not, and apps can be configured as to whether you allow them to push or receive (again, haven't checked but will as soon as the wife let's go of her Fire.  For some odd reason she doesn't want to stop using it...).

Obviously, everyone's mileage will vary greatly, and there isn't any way to predict because there are so many apps and so many combinations of them running.  As I said, I was merely mentioning it in case someone is having a Fire that takes a while to charge, as my wife's did -- apparently shutting it all the way down will fix that issue without troubling further to find out the specific cause.


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## kkay5

mkelley said:


> I think it does come down to what apps you might be running.
> 
> Best research I can find at the moment is that Android services, similar to the iPhone, can continue to send and receive data even while the device is "sleeping". Android folk differ in their feelings about completely shutting down apps (which they say can be done from the Applications menu -- haven't poked around enough on her Fire, which she is using at the moment, to see this). Some say it HURTS battery life to shut apps down (which sounds like hogwash to me -- "Oh, yes, it will help your battery to keep all your apps running."). I think the thinking is that loading in an app takes more power than leaving it in memory, but that also sounds like someone doesn't know what they are talking about.
> 
> In any case, it says that services (separate from apps) can also be shut down or not, and apps can be configured as to whether you allow them to push or receive (again, haven't checked but will as soon as the wife let's go of her Fire. For some odd reason she doesn't want to stop using it...).
> 
> Obviously, everyone's mileage will vary greatly, and there isn't any way to predict because there are so many apps and so many combinations of them running. As I said, I was merely mentioning it in case someone is having a Fire that takes a while to charge, as my wife's did -- apparently shutting it all the way down will fix that issue without troubling further to find out the specific cause.


Thank you for the suggestion! I will give it a try when I charge my Fire in a while. I definitely have apps that are checking in the background like my google reader.


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## mkelley

If you get the time let us know what you experience -- if it helps it's good to know (and if not, that's also valuable information).


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## Toby

I plugged my fire in today in it's new cover that has magnets in the cover to keep it closed. The cover is Bear Motion, & I really like it. 4 hours later, I checked & it was only charged about 10%, which was then at 53% instead of 100%. I took off the top part of the cover off of the screen, with the magnets, & the kindle was charged in an hour. I don't know for sure if it was the magnets, but I think it was. Who knows.


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