How much electricity does a phone use while mining Monero?

A phone mining Monero can use a few watts of power, but there is no single number that fits every phone. For a rough planning example, a steady draw of 3–8 watts would use 0.072–0.192 kilowatt-hours over 24 hours—but you should measure your own phone rather than treat that range as a promise.

What changes your phone’s power use?

Mining keeps your phone’s CPU—the processor that does its general computing work—busy trying to earn mining rewards. The total electricity use depends on how hard it runs and what else your phone is doing.

The biggest factors include:

• Your phone’s processor: Different chips use different amounts of power for the same work.
• Mining settings: Using more processor cores can increase power use and heat.
• Screen brightness: A bright screen adds to the total, even though it does not help the mining itself.
• Other activity: Mobile data, Wi-Fi, background apps, and battery charging also use electricity.
• Temperature: A hot phone usually slows its processor to protect itself. This is called thermal throttling, and it reduces mining speed.

Browser mining can also pause or slow when you switch apps or lock the screen. You should not assume your phone keeps mining at full speed overnight.

How to turn watts into an electricity cost

A watt measures how quickly your phone uses energy. Your electricity bill usually charges for kilowatt-hours, or kWh, which measure the total energy used over time.

Use this formula:

Electricity used in kWh = watts × hours ÷ 1,000

For example, if your phone and charger together draw an average of 5 watts while mining:

• One hour: 0.005 kWh.
• One day, running continuously: 0.12 kWh.
• Thirty days, running continuously: 3.6 kWh.

At an example electricity price of $0.20 per kWh, that would cost about $0.024 per day, or $0.72 over 30 days.

Those figures are an illustration, not a prediction for your phone. Use the price on your own electricity bill.

How to measure it properly

For the most useful result, use a plug-in electricity meter between your wall outlet and charger. Choose one that can measure low power draws accurately. It includes the energy lost as heat inside the charger, which a battery reading does not capture.

To estimate the extra electricity caused by mining:

1. Measure your plugged-in phone without mining.
2. Measure it again while mining, with the same screen brightness and connection.
3. Subtract the first reading from the second.

Start both tests with a similar, nearly full battery. Otherwise, charging a low battery can make mining appear to use much more power than it actually does. Measure over several hours if possible, because heat and charging cycles change the draw.

The bottom line

Your phone’s mining electricity bill may be small, but that does not mean mining pays. Monero uses RandomX, a mining method designed for CPUs, and phone browser performance is generally limited.

Check a live mining calculator using your measured mining speed and electricity use. Also consider battery wear from sustained heat, which may matter more than the electricity cost. Stop if your phone becomes unusually hot, and never bypass its temperature protections.