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Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

electronics.stackexchange.com

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Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#41

Post by shaunkoh »

usefulcat wrote: post #27
Zak wrote: post #12

I've been using ACCA[0] for years to limit charge on my phone, usually to 60%, but higher when needed. I also limit the charging speed most of the time. It performs like new despite the phone being over three years old. I'm determined to keep it usable as long as I can because I prefer its size and analog headphone jack over what's available now. Actually replacing the battery, however looks like a big hassle, so I'm…

I've been trying a similar experiment for several years now. I have a four year old iPhone, and for most of its life, the battery level has been kept between 30% and 70%. Settings => Battery => Battery Health and Charging says that the maximum capacity is 91%. No idea whether that's better or worse than average, but I mention it so others can compare. I can say that this is the first time I've tried this experiment,…

Did you have an automated way to do that?

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#42

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

datameta wrote: post #37
fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replacing an iPhone battery is cheap, especially compared to replacing the whole phone: at the Apple Store it’s either $99, $69 or $49 and I’ve had other stores do it for like $40. That’s not too bad for a once every couple years cost.

Cheap for the wallet, but not the biosphere. Unless you mean to imply that people would get new phones less frequently?

It’s cheaper for the biosphere than replaceable batteries were, because you just switch out the battery and don’t need the plastic case for the replaceable part.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#43

Post by kumarharsh »

almog wrote: post #10

I recently bought a Pixel phone after having Samsung for a few years. Immediately the one thing that annoyed me was the lack for both limiting charge as well as enforcing slow charging. Both not only are useful for long term battery life but also, since I'm an occasional thruhiker (right now on my way to Mexico along The Continental Divide Trail), they make better use of my power bank. Without rooting the device thes…

Use the adaptive charging setting

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#44

Post by incongruity »

datameta wrote: post #37
fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replacing an iPhone battery is cheap, especially compared to replacing the whole phone: at the Apple Store it’s either $99, $69 or $49 and I’ve had other stores do it for like $40. That’s not too bad for a once every couple years cost.

Cheap for the wallet, but not the biosphere. Unless you mean to imply that people would get new phones less frequently?

How is that all that damaging? I’m sure those batteries are recycled in basically all cases and yes, I’d expect battery replacement does indeed forestall replacement for many phones.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#45

Post by bluSCALE4 »

artimaeis wrote: post #16
Arainach wrote: post #3

I've given up trying. If a device is willing to lie to me and only charge to 80% while saying it's charged, great, but all of this "try to stay in a range" logic flies in the face of reality. Every device I use besides my cell phone, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo 3DS has atrocious power drain when not in use. OS does not matter. Windows laptop, Linux laptop, ChromeOS laptop, Android Tablet, Amazon Tablet, you name it…

I just picked up my 2017 iPad Pro. It was last charged Nov 15. Been sitting by the bed mostly unused since. Currently at 80% charge. I haven’t experienced what you’re describing on an Apple device since they switched the laptops away from Intel chips. In my experience, the OS does matter. I can’t believe how bad the rest of the industry is at this. Amazon’s Kindle line is incredible at this IME, but those are pretty…

iPhone does not reflect these gains. I did own a Huawei and I felt those really had slow drain.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#46

Post by dheera »

p1necone wrote: post #21
belltaco wrote: post #14

I wish they would label it so that it shows 100% charge when it's actually charged 80%, and then give an option to 'overcharge' a configurable amount till 125% (the current 100%). That way it will make people aware that they are reducing the battery life by overcharging, and be picky when they overcharge. But this won't happen because reduced battery life is a big direct and indirect(by reducing performance like Appl…

I'm pretty sure most (all?) manufacturers already do (the first part of) this. 100% can't be the point at which the battery literally stops taking new charge - if you did that they'd catch fire all the time. It's just that the manufacturers idea of what "100%" should be generally skews more towards the immediate battery life end of the tradeoff, whereas some users prefer to have "100%" closer to the maximizing long t…

> I know my android phone will let you cap max charge at an arbitrary level

Yeah I used to have old Pixel phones as Home Assistant clients on my walls until they all started bulging one by one and I had to treat them as a fire hazard.

I now use Samsung tablets, ironically, that have a cap at 80% feature and they seem to be doing fine.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#47

Post by dheera »

belltaco wrote: post #14

I wish they would label it so that it shows 100% charge when it's actually charged 80%, and then give an option to 'overcharge' a configurable amount till 125% (the current 100%). That way it will make people aware that they are reducing the battery life by overcharging, and be picky when they overcharge. But this won't happen because reduced battery life is a big direct and indirect(by reducing performance like Appl…

> That way it will make people aware

These are all electronic devices. You can also just put big warnings in software instead of calling it 125%.

It's not any different from filling up a blender, water bottle, etc. to 80% instead of 100% to avoid creating a mess. Sooner or later people will know to avoid charging batteries to 100%.

> that they are reducing the battery life by overcharging

Unfortunately their capitalist asses probably want you to reduce the battery life faster and buy a new device, which helps boost sales, boost revenue, boost shareholder happiness, boost stock price, and ultimately boost CEO net worth

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#48

Post by helf »

Panzer04 wrote: post #19

The rule of thumb is you roughly double cycle life for every 0.1v lower you go (approx. 10% of charge). I would only restrict the full charge level of you never need the full charge available anyway. Eg. I only use about 60% of my phone's battery, so I can comfortably restrict it to 85% and have plenty of leeway to avoid running out. If there's a decent chance you need the full battery, just use the full battery. Als…

Iirc the chevy volt only lets you use around 60% of the battery pack under normal conditions.

Love my volt. 104K miles, 10 years old, no signs of battery performance degredation yet.

My last volt had 156k and same age and same performance (got totalled :( )

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#49

Post by almog »

binkHN wrote: post #13
almog wrote: post #10

I recently bought a Pixel phone after having Samsung for a few years. Immediately the one thing that annoyed me was the lack for both limiting charge as well as enforcing slow charging. Both not only are useful for long term battery life but also, since I'm an occasional thruhiker (right now on my way to Mexico along The Continental Divide Trail), they make better use of my power bank. Without rooting the device thes…

By default my Pixel will slow charge when I set it down at the end of the day and be at 100% when my alarm goes off in the morning.

Yes, It does that based on some none-transparent parameters. For example, right now my phone will try to slow charge at night. However, charging at night is impossible for me as the temperatures are too low (10f is nothing unusual right now on the divide). So, I have to set a fake alarm (or change my time zone) in hope that adaptive charging mode will trigger slow charging. It doesn't always work.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#50

Post by almog »

kumarharsh wrote: post #43
almog wrote: post #10

I recently bought a Pixel phone after having Samsung for a few years. Immediately the one thing that annoyed me was the lack for both limiting charge as well as enforcing slow charging. Both not only are useful for long term battery life but also, since I'm an occasional thruhiker (right now on my way to Mexico along The Continental Divide Trail), they make better use of my power bank. Without rooting the device thes…

Use the adaptive charging setting

Read my previous comment. It's just a "smart" mode that gives you zero real control and won't work for my use case.
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