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Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

electronics.stackexchange.com

241–250 of 362 posts

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "What Apple did was clock down the CPU of iPhones with degraded batteries in order to reduce peak load" It wasn't what Apple was doing that was the problem, it was the fact that they were initially quite secretive about it! People just started noticing their phones slowing down without explanation. Now days iOS tells if your battery no longer supports peak performance, which is the right thing to do. > "Yes, they s…

Maybe. But you might overestimate technical understanding of people. "Letting people know" comes with it's own challenges. There are a lot of choices an OS makes without letting it's users know. It would be quite overwhelming to communicate all. And in making choice what to communicate mistakes might be made. Screaming disgrace is a bit exaggerated.

When this came out, most people were distrustful because it was a secret. It was seen as a way to force device upgrades, not save devices. If they had been transparent, even in documentation, (and allowed opt out) it would have curbed some of this backlash.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Which Kindle do you have? A couple of years ago I finally upgraded to an Oasis and the Oasis battery life is significantly worse than my previous Paperwhite. It’s still good enough — I have to charge every two weeks — but the Paperwhite was better. The Oasis is still my favorite Kindle (it’s my third).

I've got an Oasis 3rd gen (2019). My last Kindle before that was the 3rd gen "Kindle Keyboard" (2010). I'd say the Oasis has a longer-living battery than the old one, but I've always been pretty aggressive about turning off its radios and 'smart' features.

I love the Oasis, I'd like it if they made a slightly larger variant with USB-C. Basically the form of the Scribe, but I'd rather skip the pen input.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure I've gone more than a day without looking at my iPhone in years probably (not great, I know..) but I've not had any notable standby drain issues. That is, I've never left it at something like 80% and come back to it hours later for it to be drastically lower.

I'm pretty religious about what apps are allowed background data, and notifications in general. But I never turn off any of the radios.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#244
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those are replaceable and cheap to replace every couple of years. If you specifically seek out devices with cheap replaceable batteries, sure. But this isn't the case with a lot of devices.

The cost to replace the battery on iPhones, which most people would consider to be “difficult to replace” is only $100 directly from Apple. Really seems like paying an extra $100 every 2-3 years is a decent deal for something that has 20% more battery.

Does apple reslly replace the battery, or do they transfer your OS to a refurb and give you that? I'm very wary of apple repairs.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#245

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…

People that know about the 80% trick may then only charge it to 80% of the 80% which now shows 100% which would be 60% (if my morning fog brain is getting it right). But if they know it's actually only 80% when showing 100% they'll charge it to 100%. Then people will complain "they don't make phones like they used to".

80%80% would be 0.80.8 which is 0.64 -> 64%

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. But you might overestimate technical understanding of people. "Letting people know" comes with it's own challenges. There are a lot of choices an OS makes without letting it's users know. It would be quite overwhelming to communicate all. And in making choice what to communicate mistakes might be made. Screaming disgrace is a bit exaggerated.

When this came out, most people were distrustful because it was a secret. It was seen as a way to force device upgrades, not save devices. If they had been transparent, even in documentation, (and allowed opt out) it would have curbed some of this backlash.

It may well have, but that doesn't mean the backlash was reasonable.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And that's without power saving mode? Impressive! Have you configured anything like "disable background network activity"? Do you force close the apps?

I'd forgotten, I _do_ have a shortcut that runs late at night to turn off WiFi and enable low-power mode. I've had it for some time now and not thought about it. Another shortcut runs in the early morning to turn the WiFi on and disable low-power mode.

I didn't keep a great log of how the battery handled before that, but it does seem like I have to charge it less than I used to.

I only force close apps when they're clearly stuck.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#248
" 100 % " is a matter of definition. It's planned obsolescence, simply put. What is generally agreed upon as " 100 % " is the voltage that makes the capacity drop to ~ 80 % after 300~350 full charge cycles. This means your device battery is at end-of-life after a full year of daily full charge cycles. Why we've defined it as such, I don't know. If we wanted our batteries to live longer we could simply change the definition of " 100 % " indicate 600 full charge cycles. In practice it would mean something like dropping the peak capacity voltage from 4.20 Volts to 4.10 Volts.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had smart charging in other laptops for ages as well. I'm not saying Apple isn't doing good, I'm just disputing the "Apple is on another league" sentiment, when it's mostly based on a lack of knowledge of what's happening outside the Apple ecosystem.

My colleague just had to replace his HP Elitebook Notebook because the battery had bulged so much it had cracked open the case. For this to be happening in 2023 means that some manufacturers at least, seem to be not managing this potential problem at all.

N=1 doesn't really tell you much of anything about anything.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#250
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…

iPads feel like they last forever in standby. I remember there was a period of time where I was using my 6th gen mini very little (but I was using it) and it lasted me close to 3 weeks on a charge.
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