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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?

#281

Post by nottorp »

AnonC wrote: post #263
osdril wrote: post #154

FYI, on Apple Silicon Apple included a firmware-level "hard-switch" to limit the charge to 75/80% only. It was discovered by marcan while working on Asahi and in my experience it's much more convenient than the built-in ML-based solution (and also less hacky and bloated than AlDente). See this discussion [0] on GitHub for the explanation and this snippet [1] for easy use. This solution also works while the laptop is…

I use the paid version of an app called Al Dente [1] to set the battery charging level to a specific limit. The app has a free mode. It has more features than what I stated, and works on Intel Macs and Apple Silicon Macs (limited only by what the underlying hardware allows). [1]: https://apphousekitchen.com/

Subscription pricing eh?

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#282

Post by nottorp »

osdril wrote: post #154

FYI, on Apple Silicon Apple included a firmware-level "hard-switch" to limit the charge to 75/80% only. It was discovered by marcan while working on Asahi and in my experience it's much more convenient than the built-in ML-based solution (and also less hacky and bloated than AlDente). See this discussion [0] on GitHub for the explanation and this snippet [1] for easy use. This solution also works while the laptop is…

My older intel based macbook pro has started to tell me i use it mostly plugged in and won't charge higher than 80% on its own. There's also a 'charge now' button.

I'm not even on a recent Mac OS, it's still on Monterey. No extra apps to handle battery.

Of course, it doesn't look like a hard limit, but something triggered by usage patterns.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#283

Post by Zak »

nottorp wrote: post #271
Zak wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinkpads, for a long time have had a fan speed that's possible, but never reached by the firmware's automatic mode. On Linux, this sets the fan to its true maximum: # echo disengaged > /proc/acpi/ibm/fan I use the thinkfan utility to run the fan more aggressively, including 'disengaged' over 70C.

How's your hearing? If any left.

I put in foam-tipped earbuds if I'm doing a big compile or something, but the Ryzen 6850u runs pretty cool most of the time.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#284

Post by spallas »

Most comments focus on consumer electronics where battery replacement is around $70-200. However the biggest impact is actually on EVs, where replacement costs are of much greater concern.

For large batteries supporting buildings or power plants, there's usually an optimization software that balances energy usage opportunity costs, and the amortized costs of battery degradation (personally built one in my previous job).

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#285

Post by bayindirh »

hunter2_ wrote: post #272
bayindirh wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... they actually can. Yes, it does. Even my 7 years old iPhone X does it. I use some features at very specific times, and it suggests me "do you want to do X?" around the time I do that. So the models work well. Also, the phone generally enables optimized charging if I put it to charge too early. Scheduling to finish a couple of hours before I wake.

> I use some features at very specific times, and it suggests me "do you want to do X?" around the time I do that. You're conceding that you have a predictable schedule. Folks on the other side of this (who believe it can't work nearly as well as manual control) don't have a predictable schedule. Think of it like {hybrid workers who use a desk all day the same 3 days a week, and are nomads the other 2 days a week, an…

As said by me and others elsewhere on this thread, this is of course a valid requirement, and tools have been developed for permanently capping charging percentage on Macs for quite some time. I don't have an objection to that.

My Macs charge routine is way more hectic than my phone's which is very predictable, and both of them guesses what I'm trying to do correctly 99% of the time, and that's fine by me.

What I said is, it's working fine for me, but the system is open to tuning both out of the box (I need this now, please charge), or with some small tools (it was called Aldente IIRC), for differing, equally valid needs.

I don't think we're in disagreement here.

BTW, your nick reads ********. Is it hunter2 or something? ;)

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#286

Post by culi »

rat9988 wrote: post #173
KennyBlanken wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Samsung and others spread a bunch of FUD that Apple was crippling their phones to force people to upgrade, and Reddit and HN apple-haters ate it up. Still to this day people on HN repeat it like it's fact, and when you correct them, shift the goalposts to "well they didn't TELL people."

This is not a goalpost shift. It's THE argument. I'm not sure what arguments are there for alternative narratives.

> It's THE argument

From people I've talked to, it seems like the VAST majority of people are under the impression that Apple does this as a planned obsolescence practice.

In fact, this thread is the first one I've come across where most people seem to get the point of the feature

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#287

Post by orangepurple »

osdril wrote: post #154

FYI, on Apple Silicon Apple included a firmware-level "hard-switch" to limit the charge to 75/80% only. It was discovered by marcan while working on Asahi and in my experience it's much more convenient than the built-in ML-based solution (and also less hacky and bloated than AlDente). See this discussion [0] on GitHub for the explanation and this snippet [1] for easy use. This solution also works while the laptop is…

BCLM can set charging thresholds on Intel Macbooks https://github.com/zackelia/bclm

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#288

Post by osdril »

orangepurple wrote: post #287
osdril wrote: post #154

FYI, on Apple Silicon Apple included a firmware-level "hard-switch" to limit the charge to 75/80% only. It was discovered by marcan while working on Asahi and in my experience it's much more convenient than the built-in ML-based solution (and also less hacky and bloated than AlDente). See this discussion [0] on GitHub for the explanation and this snippet [1] for easy use. This solution also works while the laptop is…

BCLM can set charging thresholds on Intel Macbooks https://github.com/zackelia/bclm

Nice, didn't know that!

Basically the SMC key that marcan discovered is the same thing for Apple Silicon

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#289

Post by osdril »

AnonC wrote: post #263
osdril wrote: post #154

FYI, on Apple Silicon Apple included a firmware-level "hard-switch" to limit the charge to 75/80% only. It was discovered by marcan while working on Asahi and in my experience it's much more convenient than the built-in ML-based solution (and also less hacky and bloated than AlDente). See this discussion [0] on GitHub for the explanation and this snippet [1] for easy use. This solution also works while the laptop is…

I use the paid version of an app called Al Dente [1] to set the battery charging level to a specific limit. The app has a free mode. It has more features than what I stated, and works on Intel Macs and Apple Silicon Macs (limited only by what the underlying hardware allows). [1]: https://apphousekitchen.com/

I don't know if they changed this, but I think AlDente follows a polling approach where it periodically checks the charge level and enable/disable the charging accordingly. Such solution is more hacky and it also could cause some sleep-related issues.

The SMC key discovered my marcan is nicer because it enables the same functionality without having to poll anything, as it's built into macOS.

Furthermore, I don't care about all the extra stuff they have put into AlDente, I just want to keep my battery at 80%.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#290

Post by osdril »

nottorp wrote: post #282
osdril wrote: post #154

FYI, on Apple Silicon Apple included a firmware-level "hard-switch" to limit the charge to 75/80% only. It was discovered by marcan while working on Asahi and in my experience it's much more convenient than the built-in ML-based solution (and also less hacky and bloated than AlDente). See this discussion [0] on GitHub for the explanation and this snippet [1] for easy use. This solution also works while the laptop is…

My older intel based macbook pro has started to tell me i use it mostly plugged in and won't charge higher than 80% on its own. There's also a 'charge now' button. I'm not even on a recent Mac OS, it's still on Monterey. No extra apps to handle battery. Of course, it doesn't look like a hard limit, but something triggered by usage patterns.

My problem with the built-in charging limiter is that if you are not extremely consistent in your usage patterns (I am not), it basically never kicks in. I much prefer a manual solution.
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