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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?

#91

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…

I recently picked up my Surface 3 for the first time since 2017. It had a 66% charge from the last time I used it... It's not so much the OS as the device firmware, since the Surface 4 runs the same OS but has significantly worse battery performance.

That's a joke, right? The battery held a charge for 6 years?!

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#92
post #75

The battery in my pixel 4xl failed two times under warranty and then a third where googles service provider wouldn't do it again for me. (The ribbon connector is actually what fails). So I went to Amazon and bought a $14 kit that came with a battery AND tools. Did it myself in 15 minutes. (Whereas the UBreakIfix vendor took like 2 hours of my time between dropoff and pickup). The Amazon battery has lasted longer than…

You did all this in 15 minutes? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1gVWGAw8do Let me guess, the back cover wasn't stuck on very well from the repeated battery replacements.

Yes, 15 minutes or less. There's like 3 screws to undo on the battery clamp and 4-5 for the camera or whatever. That's it.

I suppose yes it was a not stuck together as well as a new phone.. I wouldn't know since a certified Google place had fixed it prior. So if it was stuck together like new, it would have taken me a few extra minutes with a heat gun. Still much much faster than having a pro do it for me.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#93
I can highly recommend ACC (and the ACCA app [1] for setup). It lets me limit my phone to 90% charge with the ability to ignore the limit temporarily when I need to. That's very useful for fixing the battery calibration, which can go bad when using ACC.

It has reduced my battery wear by 40-50% according to Accubattery's capacity graph.

[1] https://github.com/MatteCarra/AccA

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#94

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.

Yeah but then you have to buy an iPhone. That's not snark. I want things from my phone that an iPhone can't give me. The battery replacement ecosystem in Android land is pretty dismal.

It's always cost me around $40 to have an Android battery replaced at a "We repair phones" sort of place. That includes the cost of the battery.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#95

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?

>Do you force close the apps?

Don't do this unless an app is unresponsive/not working correctly. It will just make apps slower to restart, using more power than it would if left to suspend/un-suspend as it's meant to.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#96
post #13
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.

If you go to bed late, wake up early, need to charge for a few minutes at a party, etc, android slow charge at best doesn't work, and at worst works against you.

I have no idea how setting charging settings on our mobile computing devices is something that is not supported in 2023

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you have an automated way to do that?

I wish I did but I haven't found one yet. I'm at my desk a lot, and that's usually when I charge it. I mostly use an old, low-current charger (originally for a bluetooth headset) so it charges slowly, about 5% per hour.

Which begs the question: if I charge my new Mac with an iPhone charger (8W), will it lengthen the battery life ?

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#98
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even my iPad has horrible background drain. My iPhone is the only device I have that I can calmly leave at 15% when I go to bed and know my alarm will still work in the morning.

I had an iPad that I bought 5? years ago and I could leave that thing in sleep mode for literal weeks at a time and I'd still have a mostly full charge. I "upgraded" to a Pro 2 years back and the first thing I noticed was it'd go from a 100% charge to 60% to even 40% overnight. All apps closed, freshly rebooted and did nothing but charge it the previous night before unplugging it. A lot of comments online say "This d…

The amount of background crap has been steadily increasing on Apple devices, you're probably right in your observation that it's related to wireless/Bluetooth.

I have a iPad 2 (yes, the one from 2011) which I keep around with the plan to turn it into a house-automation screen and I'm always surprised when I look at it every 2-5 months to see it still has a decent chunk of battery left. And it's in sleep, not turned off.

I just checked it, it's at 76% with a standby time of 562h (23.4 days). And this is with WiFi turned on.

Im really impressed, it's after all a 12 year old battery. And the device was in daily use for the first 4 years and then less frequently.

This is a side topic but I find it's a good example of forced obsolescence, because there is nothing wrong with it other than the fact that it does not support modern web standards or modern iOS apps which makes it trash for most people.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#99

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.

Yeah but then you have to buy an iPhone. That's not snark. I want things from my phone that an iPhone can't give me. The battery replacement ecosystem in Android land is pretty dismal.

It depends on your definition of dismal. Any phone repair shop can open phones and replace batteries. There are also disassembly videos for most models on YouTube. I looked at them, ordered parts and replaced the battery on my Samsung A40 when it started to discharge too quickly. I also replaced the camera after a hard crash on the floor broke the autofocus. Maybe not having Samsung shops makes all of that dismal but I actually prefer to have many small independent shops around the country.

Re: Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

#100
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,…

I have 2-year iPhone 13 Mini which I didn't care much about keeping some charging regime. It reports 100% capacity. I wouldn't trust this number. Another data point: 2-year MacBook Pro 16" which lives on my table (I don't think I've ever used it without charger), keeps its battery at 80% and reports 91% capacity.
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