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iPad Pro 80% Battery Limit worth it?
- Thread starter AVBeatMan
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I seem to be using about 50% charge daily on my iPad Pro M4, so going from 80% to 30% rather than 100% to 50% seems like a no-brainer for my use case. When I think I’ll need more I’ll go to 100% of course, I don’t lose sight of the fact that it’s there to serve me, rather than vice versa. 
I don’t worry about it, I use optimized charging on my devices, never hard limit Of 80%. I never had issues with batteries in the past. I have seen batteries deteriorate faster than mine for folks who use Aldante pro. There are too many factors to be paranoid About single charging limit. I use my devices, replace battery after 3 years or so on my iPhone. Mac and ipad Pro batteries are better Than iPhone batteries in my experience.
The reason to use the 80% limit is you get to be welcomed into the battery OCD club at MacRumors, where micro-managing battery health is more important than using the device in the first place.
This issue comes up a lot in different ways in this forum. What I would say is take care of your devices the same as other things you own within the context of your productivity.
I'll use a car analogy. A mechanic once told me today's cars can be driven 100K miles at the redline. He didn't say what would happen after that though. If you only plan to keep your car for the 30 or 50K miles then sure floor it cold out of your driveway, do donuts in the parking lot, never change the oil, etc. You're screwing the next owner -- which is why used rental cars are a questionable buy -- but it will maximize enjoyment/investment.
Then there are people who put maybe a few hundred to a few thousand miles per year on their cars, wipe them down with diapers, etc. Their cars are pristine when they go to sell them but they're still a used car. And it's hard for me to say they enjoyed them. So unless they got lucky picking the right car as a collectible, it's still not an investment and it doesn't seem to me like a good return on their time or money.
On the other hand a race car driver isn't going to give up the win to get a few more miles out of their engine. That car is their livelihood but they're there for the win. So they're going to push their engine to just the point before it breakdown before they finish the race.
So if you can keep your iPad's battery between 20-80% at all times without hurting your productivity, etc, then sure why not? It will retain peak capacity longer. But if you start changing what you do -- stop bringing it to meetings, stopping in the middle of your work to charge, etc just to keep the battery optimized -- that seems like a waste of your time and it's intended purpose as a tool.
On my iPhone, I do manual optimized charging (it's an older model that Apple decided isn't powerful enough to throttle it's own charging). I put it on the charger when I see it hit 20-25% and I have an alarm set to go off when it hit's 80% charge. I am not a phone person so this still gets me ~ 2 days between charges despite this being an older model. I like my phone, there's no newer phone that I want, and I like to take care of my things so this works for me without changing what I do.
On my laptop, I leave it plugged in all the time and the battery life is shorter despite minimal charge cycles. However, I wasn't going to plug and unplug it all day long to keep the battery maximized. If I had known about AlDente when I first got it I would have used that. That way I would have had maximum battery capacity for when I needed it.
Last thing, the reported Battery Health is at best misleading. Reported as a %, this implies that a device that had 8 hours of use when new would last 4 hours with Battery Health at 50%. In my experience with Apple devices, once Battery Health goes below 80% it's useless. I let the battery in my phone get so bad at one point that it sometimes turned off as soon as I unplugged it from the charger. Apple still reported the Battery Health at like 78 or 80%. So when people here say they do this or that and their battery life is still 92%, that not an A-. More likely their device will only get 60% of it's new battery life.
P.S.Technically it is true that the battery is a consumable and replaceable. However, since it's sealed in on all modern devices that usually means a trip to a repair place or buying a new device. Either of which I enjoy as much as taking a car to a mechanic or buying a new car.
While Optimised charging can be enabled/disabled on iPhone, an equivalent setting doesn’t exist for iOS/iPadOS for iPad.
iPad optimised charging for iPad is always active and will optimally charge the iPad battery - but differs from iPhone in that full charging to 100% is not delayed.
For iPad, charging may be limited to 80% charge when connected to its Power Adapter for extended periods - such as when used in Point of Sale (PoS) or kiosk applications.
I believe iPads already do this in “kiosk mode” (triggered after 3 days of continuous charging iirc). Problem there is when you need to switch to using the battery, the “100%” displayed is actually just 80%.
I’d rather know when it’s actually 80% rather than having the false comfort that it’s 100%.
Turning a setting on a single time and never having to think about the battery again because you know the phone is just dealing with it in the background is about as far from micromanaging as you can get.
A healthier battery at the non-expense of using the phone exactly as you normally use it is worthwhile for pretty much everybody.
I have the option enabled on both iPad and iPhone. Both devices need to be charged daily but I can usually keep it above 20% at the end of the day so I think that's optimal for the battery, always between 20% and 80%.
Ah, but that's not what people do, is it? They turn it on, then they post asking if they should have turned it on in the first place. Then they ask if letting their battery go below 20% is ok. Then they ask why it went above 80 percent that one time. Then they ask if wireless charging is ok. And maybe 70% is better than 80% and why can't we set it at 70%? And oh my god my battery life is now 99% and Apple won't replace my battery, should I send an email to Tim Cook?
And so on and so forth and etc.
It's a feature. Turn it on. Or don't. Use your phone. The end.
This. Mental health vs a perceived battery health.
I have mine set to 80% but thats because i have a magsafe battery attached so it trickle charges throughout the day and neither overheats. I see setting the battery below the 100% a good thing if you're the kind of person who keeps a phone longer than 2 years. For many people on the iUP plan it makes little sense.
I use it. My phone spends a lot of my workday on my MagSafe charging stand on my desk at work, so I don't need 100% charge and I think I damaged my 13 mini's battery by keeping it at 100% too much. Definitely the problem with my 15" MBP, it had a bulging battery because I kept it charged and plugged in at 100% basically all day every day. Now I use AlDente on all my laptops to keep them at 80% or below. I'm rarely using any of my devices on battery all day with no way to charge, so I only set them to charge to 100% when I'm on vacation somewhere remote where I won't even be in my car for a long stretch of time.
ETA: my iPhone 15 Pro that I've used daily since September 2023 has a cycle count of 252 and 100% battery health. My past iPhones would have been at 95-98% battery health by this point, if memory serves. 80% limit is the only change in my use patterns, so I have to think it gets credit for keeping this phone's battery in perfect health. This is great, because I plan to keep this phone for longer than past phones, since I purchased it outright.
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Why are there so many people that get worked up over people that use this feature, especially when the vast majority of folks that use this feature (obviously outside this forum) just set it and forget it? 🤦♂️
First they pick an arbitrary point on a curve to end charge, and call that 100%. Then the internet freaks out that a 3 digit percent is bad for batteries and somehow chooses an arbitrary fraction of that as "optimal" for an arbitrary definition of "optimal". A cult then develops around that new arbitrary number, built on the belief that any other number is a deliberate attempt to undermine their way of life. When they tire of the incessant, half baked, complaining and provide a switch to appease the cult, it's only taken as further validation of the conspiracy theories and anything but strict adherence to the teachings, such as an occasional calibration charge, is viewed with suspicion.
I was traveling recently and charging my watch more often than I usually do because I didn't know when I wouldn't be able to charge it. It took me a couple days to figure it out, but it made me crazy that the watch arbitrarily decided to "optimize" charging and stop at some lower number. I couldn't get that setting turned off fast enough.
I was traveling recently and charging my watch more often than I usually do because I didn't know when I wouldn't be able to charge it. It took me a couple days to figure it out, but it made me crazy that the watch arbitrarily decided to "optimize" charging and stop at some lower number. I couldn't get that setting turned off fast enough.
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I've been using it on my iPhone 15 Pro since launch, and it's at 99% battery health.
I've been using AlDente (70-80% limit) on my MacBook Pro M1 Pro since it's launch, and more than three years later, it's at 94% battery health.
I'm keeping my M4 Pro iPad on 80% limit too.
When I'm traveling, I just top them up to 100.
I'd say it is worth it for battery longevity, but not at the detriment of your enjoyment. I am almost always near a charger, my devices are often plugged in (my iPhone sits on the MagSafe dock, my Mac is charged by the monitor, my iPad is plugged in via the Magic Keyboard) - so it's a good choice. Your usage cases may be different - but it *does* prolong battery health.
I have it set to 80% on all of my devices. I do disable it on my phone when I travel so that I always have full battery when out and about.
iPhone 15 Pro Max (purchased in September 2023) - max capacity at 99%
Macbook Pro M1 Max (purchased in December 2021) - max capacity at 97% with 32 charge cycle
iPhone 15 Pro Max (purchased in September 2023) - max capacity at 99%
Macbook Pro M1 Max (purchased in December 2021) - max capacity at 97% with 32 charge cycle
Conversely, It is the “set it and forget it, don’t need to worry about your battery” club. I set mine to 80% and it’s fine most of the time. I rarely need more than about 50% of charge on any given day. If I go on a trip, I switch it to 100%. No worrying at all.
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That’s just the worry-worts who post about their anxiety. The rest either don’t bother posting or just post to counter misinformation.
Similar to the ones posting because their battery is shot and they are trying to figure out how to get Apple to replace it.
A tiny minority of people do that. The rest of us do, in fact, set it and forget it. The reason you don't see us posting constantly about it is proof that we forget it.
I think a good metric for deciding if you should turn this on is trading off the battery replacement cost.
MacBook -> Expensive as hell battery replacement. 80% mode turned on.
iPad/Pro -> They last forever (I get 4-6 years out of a battery charging 100% all the time). Don't bother!
Apple Watch -> Lasts about 3 years charging to 100% before it gets annoying and then the chassis is knackered anyway. Don't bother!
iPhone -> Replace battery every 2 years anyway. Don't bother!
MacBook -> Expensive as hell battery replacement. 80% mode turned on.
iPad/Pro -> They last forever (I get 4-6 years out of a battery charging 100% all the time). Don't bother!
Apple Watch -> Lasts about 3 years charging to 100% before it gets annoying and then the chassis is knackered anyway. Don't bother!
iPhone -> Replace battery every 2 years anyway. Don't bother!
Tesla CyberBeast 80% battery Limit
Galaxy Ultra 24 80% battery Limit
Laptop 80% battery Limit
new M4 iPad Pro 80% battery Limit
anything with a Lithium Ion battery that you care about make sure it’s set to an 80% charging limit. Period.
+1. I won’t enable the 80% limit if I need to use the device on battery for long periods. If the device will just be sitting on a desk plugged in to power for 8-24 hours a day then yes, I’ll want to set a limit.
My gaming laptop has a battery saver feature and looks like that limits charge to 55-60%. My ThinkPad has more fine grained controls and lets you set what range you want to keep the battery at (75-80% default).
80% of what?
That's what spins me around on this whole thing. 80% of full? What's full? What behaves differently in the chemistry at 80% than it does at 70, 90 or 100%? I'll bet there's not a step function anywhere along that continuum. All of these numbers are arbitrary.
Remember when Jobs redefined what the signal "bars" mean?
100% is just some point on the capacity-longevity curve. It can be moved. 80% is a different point. I get that some people think their use case is different than typical and they'll get a better product by changing from Apple's defaults, but the fixation people have on it seems misplaced to me.
I wish Apple would release data on battery longevity for both settings-- this sounds to me like a give-em-what-they-want feature. Especially after trying to do it right with machine learning and then backing off to a dumb toggle.
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It’s not that deep. Set the toggle to 80% and go touch some grass in life. I don’t understand it must be Asperger’s or Spectrum that “some” people deep dive into such simple details and fret over and over.