AlDente Users - Your Settings

[Alpha Centauri]

Hi all

I have a paid version of AlDente and am wondering what settings you've settled for and why. I'm tethered pretty much 95% to mains power and have set for 80% charging cap and 10% Sailing Mode with my M2 MBP.

1. Pls state your set percentage.

2. Pls write what Sailing percentage you're using.

3. How often do you discharge, or is it set to "Automatic" as I have done.

Thank you.

 

[foobarbaz]

I have set a 66% limit. No sailing, no discharge.
I only occasionaly use it unplugged. I charge to 100% before business trips, but most of the time, I don't need the battery after all. I just leave it be until it drops back to 66% on its own.

After 3 years I have 70 cycles and 99% battery health.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I have set a 66% limit. No sailing, no discharge.
I only occasionaly use it unplugged. I charge to 100% before business trips, but most of the time, I don't need the battery after all. I just leave it be until it drops back to 66% on its own.

After 3 years I have 70 cycles and 99% battery health.

Thanks for the reply. I'm curious, how did you end up with that 66% figure? Just a 2/3 's equation? And no sail use. Tbh I'm still trying to fully understand that bit even though I read up on the AlDente support page, perhaps I need to read it a few more times?

 

[gilby101]

I'm tethered pretty much 95% to mains power and have set for 80% charging cap and 10% Sailing Mode with my M2 MBP.

Much the same for me with M3 MBP.

When sailing, the MBP is powered from the mains. The battery is neither charging nor discharging and that is what may extend its life.

Without sailing the battery level will go up and down a bit when on mains power.

 

[macduke]

I almost bought this app a year ago. Instead I decided to let Apple's automatic battery optimization to the trick. Have an almost year old M3 Max 14" MBP. I'll admit 79 charge cycles is probably lighter than many of you, but I mostly use my MBP docked since I work from home, and I'll go relax in a chair or on the couch with it occasionally to take a break from being at my desk, or if it's a weekend, or if I'm traveling. But it's still at 100% health. So I'd say for people who mostly use their MBP docked, like you and I, there isn't much need for an app like this.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

Much the same for me with M3 MBP.

When sailing, the MBP is powered from the mains. The battery is neither charging nor discharging and that is what may extend its life.

Without sailing the battery level will go up and down a bit when on mains power.

Thanks for explaining the sailing feature. Is yours also set to 10% ? My charging limit (80%) pretty much stays consistent but I wonder why can one customise this variance even? What is the point of it if the charge limit theoretically stays at the set figure?

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I almost bought this app a year ago. Instead I decided to let Apple's automatic battery optimization to the trick. Have an almost year old M3 Max 14" MBP. I'll admit 79 charge cycles is probably lighter than many of you, but I mostly use my MBP docked since I work from home, and I'll go relax in a chair or on the couch with it occasionally to take a break from being at my desk, or if it's a weekend, or if I'm traveling. But it's still at 100% health. So I'd say for people who mostly use their MBP docked, like you and I, there isn't much need for an app like this.

I get what your're saying but I didn't have such good consistent results with Apple's optimisation, not on the MBP and neither (especially) on an iP. I don't want it to suddenly jump to charging to 100% when tethered and there's no need for it to do so.

What I find interesting is that Apple's health shows 100% currently but both AlDente AND Coconut show 97% health. If you ever install Coconut, please post what that shows. It would be interesting to see.

 

[gilby101]

Thanks for explaining the sailing feature. Is yours also set to 10%

Yes. 10%.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I almost bought this app a year ago. Instead I decided to let Apple's automatic battery optimization to the trick.

I don't often push Apps, only when I myself have compared native offering vs alternatives. Perhaps give the unpaid version of AlDente a trial and decide on the results from both?

 

[Mike Boreham]

I get what your're saying but I didn't have such good consistent results with Apple's optimisation, not on the MBP and neither (especially) on an iP. I don't want it to suddenly jump to charging to 100% when tethered and there's no need for it to do so.

Apple’s own Optimised Battery charging never worked for me so I went to Al Dente. That was on my 2020 M1 MBA. I liked the control so much I have used it on all my laptops since then without testing whether Apple OBC worked on them.

What I find interesting is that Apple's health shows 100% currently but both AlDente AND Coconut show 97% health. If you ever install Coconut, please post what that shows. It would be interesting to see.

Third party apps use the value from theioreg command in Terminal, which goes up and down, quite significantly (5%) but the Apple number is their algorithm which is much more stable. I reported my ioreg capacity here.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

Apple’s own Optimised Battery charging never worked for me so I went to Al Dente. That was on my 2020 M1 MBA. I liked the control so much I have used it on all my laptops since then without testing whether Apple OBC worked on them.


Third party apps use the value from theioreg command in Terminal, which goes up and down, quite significantly (5%) but the Apple number is their algorithm which is much more stable. I reported my ioreg capacity here.

On the optimisation front with my 13 Mini I only got 6 months (inc learning habits) of solid charging overnight to 80%, then ramping toward 100% few hours before waking up. It was pretty cool until it entirely stopped working. No amount of resetting and relearning applicable location did ever get it back again. Perhaps a full reset might have worked but at health % dropping below 95% I simply didn't care anymore, that and use of tethered CP thereafter.

Thanks for addressing my question of displayed % of Apple vs 3rd party. In my case Apple is showing 100% and both Cocunut and AlDente have displayed together a slow and consistent drop, ending currently at 97%. So if I understand correctly, the 3rd party Apps use the MacOS algorithm? I've gone back to AlDente's support page on the Hardware Battery Percentage option and it "seems" to more accurately use the SMC circuitry. That's if I understood it correctly.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Thanks for addressing my question of displayed % of Apple vs 3rd party. In my case Apple is showing 100% and both Cocunut and AlDente have displayed together a slow and consistent drop, ending currently at 97%. So if I understand correctly, the 3rd party Apps use the MacOS algorithm? I've gone back to AlDente's support page on the Hardware Battery Percentage option and it "seems" to more accurately use the SMC circuitry. That's if I understood it correctly.

No, that link is about battery percentage charge not about battery health capacity percentage. Some third party apps like AlDente offer the choice of showing the Apple Charge or real percentage charge. No third party apps use the Apple algorithm for percentage health capacity

 

[Alpha Centauri]

No, that link is about battery percentage charge not about battery health capacity percentage. Some third party apps like AlDente offer the choice of showing the Apple Charge or real percentage charge. No third party apps use the Apple algorithm for percentage health capacity

Oh, gotcha. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Razer(x)]

Yes. 10%.

Why 10 and not 5?

 

[gilby101]

Why 10 and not 5?

Good question. The support pages are very vague on this. The examples are of either 5% or 10%.

But read this https://github.com/AppHouseKitchen/AlDente-Charge-Limiter/issues/1371 and the linked paper. So is 2% or less better? Not conclusive, as the paper only compared very small micro-charges to deep cycles.

 

[Razer(x)]

Good question. The support pages are very vague on this. The examples are of either 5% or 10%.

But read this https://github.com/AppHouseKitchen/AlDente-Charge-Limiter/issues/1371 and the linked paper. So is 2% or less better? Not conclusive, as the paper only compared very small micro-charges to deep cycles.

Thanks for sharing

Being not sure, I left it as default, 5%