battery charge - 80% alarm

[gim]

Agreed completely. I envy the people in your house. They are far more environmentally friendly and save far more money than I do!

I'm very impressed with your capacity rates given the number of cycles. Very interesting observations and calculations. Stuff like this is a hobby of mine so I very much appreciate your findings and will be studying them to learn from them.

Thanks!
That being said, most of my household members are fortunate to work in jobs in which we can charge our phones anytime we want, so not charging to 100% is not much of a trade-off.

That's different for other family members and friends. I don't blame them when they go from 100 to 0 to 100% every day, but in the end they have to pay the price for battery replacements.

 

[Ifti]

I very rarely, if ever, bother looking at my battery health. I just charge and use as and when.
Appreciate the fact that, from your tests at least, its quite clear in could make a difference - but I probably still wouldn't bother TBH. I tend to like to just use the device rather then worry about how many years I can make it last....

I also appreciate the fact that the above probably has no bearing to this thread at all. It offers no advice and no solution. But alas, I have typed it regardless so I will post it with apologies for wasting your time.

 

[Mars2002]

So, here's a thought: A shorcut that will notify you at 80% battery level. ( https://routinehub.co/shortcut/848 ) And then combine it with your charger plugged in a homekit controlled wall socket and make an automation or IFTT thing switch the charger off.

 

[compwiz1202]

Charge Alarm Pro

Charge Alarm Pro by John Kowalik
https://appsto.re/us/hzr2_.i


You can have it ring an alarm (many to choose from) at any % state of charge. Not just 80%.

Caveat is that the app has to be in the foreground to work. No lock screen, not in the background.

So it's good if you want to put your phone on a charger and then leave it undisturbed and then have it set off an alarm at your chosen state of charge....

But if you want to use your phone while it's charging, this app is worthless and won't work.

So does that app disable locking and set screen to lowest brightness so you aren't needlessly using power trying to save your battery. Seems counterproductive.

 

[cyriltv]

Not trying to teach - my experience:

I have monitored my iPhone batteries via coconutBattery on an excel spreadsheet for years (since my iPhone 6+). I usually keep my phones 2 years. Most of my phones spend the majority of their lives at >90%.

I've found that after 1.5-2 years most of the phones are within 2-3% of their capacity (only one went beyond 6%) when new. (6+, 6s+, 8+, Xs Max, and now 11 Pro Max).

I believe the >90%+ trickle charging helps the longevity of these batteries vs <80% full charging all the time.


Would LOVE the ability to restrict the battery to 40-80% or something like that - Tesla does something similar with their massive battery banks in their cars.


Yeah, the iOS 13 battery health option - Optimize Battery Charging has really only worked for me overnight if I leave my phone plugged in.


What I really wish the iPhone had was the ability that MacBooks have - to draw power from the wall exclusively instead of always through the battery. My MacBook, once charged, will stop using battery at all, and just draw from the wall when at >=95%. This results in very few charge cycles being used.

Hey BigMcGuire, so are you saying its okay/better for the macbook to be walled in all the time when I'm working on it non stop, rather than detaching at 80/100%?

 

[cyriltv]

Yeah, it doesn't really matter how you charge your phone then.

In my house, most people use their phones for as long as they're good. That means until they break or don't get OS updates anymore.

Here's what we've got.

Devices charged under 20-80% rule:

iPhone 6 Plus - release day device with original battery (>5 years old)
1003 cycles - 93% capacity
--- battery has outlived the phone ---

iPhone 7 - release day device with original battery (>3 years old)
560 cycles - 91% capacity
--- battery will probably outlive the phone---

This phone is an outlier because it was occasionally used for navigation on long road trips. Therefore it spent more time charged at 100%, and therefore has lower remaining capacity than the other 2 devices, which are much older.

iPad Air (2013) with original battery (almost 6 years old)
772 cycles - 92% capacity
--- battery has outlived the device ---

Devices charged to 100% every night:

iPhone 6s Plus with replacement battery from Apple
402 cycles - 79% capacity (should be replaced again)
--- needs 3 batteries (2 replacements) total to be useable until phone turns obsolete ---

+ roughly a dozen devices of friends/family that I know of because they wanted me to tell them their cycle count and remaining capacity. All phones that were charged overnight were significantly worse on battery. Basically all of them were on track, or had already hit 80% capacity after roughly 2 years.

But wasnt it a hassle to always monitor when your phone hit 80/20% to discharge/charge? Or did you use some app for that?

 

[BigMcGuire]

Hey BigMcGuire, so are you saying its okay/better for the macbook to be walled in all the time when I'm working on it non stop, rather than detaching at 80/100%?

Both are fine - depending on your level of inconvenience. It has been my experience that the difference between the two (in a 3 year time period are not all that different) - using my wife's laptop and my laptop as examples.

https://github.com/godly-devotion/charge-limiter --- I use this now to keep the charge of my Macbook Pro at 55% when plugged into the wall for long periods of time. All other times I keep it at 85%. Works really well. And I think over a 5 year time period - it will have significant battery health savings.

My Phone? I don't really care - I usually upgrade every 2-3 years and the capacity is always within 8% of design. It is just way too inconvenient to always monitor charge.

That said, I don't leave my phones / iPads on the charger unless I'm charging them. I used to leave them plugged in all the time. Now, I charge them, disconnect, and use them to about 70% then charge again.

 

[cyriltv]

Both are fine - depending on your level of inconvenience. It has been my experience that the difference between the two (in a 3 year time period are not all that different) - using my wife's laptop and my laptop as examples.

https://github.com/godly-devotion/charge-limiter --- I use this now to keep the charge of my Macbook Pro at 55% when plugged into the wall for long periods of time. All other times I keep it at 85%. Works really well. And I think over a 5 year time period - it will have significant battery health savings.

My Phone? I don't really care - I usually upgrade every 2-3 years and the capacity is always within 8% of design. It is just way too inconvenient to always monitor charge.

That said, I don't leave my phones / iPads on the charger unless I'm charging them. I used to leave them plugged in all the time. Now, I charge them, disconnect, and use them to about 70% then charge again.

Hey,

So if I got your comment correct, using the charge limiter, your macbook stops charging at 55% even though its walled in on long usage days? And when you are not working on it for too long you set the charge limit at 85%? So do you keep walled in or unplug it at 85%? Do you have to manually adjust this all the time in that app depending on how your going to be working on your mac on that particular day?

 

[BigMcGuire]

Hey,

So if I got your comment correct, using the charge limiter, your macbook stops charging at 55% even though its walled in on long usage days? And when you are not working on it for too long you set the charge limit at 85%? So do you keep walled in or unplug it at 85%? Do you have to manually adjust this all the time in that app depending on how your going to be working on your mac on that particular day?

My MacBook (2017 MBP 13') spends most of its life plugged into the wall. I have the Charge Limiter set to 55% - it hits 55% and stops charging and runs off of AC power - for most of the time. There is a little more cycling than when I do the same thing at 100% but not much.

When I need to use my MacBook Pro away from the wall, I'll set the charge limiter to 85% so that way I have a few hours of battery use before it goes to 50%. (About all I need to use it away from wall power).

I leave it set at 55% for most of the time. Right now it's at 85% because I am lazy and didn't set it back to 55% after some mobile usage this last weekend. It's a setting you can do rather quickly (just requires admin password).

I almost never adjust it because it spends 99% of its life on wall power.

Yep, it stops charging at 55% even when off and plugged in.

 

[cyriltv]

My MacBook (2017 MBP 13') spends most of its life plugged into the wall. I have the Charge Limiter set to 55% - it hits 55% and stops charging and runs off of AC power - for most of the time. There is a little more cycling than when I do the same thing at 100% but not much.

When I need to use my MacBook Pro away from the wall, I'll set the charge limiter to 85% so that way I have a few hours of battery use before it goes to 50%. (About all I need to use it away from wall power).

I leave it set at 55% for most of the time. Right now it's at 85% because I am lazy and didn't set it back to 55% after some mobile usage this last weekend. It's a setting you can do rather quickly (just requires admin password).

I almost never adjust it because it spends 99% of its life on wall power.

Yep, it stops charging at 55% even when off and plugged in.

Okay. Why did you set 55% specifically?

 

[BigMcGuire]

Okay. Why did you set 55% specifically?

The app only lets me set to 50% as the lowest setting (I wouldn't set it lower than 50% anyway). So it was close to the lowest setting. Imo, 55% and 85% are pretty close to the same thing when it comes to battery longevity. It's just less charge level and a tiny bit less stress on the battery.

Because my laptop spends MOST of its day on wall power, 55% seemed like the least harmful setting (85% probably would have been fine too.

 

[cyriltv]

My MacBook (2017 MBP 13') spends most of its life plugged into the wall. I have the Charge Limiter set to 55% - it hits 55% and stops charging and runs off of AC power - for most of the time. There is a little more cycling than when I do the same thing at 100% but not much.

When I need to use my MacBook Pro away from the wall, I'll set the charge limiter to 85% so that way I have a few hours of battery use before it goes to 50%. (About all I need to use it away from wall power).

I leave it set at 55% for most of the time. Right now it's at 85% because I am lazy and didn't set it back to 55% after some mobile usage this last weekend. It's a setting you can do rather quickly (just requires admin password).

I almost never adjust it because it spends 99% of its life on wall power.

Yep, it stops charging at 55% even when off and plugged in.

BigMcGuire, thank you for your quick responses to my queries. One last thing. I downloaded and set up the charge limiter application and it said it has successfully set the charge limit to 80% (as I wanted it). But I cannot see the Charge Limiter app in the Application folder. Is this okay? The original downloaded file is there in the downloads folder.

 

[BigMcGuire]

BigMcGuire, thank you for your quick responses to my queries. One last thing. I downloaded and set up the charge limiter application and it said it has successfully set the charge limit to 80% (as I wanted it). But I cannot see the Charge Limiter app in the Application folder. Is this okay? The original downloaded file is there in the downloads folder.

Yep it’s fine. Same thing in my side. I manually copied it over to applications.