Battery Myths

[rprt]

Hi guys, I heard two opinions on how to conserve battery health and cycle count.

A: Charge until 80% and unplugged it and charge again when battery reaches 20%.
B: Charge until 100% and charge again when it reaches 20 or 30%.

I heard many influencers recommend us to charge only to 80% to conserve health and CC. There are also many apps available to help us to do it. Which one is actually true? Or is there any other opinion?

 

[ignatius345]

My opinion: just use your device the way you choose and let the software manage charging. Optimized Charging feature is pretty good at topping it off at the right time. I think it's generally considered bad to run it all the way down to 0% regularly, but other than that I just use it as I see fit. Batteries are a consumable part and not terribly expensive to have replaced. There are tons of people here who seem to have turned batteries into some kind of boring hobby, but I think life is too short.

 

[Howard2k]

It depends on the battery chemistry, there is no rule that applies to all rechargeable batteries. Apple will try to establish your usage patterns and then charge to 80%.

If battery charging is paused or on hold on your Mac - Apple Support (CA)

Use the battery status menu to resume charging if you need to have your Mac fully charged sooner.

support.apple.com

 

[MacADameYeahNut]

My opinion: just use your device the way you choose and let the software manage charging. Optimized Charging feature is pretty good at topping it off at the right time. I think it's generally considered bad to run it all the way down to 0% regularly, but other than that I just use it as I see fit. Batteries are a consumable part and not terribly expensive to have replaced. There are tons of people here who seem to have turned batteries into some kind of boring hobby, but I think life is too short

ignatius345, you said, "I think life is too short" -- have you considered turning on the Optimized Living feature? When your full energy isn't needed, you'll expend only 80%, thereby extending your lifespan by 20%.

 

[joeblow7777]

Honestly, none of these strategies is going to make a significant difference in the grand scheme of things. Just use and charge your laptop however is convenient for you. Worse case scenario, you might have to get the battery replaced some day, but that might not be for several years.

 

[theluggage]

I heard many influencers recommend us to charge only to 80% to conserve health and CC.

I suspect a lot of these hark back to the bad old days of NiCad batteries (which suffered from "charge memory" if they were kept continuously 'topped up') & simple "dumb" charging circuits. With lithium batteries and "smart" charging circuits I'd just trust the computer.

I think the one hard and fast rule is that if a battery actually discharges all the way to "dead flat" then it's a brick. The device shouldn't let this happen in normal use, but it might happen if the device is unused for very long periods. Don't know if this would affect a Mac, but it's what did for my Apple "let's save a few pennies and not have an off switch" Pencil.