iPad Pro [HELP] recently purchased M2 iPP arrived completely discharged

[Populus]

Hi everyone,

I’ve recently purchased this great deal on Amazon, a 2TB 11” M2 iPad Pro, at the price of the current base model 11” M4 iPad Pro. It just arrived and, just as I suspected, it’s one of the early units they’ve probably had sitting on a warehouse for one or two years, because when I opened it (brand new) it was fully discharged, and when I plugged it to charge it, after 5 or 10 minutes it came back alive, displaying the iOS 16 welcome screen.

I still haven’t figured out if it comes with iOS 16.1 or 16.6, I guess the version number will indicate me if it has been with a depleted battery for 1 year or 2…

Now, I’m changing it to its full capacity in a fresh place to prevent heat stress during this first charge.

My question is: Do you think that buying an iPad, which is new, unused, but with an “old” discharged battery will impact it’s battery health maybe not immediately, but over the course of the upcoming years? Thank you.

PS: I will update the thread as soon as I activate it, with the exact iOS 16 version and the battery capacity revealed by Coconut Battery

 

[SYCAMOREGRAD]

Check the battery health, too. It probably got depleted recently, so I think it should be ok.

 

[Populus]

Check the battery health, too. It probably got depleted recently, so I think it should be ok.

Well, so far, so good. Despite being a first batch iPad Pro, because it comes with the first build it was shipped with (16.1), I’ve checked the maximum battery capacity (the battery health) with Coconut Battery because iPadOS doesn’t disclose the battery health in Settings, and…

It has a maximum capacity of over 8.000 mAh, while the design capacity is 7.600 mAh. So yeah, the battery is, so far, holding more capacity than the designed, which is not unusual among new Apple products. Now I only hope that being almost two years wit an empty battery hasn’t damaged it, making it degrade faster than usual. For reference, the iPad Pro I’m typing on now has been used for one and a half years, and it’s at 89% of it’s original battery capacity (i.e: the battery health).

 

[viking_01]

My thoughts are that it will be fine. Battery aging generally occurs 4 ways - time, cycles, high current charging & discharging, very high or very low voltage relative to the designed operating voltage.
The iPad won’t drain the battery to 0v, but stop all drain at the Low Voltage Cutoff (LVC). A little voltage may still ‘leak’ , but this will be tiny. It will also have taken several months to get that low.
Not a lot of battery damage occurs at low resting voltage, provided there’s no load. Often there is less aging when the battery is stored at a low voltage, opposed to say stored at 100%.
Clearly without use, there will be zero cycles and no high current charging/discharging either. Mainly ‘shelf life’ aging, but from Coconut battery info it seems ok so far.

 

[craigru]

oops, I just noticed this is about iPad not MacBook, so does this make a difference?
viking_01 says "The iPad won’t drain the battery to 0v, but stop all drain at the Low Voltage Cutoff (LVC)." An old thread (in 2015) agrees that "Draining a battery completely is the best way to permanently kill your battery. A mac will shut down before it drains completely to prevent this from happening."
But my older MacBook Pro (2015, running Mojave) does drain to zero when it's unplugged, unless I watch it and plug it back in with the adapter. Is this because it (MBPro or OS) is older? or because I must "set the LCV" but haven't? or another reason?

 

[viking_01]

Battery protection and LVC will be set by a controller on the board, probably with updatable firmware but in either case I doubt anything on the device will allow it to fall to 0v in use - what makes you believe this 2015 MacBook Pro takes the voltage all the way down to 0v on the battery cells?

 

[craigru]

"what makes you believe this...?" -- On top-of-screen menu bar, the charge indicator was "0%". When I again plugged it in the screen was dark, but it didn't restart. So maybe it wasn't totally down to 0v? -- BTW I'm using "Charge Limiter 1.5.1" so it doesn't constantly stay at 100% (bad for the battery) when plugged in; could this app affect the LCV protection?

 

[viking_01]

Thanks - I understand. It’s contrary to instinct, but 0% does not mean 0v.
A battery cell has a usable voltage range. For example, for some lithium chemistries this is 2.5v-4.2v.
In that example, 2.5v is 0%. The LVC would trigger at 2.5v (0%) and the High Voltage Protection (HVC) at 4.2v (100%).

2.5v isn’t a great long term storage voltage, but it’s a heck of a lot better than 0v - so the LVC activates to stop further discharge when the battery gets to 2.5v.

 

[craigru]

_ __Thanks for your quick-and-helpful reply, viking_01
__ _Although "contrary to instinct" your description makes sense, re: batteries and protecting them. But I wish Apple set the LCV higher or (much better) made this setting an option the user can set, at least within a battery-safe range. Yes, 2.5v is "a heck of a lot better than 0v" but it seems that a little higher would be better, when I forget to take the MBPro out of my backpack and it discharges down to the LCV limit.
__ _And it seems that Apple could do more to protect batteries. Based on internet info (pages and forums) it's harmful to let a battery to get totally discharged -- but this happens less often than we might think, due to the "0% ≠ 0v" you explain -- or to stay constantly at 100%. (but maybe this doesn't mean 4.2v for a "lithium chemistry" with a usable range of 2.5v-4.2v. The battery of a previous MBPro failed, maybe because almost all the time I was using it as a "desktop computer" constantly charged at 100%. Instead of automatically making it easy for users to protect our batteries, Apple forces us to get knowledge (about charging levels & battery health) and get third-party apps (thank you for making Charge Limiter, GitHub). Currently I set my MBPro to a max of 50% when it's used as a plugged-in desktop, and then raise the Charge Limiter up to 90% when for awhile I'll be using it as a portable laptop. I've also begun using apps to limit the maximum charge on my tablets (iPad, Samsung) and iPhone, typically setting it between 80% and 90% max for these.
__ _Apple's lack of helping users protect battery health isn't just with older tech (2015 MBPro) and MacOS (Mojave, 2018), because my iPhone XS Max (2018) with current iOS (2024) also doesn't auto-protect. Instead we're forced to get knowledge and get third-party apps.