Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPhone 13 How much battery do you have left on your iPhone 13 before you charge it?
- Thread starter MagOnetech
- Start date
-
- Tags
- charging iphone iphonebattery
- Sort by reaction score
Depends. If you want to make the next owner happy or intend on keeping the device over 12 months use the 40-80% rule, if not then don’t matter.
I charge when I want. I usually end up keeping my phone between 70-90% despite trying to do an 80%-40% rule.
With my usage I’m lucky to use 30-40% of my battery a day so… there can be times where I don’t charge for a day.
With my usage I’m lucky to use 30-40% of my battery a day so… there can be times where I don’t charge for a day.
13 pro max - charge once every two days. Not on social media. But I do like surfing the net on my 2 hour lunch break.
I bet it stops charging once 100% was hit. it doesnt care if its still connected or not. BTW I have 97% battery health on my MacBook pro which is connected all the time to charger.
I usually top up when the phone is 30% or less, in particular when I am about to leave home or the office. I am trying to stop charging manually around 80%, have set up an automation that posts a notification.
In general avoiding very low charge levels seems to be a good idea.
In general avoiding very low charge levels seems to be a good idea.
Optimized charging feature holds the phone at 80% until shortly before you typically take it off the charger in the morning, thus negating the pages and pages of arguing this thread will surely create.
There are years and years of technical advances in every iPhone, including major improvements with battery management baked right into the OS so you don’t have to do insane things like set alarms to charge in the middle of the night.
It’s a mobile phone. It’s meant to be ready to start the day fully charged so that you’re not hunting for an outlet by 2:30. There’s really and truly no need to make it more complicated than that. These aren’t precious jewels to be preserved for millennia. They’re phones. Sheesh.
There are years and years of technical advances in every iPhone, including major improvements with battery management baked right into the OS so you don’t have to do insane things like set alarms to charge in the middle of the night.
It’s a mobile phone. It’s meant to be ready to start the day fully charged so that you’re not hunting for an outlet by 2:30. There’s really and truly no need to make it more complicated than that. These aren’t precious jewels to be preserved for millennia. They’re phones. Sheesh.
Batteries are arguably the #1 performance limitation of modern smartphones. It’s the trigger point that drives most folks to upgrade, and aggravation point when it no longer lasts a full day’s usage. No wonder it’s one of the most often discussed subjects. It’s also one of the easiest things to significantly improve performance (like double).
As an outdoor enthusiast/camper I rely on battery-power gadgets so picked-up batteries, efficiency, and solar as side hobbies. Phones are my favorite test case (as the most heavily used/cycled gadgets) and lessons learned transfer to all my other li-ion gadgets, and will eventually to EVs (and more) as the world electrifies.
JMHO, Apple’s ‘optimization’ feature is more detrimental than it is helpful - you can easily beat it a dumb light timer set to commence charging at 5am daily. Pausing at 80% is better than sitting at 100%, but resting overnight <60% is better still. Optimization requiring GPS running in the background is more about using your phone/batt as a crowdsource beacon for their AirTag system, than it is to save battery. Doesn’t matter if I’m NY, London, or Tokyo - my day is based on the clock and starts ~sunrise, so why activate the most power-consuming antenna…. to save batt?
For many here, optimized charging is not working properly. A simple option in the settings to limit maximum charge to a certain level would dramatically increase overall battery life. This prevents the phone from holding a full charge when, at least for me, this is not necessary in most day-to-day use.
It may be much more involved than that. The charging circuit is independent of the OS. The battery currently can be charged properly when the phone has been turned off.
Any charge setting that could be coded into a future version of iOS wouldn’t be active when the phone was off and charging.
Obviously fruit central has pondered different charging schemes- yet we’re still stuck at the iPhone 1 charging scheme — all the way up to 100% or bust.
I agree very much, I think it is more appropriate to charge the remaining 30% of the battery, we should not only think of charging the phone when the battery is very low.
Charge once every two days, which means that you use your phone less frequently.
It is a good practice to charge once a day and keep the power at 40%-80%. Is this an official recommendation?
Apple doesn't recommend this. This comes from: https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries
If you get a new phone every couple years, just use your phone is probably the best advice as most of the benefits you see from doing 40-80% shine after a thousand cycles (for most people this is many years) lol.
If you work a desk job like me - keeping the phone between 60-90% is super easy to do and requires almost no effort. But I only keep my phone for 1-2 years so...
But if you want to be easiest on your battery doing 40-80% will do that. For most people tho the effort/cost doesn't equate to returned value. Some of us just do it because we can and we're a little nuts.
OK,thank youApple doesn't recommend this. This comes from: https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries
View attachment 2119749
If you get a new phone every couple years, just use your phone is probably the best advice as most of the benefits you see from doing 40-80% shine after a thousand cycles (for most people this is many years) lol.
If you work a desk job like me - keeping the phone between 60-90% is super easy to do and requires almost no effort. But I only keep my phone for 1-2 years so...
But if you want to be easiest on your battery doing 40-80% will do that. For most people tho the effort/cost doesn't equate to returned value. Some of us just do it because we can and we're a little nuts.
Höow big
It doesn’t help at all because you will have much more cycles in the same time frame with 65%-75% than 25%-100%.Apple doesn't recommend this. This comes from: https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries
View attachment 2119749
If you get a new phone every couple years, just use your phone is probably the best advice as most of the benefits you see from doing 40-80% shine after a thousand cycles (for most people this is many years) lol.
If you work a desk job like me - keeping the phone between 60-90% is super easy to do and requires almost no effort. But I only keep my phone for 1-2 years so...
But if you want to be easiest on your battery doing 40-80% will do that. For most people tho the effort/cost doesn't equate to returned value. Some of us just do it because we can and we're a little nuts.
You would need a graph over time, that’s what people wanna know: what can I do to have still a good battery in 3 years so the device don’t need a replacement for additional 2 years.
What? Did you read the website?
If I use the full extent of my battery 0-100%, after a few years my battery capacity/health will be around 70-80% of what it was thus needing to be replaced - around 400-500 cycles.
If I use 50% of my battery's capacity, at the same time frame my health could be 90% or better - same cycles (400-500 cycles).
Satellites use this methodology by using a tiny portion of the battery and allowing a battery that most consumers would deplete in a few years to make it last a decade or more. (That's how they get 40,000 cycles or more).
Depth of Discharge has a MASSIVE impact on the degradation of health. That's what that article is all about.
A cycle is 0-100%. So if I use 25% of my battery in one day, to use a full cycle would be 4 days. So your statement that you would have more cycles in the same timeframe isn't correct. Yes, you're charging a lot more frequently, but you're not using additional cycles.
Using 40-80% of your battery's capacity will significantly increase the health of your battery after 3 years vs using the full capacity. That's what that article was all about.
Just a helpful graphic on how a charge cycle works from Apple:
"Charge your Apple lithium-ion battery whenever you want. There’s no need to let it discharge 100% before recharging. Apple lithium-ion batteries work in charge cycles. You complete one charge cycle when you’ve used (discharged) an amount that equals 100% of your battery’s capacity — but not necessarily all from one charge. For instance, you might use 75% of your battery’s capacity one day, then recharge it fully overnight. If you use 25% the next day, you will have discharged a total of 100%, and the two days will add up to one charge cycle. It could take several days to complete a cycle. The capacity of any type of battery will diminish after a certain amount of recharging. With lithium-ion batteries, the capacity diminishes slightly with each complete charge cycle. Apple lithium-ion batteries are designed to hold at least 80% of their original capacity for a high number of charge cycles, which varies depending on the product."
Batteries - Why Lithium-ion?
Learn why Apple rechargeable lithium-based technology provides the best performance for your iPhone, iPad, iPod, and MacBook.
www.apple.com
"Charge your Apple lithium-ion battery whenever you want. There’s no need to let it discharge 100% before recharging. Apple lithium-ion batteries work in charge cycles. You complete one charge cycle when you’ve used (discharged) an amount that equals 100% of your battery’s capacity — but not necessarily all from one charge. For instance, you might use 75% of your battery’s capacity one day, then recharge it fully overnight. If you use 25% the next day, you will have discharged a total of 100%, and the two days will add up to one charge cycle. It could take several days to complete a cycle. The capacity of any type of battery will diminish after a certain amount of recharging. With lithium-ion batteries, the capacity diminishes slightly with each complete charge cycle. Apple lithium-ion batteries are designed to hold at least 80% of their original capacity for a high number of charge cycles, which varies depending on the product."
Let’s say 0-100 you charge every 3rd day. 65-75 3 times a day. You would have ca. 120 cycles a year with 0-100 and ca. 1000 with 65-75.
Ok so first you have to set a usage. So my usage is 30%-40%/day on average. Let's say I use 50% of my battery a day just for ease of math cuz I'm really bad at math.
So 50% usage a day = 1 full cycle every 2 days.
Regardless if I keep the battery between 40-80% or 0-100% - the cycle usage is the same. I'm just charging it a lot more frequently with the first option vs the second. See?
Cycle usage stays the same.
Using your analogy: If I did 65-75%, I would have to charge at least 5 times a day (for 50% usage). That's still .5 cycles/day vs me using 0-100% capacity and charging once every other day.
See? Cycles stay the same. Yes, you're charging more often, but overall cycles are the same regardless if you charge once every 2 days or 5 times a day.
I think the number of cycles they count are exactly the number of charges. Didn’t find any other explanation on their site. Apple defines it in a different way.
Apple defines it exactly the way I described it:
Batteries - Why Lithium-ion?
Learn why Apple rechargeable lithium-based technology provides the best performance for your iPhone, iPad, iPod, and MacBook.
www.apple.com
Check that page out (link above from Apple itself):
"Charge your Apple lithium-ion battery whenever you want. There’s no need to let it discharge 100% before recharging. Apple lithium-ion batteries work in charge cycles. You complete one charge cycle when you’ve used (discharged) an amount that equals 100% of your battery’s capacity — but not necessarily all from one charge. For instance, you might use 75% of your battery’s capacity one day, then recharge it fully overnight. If you use 25% the next day, you will have discharged a total of 100%, and the two days will add up to one charge cycle. It could take several days to complete a cycle. The capacity of any type of battery will diminish after a certain amount of recharging. With lithium-ion batteries, the capacity diminishes slightly with each complete charge cycle. Apple lithium-ion batteries are designed to hold at least 80% of their original capacity for a high number of charge cycles, which varies depending on the product."
Yes but the graphs from battery University It’s one cycle equal to one charge. This is how I understood. That’s why apple tells charge whenever you like to charge. That’s what I could read out of the battery university graphs too.Apple defines it exactly the way I described it:
Batteries - Why Lithium-ion?
Learn why Apple rechargeable lithium-based technology provides the best performance for your iPhone, iPad, iPod, and MacBook.www.apple.com
Check that page out (link above from Apple itself):
View attachment 2120032
"Charge your Apple lithium-ion battery whenever you want. There’s no need to let it discharge 100% before recharging. Apple lithium-ion batteries work in charge cycles. You complete one charge cycle when you’ve used (discharged) an amount that equals 100% of your battery’s capacity — but not necessarily all from one charge. For instance, you might use 75% of your battery’s capacity one day, then recharge it fully overnight. If you use 25% the next day, you will have discharged a total of 100%, and the two days will add up to one charge cycle. It could take several days to complete a cycle. The capacity of any type of battery will diminish after a certain amount of recharging. With lithium-ion batteries, the capacity diminishes slightly with each complete charge cycle. Apple lithium-ion batteries are designed to hold at least 80% of their original capacity for a high number of charge cycles, which varies depending on the product."
Battery University is using the terminology of a charge cycle being a complete 0-100% usage of your battery - this is industry standard. So charge cycle to Battery University is not just a charge but a full 0-100% state of charge usage of the battery's capacity.
So:
100 10% charges = 1 cycle.
4 25% charges = 1 cycle.
2 50% charges = 1 cycle.