Unpowered USB Hub

[Wandersonsc]

Hello there,

This is my setup right now. Corsair K70 LUX RGB has Cherry MX, Razer basilisk Ultimate wireless + Charging Dock, Corsair St100 e MM800 RGB POLARIS. They are all connect to an unpowered USB Type C Hub. Is this going to affect my battery healthy in the long run?
The MM800 and the ST100 they don't need to be connected all the time, but the mouse and keyword that is a must.
So, the bottom line is should I use a powered USB hub? By powered I mean, powered USB hubs that come with their own AC adapters and can run on an external power source.
Ah, I am plugged in all the time. And I just wanna preserve my mac battery life as much as possible.

 

[iMacDragon]

If it's plugged into AC it won't make any additional difference to battery over that.

 

[Wandersonsc]

Okay!
I am still pretty new to the Mac Os world. To be honest until recently, I was using the optimization that came with it, but clearly it was not working properly, seemed to stay on 100% of charge all the time. Now I am using AlDente Pro and I am still getting the hang of it, but I set the limit to 80%.

Power Flow with all my peripherals connected.

None of them connected:

 

[Wandersonsc]

Okay!
I am still pretty new to the Mac Os world. To be honest until recently, I was using the optimization that came with it, but clearly it was not working properly, seemed to stay on 100% of charge all the time. Now I am using AlDente Pro and I am still getting the hang of it, but I set the limit to 80%.

Power Flow with all my peripherals connected.

View attachment 2244732


None of them connected:

View attachment 2244733

I mean, I literally installed Al dente this week.

 

[iMacDragon]

Yeah, if you literally only ever have it plugged in al dente is probably safer bet than the inbuilt, it does tend to be a little quick to jump back off the battery preservation setting. And indeed, the AS processors use so much less wattage than the intels that the stock PSU has enough spare at all times for USB and such power.

Back on intel this wouldn't always be the case necessarily.

 

[ArkSingularity]

Yeah, if you literally only ever have it plugged in al dente is probably safer bet than the inbuilt, it does tend to be a little quick to jump back off the battery preservation setting. And indeed, the AS processors use so much less wattage than the intels that the stock PSU has enough spare at all times for USB and such power.

Back on intel this wouldn't always be the case necessarily.

I had a coworker who had to plug in two power adapters at the same time to his i9 MacBook just to keep it running during a work meeting one day. Just your typical run-of-the-mill Zoom meeting, and even the stock charger apparently wasn't enough to keep the computer from dying while it was in use.

Of course I suppose it's possible that the charger was defective or something (I wasn't aware that it was possible to plug two chargers in at once, but he says it worked). All I know is that he was able to share his screen afterwards and his charging percentage started going up again.

 

[iMacDragon]

That does indeed sound like a dodgy charger, mac will only charge from the charger providing the highest wattage currently plugged in.

 

[Fishrrman]

Battery aside, the DISadvantage of using a NON-powered USB hub is that all your devices will be drawing "bus power" from the Mac.

It's possible you could exceed the maximum amount of bus power the Mac can provide, and one or more items might start "dropping off" the bus (with error messages saying the port was disabled due to excessive power).

Use a POWERED hub, and this won't happen.
Of course, a powered hub comes with it's own power block, so "less portable".

I'd keep the non-powered hub as my "portable" unit, and get a powered hub for a home/desktop setup...