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What should I limit my battery charge level to?
- Thread starter JohnDoe12
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If you leave your battery at 55%, you can leave it plugged in forever. It’s being at 90-100% for prolonged periods of time that is harmful.
But where do they get those numbers (maximum capacity, etc)? Wouldn't one need to drain the battery all the way down to really know those numbers exactly? How do we know that they are making the numbers look better so other people buy their software?
Charge Limiter is just an application that has a box to enter the desired charge. No menu bar app.
To keep a battery in optimal health then you want to leave it at 50% at all times to answer your question - I have a degree in this stuff.
The closer you are to 100% or 0% the greater the damage being done to the cell. In real world usage I'd keep mine between 20% to 80%. Cycles only tell part of the story, having a Li-Ion cell stored at 100% for years on end will seriously damage it.
The closer you are to 100% or 0% the greater the damage being done to the cell. In real world usage I'd keep mine between 20% to 80%. Cycles only tell part of the story, having a Li-Ion cell stored at 100% for years on end will seriously damage it.
It's a script. You can take a look at the script itself when you download it.
This.
A simple analogy would be a coil spring. Think of it this way. If you keep the coil spring tightly wound all the time (100% charge), eventually, it will not "unwind" to 0% as its elasticity or spring like characteristic is diminished.
On the other hand, if you keep the coil spring unwound (0% charge) all the time, it will be hard to fully re-coil it (charge to 100%) later.
That's a simplistic view, but an apt analogy.
Best analogy I've heard in awhile. Unfortunately too many just buy into Apple's too simplistic explanation.
But where do they get those numbers (maximum capacity, etc)? Wouldn't one need to drain the battery all the way down to really know those numbers exactly? How do we know that they are making the numbers look better so other people buy their software?
Coconut battery is a freeware although you can purchase the pro version for more features.
If you believe in this "conspiracy", there are many other programs you can get besides coconut battery. In fact, this information is built into MacOS. You don't need coconut battery. Goto "About This Mac...", hit "System Report" then click on "Power". It's all there without needing any third party software.
Do you keep it plugged in while the battery is limited to 55%? I'm using Al Dente and I also limited mine to 55%. It runs pretty hot as opposed to not having it plugged in all the time though.
coconutBattery showed similar battery temps but the wrist rests were hotter for me to the touch. But I use my laptop with an external monitor most of the time. Was going to ask if anyone else had that experience.
Edit: I tested this later - temperatures at 100% and at 55%, no difference. It was not charge limiter causing this heat, just me not being used to using my laptop on my lap.
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Yep. The wrist rests are a little warm (certainly not hot) when I connect to my 32” 4K monitor. The fan may not even come on.
Just to clarify, I meant to say that the wristpad area of the laptop seems a lot warmer than usual when doing the 55% battery limiting than when it sat at 100% (when using it as a laptop). Could just be me and summer temperatures though.
Edit: I tested this later - temperatures at 100% and at 55%, no difference. It was not charge limiter causing this heat, just me not being used to using my laptop on my lap.
Edit: I tested this later - temperatures at 100% and at 55%, no difference. It was not charge limiter causing this heat, just me not being used to using my laptop on my lap.
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You are correct.
When I use an external monitor, I also use an eGPU. When I touch the wrist rest area, it is not warm at all.
My guess based on observation by @BigMcGuire and @iRun26.2, if I didn't use an eGPU it will most likely be warmer.
Use your MacBook Pro as you normally would. Don’t get caught up in starting at battery stats. The MacBook is not a work of art that should be handled and used with white gloves. A few extra cycles one way or another is not going to amount to any real difference.
I have a 2017 MB Pro 13. I sold it with 230+ cycle counts in the three years I owned it. I just charge when needed. I plug it when not using. I got $850. I believe I got the pro on sale for $1049 so not bad.
Has anyone experienced a battery health drop since using Al Dente? I was kind of worried about this issue:
github.com
Although it's a single user's recount and I could not find anyone else experiencing this.
Today though my health has dropped from 98% to 96.1% in coconut battery (at 17 cycles), while history shows today it is 98.5%. I have set Al Dente to stop charging at 55%.
It could be that it needs to be charged to 100% for correct readings, though.
I also have a question. The "authorized service" I used was truly atrocious. I had returned the MBP 2020 due to the USB issues that got popular recently and not only they didn't "find any problems", but they chipped the paint off the corpus at one spot a little bit. No biggie.
What actually made me truly mad is that these incompetent people returned my MBP at 0% battery with not enough power to start it up. I am worried it could have been left like that for what could be 1-2 weeks, or even a bit more.
How much damage do you think the cells took from that? Can anyone make an educated guess? I am not sure how much capacity is "saved" after the MBP reaches 0% and if it even took damage, but I imagine it was too low to avoid negative consequences.
Pro tip: Authorized service can be a danger to your laptop.
Battery health dropped since using AlDente · Issue #23 · AppHouseKitchen/AlDente-Charge-Limiter
Since the app ran on my MacBook Air 2014, which by the way did not work, my battery health has dropped from 94 to 85 percent. Checked with coconut battery. Deleting the app and an smc reset did not...
github.com
Although it's a single user's recount and I could not find anyone else experiencing this.
Today though my health has dropped from 98% to 96.1% in coconut battery (at 17 cycles), while history shows today it is 98.5%. I have set Al Dente to stop charging at 55%.
It could be that it needs to be charged to 100% for correct readings, though.
I also have a question. The "authorized service" I used was truly atrocious. I had returned the MBP 2020 due to the USB issues that got popular recently and not only they didn't "find any problems", but they chipped the paint off the corpus at one spot a little bit. No biggie.
What actually made me truly mad is that these incompetent people returned my MBP at 0% battery with not enough power to start it up. I am worried it could have been left like that for what could be 1-2 weeks, or even a bit more.
How much damage do you think the cells took from that? Can anyone make an educated guess? I am not sure how much capacity is "saved" after the MBP reaches 0% and if it even took damage, but I imagine it was too low to avoid negative consequences.
Pro tip: Authorized service can be a danger to your laptop.
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I use Charge Limiter as I am still on Mojave.
Looking at the poster, he said "Since the app ran on my MacBook Air 2014, which by the way did not work, my battery health has dropped from 94 to 85 percent...."
Since the App didn't work, it probably wasn't Al Dente that is the problem, but his computer probably fully charged and he left the computer plugged-in at 100% charge.
That's just my guess. But based on the fact that Al Dente did not work, it can't be due to Al Dente.
With regards to your battery, you don't say whether you use Al Dente. If you are not using it, drop in your battery health seems normal for something that is plugged-in most of the time and having the charge kept at 100%.
Looking at the poster, he said "Since the app ran on my MacBook Air 2014, which by the way did not work, my battery health has dropped from 94 to 85 percent...."
Since the App didn't work, it probably wasn't Al Dente that is the problem, but his computer probably fully charged and he left the computer plugged-in at 100% charge.
That's just my guess. But based on the fact that Al Dente did not work, it can't be due to Al Dente.
With regards to your battery, you don't say whether you use Al Dente. If you are not using it, drop in your battery health seems normal for something that is plugged-in most of the time and having the charge kept at 100%.
Sorry, I edited the post - I am using Al Dente and limiting to 55% charge capacity. As you can see the history has never went down to 96% before so it just thought it was weird to go down 2.5% from last night to today when i woke it up. Actually, there is one spot when it was at 96.7% and it has went up after that point. I wonder how reliable is the health estimation in general.
I've only been using Al Dente for 2 days though and prior to that I have used catalina's BHM system.
Do you think the athorized service permanently damaged the battery by leaving it sit at 0% for days?
I've only been using Al Dente for 2 days though and prior to that I have used catalina's BHM system.
Do you think the athorized service permanently damaged the battery by leaving it sit at 0% for days?
Having the battery fully drained does diminish its health. So if they let it sit at 0% for a few days, it definitely could have reduced your battery health.
Any charge outside of 40-80% range puts strain on the Li-ion battery. Hence the reason for my preference to 50-55% and only 80% charge when traveling, unless I will be away from a power source for more than 5-8 hours, which at today's age is hard to do.
Any charge outside of 40-80% range puts strain on the Li-ion battery. Hence the reason for my preference to 50-55% and only 80% charge when traveling, unless I will be away from a power source for more than 5-8 hours, which at today's age is hard to do.
Yeah, I can't imagine a scenario where it didn't take any damage at all. But I wonder how much of it was it. Leaving the MBP in the hands of these incompetent people was the worst thing I can do to it but I honestly did not expect this level of idiocy and carelessness. I just hope the damage is not too dramatic, like if it essentially shaved-off 2-3 % from the total life it wouldn't be too bad. But if it damaged it in a way that it would generally accelerate the death of the battery, then it would be really bad. It's just too early to say. Health-wise it did not seem too different from before giving it to them, it was used for about 3 weeks before that point.
Just for your reference, here is my battery health. Since not every battery is made perfectly to be at 100%, mine has a slightly higher capacity.
As you can see, since the beginning of June (it doesn't show on the picture) when the battery was replaced under AppleCare+, I've been using Charge Limiter at 50%, some days at 55% just for kicks.
As you can see, my battery health has not changed but actually seems to have increased slightly.
You can see on the top right corner the battery is at 52% (even though I've set it at 50%) and not charging. I've noticed there seems to be very slow trickle charging even when the battery show not charging. This may be the reason why it is really bad to leave your battery plugged-in and charged at 100% all the time.
As you can see, since the beginning of June (it doesn't show on the picture) when the battery was replaced under AppleCare+, I've been using Charge Limiter at 50%, some days at 55% just for kicks.
As you can see, my battery health has not changed but actually seems to have increased slightly.
You can see on the top right corner the battery is at 52% (even though I've set it at 50%) and not charging. I've noticed there seems to be very slow trickle charging even when the battery show not charging. This may be the reason why it is really bad to leave your battery plugged-in and charged at 100% all the time.