Those points are not wrong. They are just non-exhaustive and intentionally ignorant of all benefits of charge limiting.
First of all, Apple (or any other brand for that matter) would never suggest any of this to any customer, ever. These types of practices complicate usage on one hand, and also would reduce the amount of battery replacements Apple get to do on the other hand. There exist some windows laptops, which allow users to do charge limiting - configurable in BIOS. That has been done for a reason, sadly it is extremely rare. Macs are superior in that regard given how easy it is to achieve limiting.
I don't understand how the points you made are supposed to be arguments against my point. Rate of charge is taken care of by the design itself. Temperature, though? My mac is barely below 35C most of the time, and more often at 36, or a bit higher. Turns out Apple doesn't take into account that people use external monitors. External monitors elevate temperatures considerably. Such are the ambient conditions. During summer it goes beyond that. Just by being in a warm room, combined with heavy usage of your laptop, combined with low state of charge and currently ongoing charging, you will increase your cell temperature past 40C. That is already 5C into unwanted territory. Meaning, the takeaway from this point is temperature, not so much charging rate. This is already one factor that actively damages cells.
"Charging protocols is referring to the design considerations engineers must follow."
I find it quite funny how you mentioned several protocols that the manufacturer does, but for some reason decided that user practices cannot be considered protocols. So let's add a few more:
- If possible, do not keep the laptop fully charged for prolonged periods of time
- If possible, discharge and charge your laptop between 40% and 80%.
- If possible, do not drain your laptop to 0% (I know the cutoff is not true 0%, thanks for mentioning that but it's not news)
- If possible, do not charge your laptop to 100% too often (same thing applies)
(Incidentally, charge limiting achieves these points on its own)
Will these things prolong battery life and reduce battery stress?
Absolutely, most certainly they will.
Note: Most manufacturers are likely applying a soft cap at around ~90% capacity. It's no more than 10%. It's most definitely not 20, 30%, or more. That's ridiculous.
"Whenever you run your device until it shuts down it does not go into deep discharge."
It absolutely does, as long as you leave it drained for enough time. It will drain past the cutoff point, just give it time. I've done that a number of times with 18650 lion batteries. And then, when I checked their voltage, I had to recycle them as it would be stupid and irresponsible to continue using them. Plating has already occurred, short circuit becomes a danger. The same would apply if your Macbook's battery has drained past the cutoff point due to negligent care. Claiming that leaving your laptop on a shelf for months, drained, is fine, is downright dangerous and utterly misleading.
"What can consumers do to prevent battery swelling issues?"
They can do what you suggested, plus what I've suggested.
Limiting charge to ~ half of the capacity is technically as stressful for the battery as storing it at half capacity is. It's the least stressful when compared to low/high state of charge. The important thing is to still do enough cycling to maintain calibration.
Charge limiting means that once you reach, let's say 65%, your laptop starts using the power supply. The battery is no longer being actively discharged. It is being
stored and VERY occasionally trickle charged, considering the self-discharge rate at half capacity is much slower than at 100%.
Doing the same and letting your battery sit at 100% is going to introduce a whole lot more stress to your battery. That's the point of charge limiting. I'm not sure why this point is not coming across and why anyone would ever advocate against this practice. The only reason not to do it is if you are not sure how to do it. Which is why we've created such threads where the practice is being discussed and experience is being shared.
This is an additional practice that can allow you to prolong battery life, reduce capacity loss over time, and reduce the stress that batteries go through while at max or very low state of charge.
Oh, and about my graph. That average line under my own one is "average". Meaning my line is being compared to that of all coconut users that selected the option to upload their data online. Regardless, I'm willing to revisit this thread after 7 months so we can see how capacity looks after 12 months of prolonged daily usage.
Feel free to get informed even further here:
Discover what causes Li-ion to age and what the battery user can do to prolong its life
batteryuniversity.com
"Lower charge voltages prolong battery life and electric vehicles and satellites take advantage of this. Similar provisions could also be made for consumer devices, but these are seldom offered; planned obsolescence takes care of this.
A laptop battery could be prolonged by lowering the charge voltage when connected to the AC grid. To make this feature user-friendly, a device should feature a “Long Life” mode that keeps the battery at 4.05V/cell and offers a SoC of about 80 percent. One hour before traveling, the user requests the “Full Capacity” mode to bring the charge to 4.20V/cell."
It is clear that a 50% limit is not user-friendly. It makes the most sense to limit so low if you mostly use your laptop plugged. Thus, 80% is suggested as a more reasonable option. Thankfully, with a charge limiter you can decide what that number is for yourself. About half capacity is ideal.
Of course, you will not see this feature anytime soon. It goes against the idea of profitability. It is more profitable to have to replace your battery while in theory you could be getting close to your maximum capacity for years by reducing the stress as much as possible.
Obviously, by reducing stress you also reduce any kind of risk of thermal runaway or other types of failure, not just capacity loss.
