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by SlowRobotAhead 2725 days ago
Why do you believe that? (It's so very wrong, but I'm curious if someone told you, or you came to this conclusion on your own)
4 comments

This site seems like a decently credible source on battery life, and they recommend setting devices into a mode to leave the charge at around 80% if its not going to be really used heavily as a mobile device.

https://batteryuniversity.com/index.php/learn/article/how_to...

"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."

I've had a lot of laptops with this kind of mode on them from several different manufacturers. I think Samsung, Lenovo, and HP have some knowledge of extending the life of their batteries. https://support-us.samsung.com/cyber/popup/iframe/pop_troubl...

"...it is strongly recommended to select "Optimize for Battery Lifesapn mode" or Conservation Mode and keep AC adapter connected alll the time. This mode will enable the battery to be fully charged to 80% or 60% of its design capacity." https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/ht069687

I have little reason to think a similar concept applies to phone batteries, as they're usually a similar chemistry these days.

Common knowledge and from what I've read about batteries the last two decades. And from using AccuBattery. Please do state why it is wrong, so we can sort it out :)

Samsung recommmends not going under 20% charge, but nothing about going over 80% https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/how-can-i-...

gadgethacks thinks that we should avoid going over 80% https://android.gadgethacks.com/how-to/set-charging-limit-yo...

Apple has fantastic information: Don't charge past 80%, if it's too hot! https://www.apple.com/batteries/maximizing-performance/ The expected battery cycles are around 500 and then you have at least 80% capacity left on the battery. https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208387

Both samsung and apple says that you should have at least 50% charge if you store the device long term and also avoid going too low and leave it empty.

I get that apple/samsung will not recommend not charging 100%, from using accubattery (play store) they say that a full charge uses about one charge cycle, but charging to 82% does not take any charge cycle.

From what I've read the best thing for the longevity of the battery would then be to have it between 20 and 80%. But if you will replace the battery or phone after 500 charging cycles you could just charge it to 100% as much as you like. But never go below 20%.

AccuBattery should really add a warning about the battery health when going under 20%.

I did not know that it's possible to monitor battery health in iphone settings nowadays, that's great!

Can you share why it's wrong? I learned the same thing as the OP and would love to learn more. As far as I learned, the more harmful part is discharging to very low levels, especially if you use it until it shuts off and then don't connect it to the charger for a long time. Is that also no longer the case?

I know that manufacturers sometimes gate off some of the capacity so that the battery doesn't actually reach extremely high or low levels of charge, but that would still imply that avoiding the very high and low ends of the reachable spectrum would still be helpful, just maybe not as much.

Why do Tesla cars not charge over 90 percent by default then...?