[droidno9]

It's one of those things that you don't think you'd need until you have had it, and then wonder why you've gone so far in life without it.

As someone who constantly has to step away from my desk during the day, I don't have to think about charging the phone anymore. It automatically goes on the wireless stand (directly in front of me) when I'm back at my desk. I can be certain that if I choose to go out for the evening after work, I wouldn't have to worry about being stranded somewhere far from home because my phone died. (Side note: Uber and Lyft have really decimated the taxi industry, even for a downtown area in a medium-size city.)

[mehrdadn]

Oh I see. But putting it in the charger all the time just makes the battery die more quickly, right? Though I see the value now if you don't care about that.

[nxc18]

Apple specifically has software features to protect the battery from the consequences of that usage pattern.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210512

[Dylan16807]

It might lose some life from keeping the battery at a high level, but it will gain life from using the battery less.

If you can keep it from charging too high, it's all upside.

[fulafel]

The last 10-20% of the charging causes most battery wear (many times more than in the mid band). So charging from almost-full to full many times per day is going to be harder on the battery than charging fewer times per day.

This is especially pronounced on phones, where batteries are already calibrated to have a high charge cutoff (ie battery longevity vs capacity compromise is heavily at the capacity end).

[int_19h]

What I don't get is why phones can't be configured to just never charge past 80% or so, for people who rarely need that 100%, and would rather the battery wear less.

It's a thing for some laptops; e.g. Lenovo specifically advertises such a setting.

[fulafel]

Apparently you can do it on rooted Android, though I haven't tried it (eg https://www.androidexplained.com/battery-charge-limit/)