Charging a lithium battery to 80% only?

Re:Charging a lithium battery to 80% only? by bayindirh on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @03:31AM (#38360972)

I meant the automatic one. My charge cycles are not very predictable, but periodically my Mac says that It'll hold-off charge, and uses battery until 80%, then uses power adapter. Then charges the battery fully later in the day if I'm connected.

Sometimes it flat out refuses the charge. Then I disconnect and use the battery until 30% or so. Then charge when convenient.

My MacBook Air M1 has 165 cycles in 3 years, at 90% of design capacity. I think this is a very solid management of the battery for a computer used every day literally.

My MacBook Pro is at ~85% after 8 years. I don't remember total cycles now.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Charging a lithium battery to 80% only? by dalore on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @05:28AM (#38361812)

> Why not?

I find running on battery, lots of things are throttled or disabled. CPU is slower for example. That's probably a good reason for why not.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Charging a lithium battery to 80% only? by bayindirh on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @05:49AM (#38361953)

I generally do mundane tasks like SSH sessions or zoom meetings when I'm on battery. Heavier tasks are always offloaded to my desktop system, most of the times, so running on battery here and there doesn't impact many things in my case.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Charging a lithium battery to 80% only? by dalore on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @07:36AM (#38362800)

A video call though isn't that mundane. Google Meet often has my cpu and fans spinning. I do prefer Zoom as it uses fewer resources. But of course, it will work on battery.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Charging a lithium battery to 80% only? by bayindirh on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @07:44AM (#38362897)

For an M1 powered MacBook Air, none of them creates a significant power spike on the system. I use both regularly, generally one hour at a time, and battery percentage doesn't take a noticeable hit after the call, and the computer doesn't warm up.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Charging a lithium battery to 80% only? by nathanasmith on Wednesday November 22, 2023 @07:56PM (#38387705)

>I find running on battery, lots of things are throttled or disabled. CPU is slower for example.

FWIW, the performance and CPU features are the same on Mx based MacBooks whether they're plugged in or not.

[ Parent | on HN ]