Battery 80%

[Dittoman1]

I just discovered something that there's a setting in Coconut Battery/General/Format, I put this to 80% and this will stop charging at 80% all the time. IS this a good way instead of 100 %??

 

[Raz0rEdge]

iOS does this one its own based on your usage. It will stop charging at 80% and not charge to 100% unless you end up draining your battery constantly. If you end up charging your phone when it's at like 40% or something, it doesn't go.

You can, of course, override that setting if necessary.

As to whether it's a good thing or not, I'm sure there's information about that out there, but I don't know and just charge my phone to 100% each day. When the battery doesn't hold a charge anymore, I'll either replace the phone or battery.

 

[toMACsh]

I am under the impression that a battery will not actually charge to 100%. The charging actually stops at about 98% but the device will report that it's 100% charged. This is to prevent overcharging. I have only read this in other posts online, not in a technical bulletin or anything.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

I am under the impression that a battery will not actually charge to 100%. The charging actually stops at about 98% but the device will report that it's 100% charged. This is to prevent overcharging. I have only read this in other posts online, not in a technical bulletin or anything.

Like the fudge factor on car speedometers, eh?

 

[MacInWin]

Ashwin referred to iOS, but macOS is what he really meant. It's a built-in feature that kicks in after about a week of usage. The system "learns" you work mostly on power, so it sets the charger to stop and "hover" around that number. When you take it off charge and use the battery, it returns to 100% until it re-learns. I didn't know CoconutBattery could force the switch.

As for not charging to 100%, that's kind of an urban legend that started when somebody discovered that battery makers build in the lower limit for safety. Lithium batteries should not be taken to 100% of the actual capacity as it becomes increasingly risky. So makers set an artificial limitation by reporting 100% when there are a couple of percent left. The internals of the battery then got conflated to be "Apple is ding this" and the legend was born. In fact, when your Mac reports 100%, that is as high as the battery will allow. In fact, as the battery ages and the capacity declines, that 100% is also reset lower, so that 100% always means 100% of what the battery can provide at the time.

 

[MacInWin]

I just discovered something that there's a setting in Coconut Battery/General/Format, I put this to 80% and this will stop charging at 80% all the time. IS this a good way instead of 100 %??

Maybe I got it wrong, but I looked at what CCB/General/Format does and it doesn't appear to hold the battery at 80% if you put 80% in the window. It just REPORTS 80%, regardless of what the battery actually is. As I said, maybe I misunderstood what you were saying about it, but that's my take.

 

[Dittoman1]

I had it set for charged up to 80% then stop, Plug light was always Red for few days then I somehow change it and now iA cannot get it back on again, any to-how to do it?

 

[MacInWin]

I had it set for charged up to 80% then stop, Plug light was always Red for few days then I somehow change it and now iA cannot get it back on again, any to-how to do it?

Sorry, I don't understand that. The 80% setting is not user-settable, and I didn't see any setting in CoconutBattery to do that, either.

So, HOW did you make that setting? And what have you tried to get it back to 100%? Normally, all it takes is to remove the MagSafe for a while, to use the battery, and then plug it back in and it will resume 100%. But if you manually changed it, that automatic reset may be blocked.

As I said, the charging circuitry will automatically move to 80% after the Mac is on external power for about a week, continuously. And then resume 100% if it is OFF power for long enough to reduce the battery to about 70% or so. (That's an estimate, based on what I see, not something published by Apple.)

 

[Rod]

Personally I wouldn't fiddle with the built in regulatory settings. Apple seem to have done quite a bit in the area of battery life maintenance of late and attempting to override or modify built in settings is probably unnecessary in the best case scenario and unwise in the worst.
I see the "Optimised Battery Charging" function at work in both my MBP and iPhone, "To reduce battery ageing." and although I do not fully understand it's pattern of behavior I wouldn't try to replace it without turning that option off.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Sorry, I don't understand that. The 80% setting is not user-settable, and I didn't see any setting in CoconutBattery to do that, either.

Not quite.

On iOS. Go to Settings->Battery->Battery Health & Charging and enable Optimized Battery Charging to enable the 80% charge functionality.

On macOS (Ventura). Go to System Settings->Battery->Battery Health (i) which will open up a popup with Optimized Battery Charging with the same functionality.

 

[Rod]

I think this setting is on by default and I've never had a reason to turn it off.



What I observe is that if I use my MBP on battery as I did yesterday until the battery reached 65%, reconnecting the MagSafe only recharges the device to 80%. This morning it is still at 80% and the MagSafe displays a orange/red light.

It will stay this way until Friday because I hold a Zoom meeting every Friday, Saturday an Sunday on battery power. The algorithm has learned that I don't need a fully charged battery until Friday.
But, if I change the routine, if say I was to shut the device down today or run it on battery today it will most likely charge to 100% when I next plug it back in to AC power.

I say "most likely" because I have noticed that closing the lid and disconnecting the power o/night does not effect the pattern. It seems that the battery needs to be "used" but how much? I cannot say.

Regardless of all of this, I know that if I continue to use the device plugged in for the rest of the week (until Friday) the pattern of charging to 80% will continue until then.

I consider this to be a good thing although it's obvious that the algorithm is fairly limited, in that, it requires a very consistent pattern of use to predict your need/or not for a fully charged battery, erring on the side of 100% charge when in doubt, also a good thing.

Here is what it does for me;



And below is what I see when I click on the Battery icon in the menu bar;



You can see that I could choose to "Charge to Full Now" but if I do that I will break the pattern learned by the algorithm and it will have to start "learning" anew.

I hope that's helpful.

 

[MacInWin]

Not quite.

On iOS. Go to Settings->Battery->Battery Health & Charging and enable Optimized Battery Charging to enable the 80% charge functionality.

On macOS (Ventura). Go to System Settings->Battery->Battery Health (i) which will open up a popup with Optimized Battery Charging with the same functionality.

That just ENABLES the function, it doesn't trigger it to start immediately. I took it from the OP that somehow coconutBattery triggered it to go to 80% level immediately. Maybe I misunderstood...

I think this setting is on by default and I've never had a reason to turn it off.

View attachment 38690

What I observe is that if I use my MBP on battery as I did yesterday until the battery reached 65%, reconnecting the MagSafe only recharges the device to 80%. This morning it is still at 80% and the MagSafe displays a orange/red light.

It will stay this way until Friday because I hold a Zoom meeting every Friday, Saturday an Sunday on battery power. The algorithm has learned that I don't need a fully charged battery until Friday.
But, if I change the routine, if say I was to shut the device down today or run it on battery today it will most likely charge to 100% when I next plug it back in to AC power.

I say "most likely" because I have noticed that closing the lid and disconnecting the power o/night does not effect the pattern. It seems that the battery needs to be "used" but how much? I cannot say.

Regardless of all of this, I know that if I continue to use the device plugged in for the rest of the week (until Friday) the pattern of charging to 80% will continue until then.

I consider this to be a good thing although it's obvious that the algorithm is fairly limited, in that, it requires a very consistent pattern of use to predict your need/or not for a fully charged battery, erring on the side of 100% charge when in doubt, also a good thing.

Here is what it does for me;

View attachment 38691

And below is what I see when I click on the Battery icon in the menu bar;

View attachment 38692

You can see that I could choose to "Charge to Full Now" but if I do that I will break the pattern learned by the algorithm and it will have to start "learning" anew.

I hope that's helpful.

Rod, your experience is not what I am seeing, but then my "routine" is not as structured as yours. Basically, I'm on mains power almost all of the time, and only rarely move to be on the battery. So, my system takes about a week or so to "learn" to drop to 80%, but once it's there and I don't go to use it on battery, it stays there. But if I use it on battery even a little, it goes back to 100% and takes another week or so to re-learn that behavior. I am a bit surprised it can actually learn a weekly schedule like yours and know to stay on the 80% after the call, but that's good to know.

 

[Rod]

Jake, my routine is not always that structured either but when it is the algorithm works as I described. If I break the "cycle" it responds in the way you describe. It take a week or more to "relearn" the pattern.
This is where the concept fails really. If there were a way to decide to only charge to 80%, just as there is an option to charge to 100% at any time, rather than using a "machine learning" system then users could, as I think Dittoman 1 was suggesting Coconut Battery could do, then we could make that decision any time we knew the device was going to be in situ (plugged into AC) for an extended time.
As it stands the algorithm works very well for my wife who leaves her MBP permanently plugged into AC in the office. Her battery level remains at 80% all the time.

 

[MacInWin]

Ok, Rod, that makes better sense for me as it matches my own experience. I have not found a way to bypass the learning stage and go to the 80% level manually. I, too, would like that, but I just let it "learn" each time.

 

[Rod]

I think the fact that it works some of the time (all of the time for my wife) is better than not at all.

 

[Rod]

Just a quick follow up on my last posts. This past week I stuck rigidly to my "schedule" so MBP plugged in to AC all week charging to 80%.
On Friday attended a Zoom meeting on battery (80%). After the meeting plugged in, it charged to 100%.
Next day, another Zoom meeting, battery at 100%.
Next day, another Zoom meeting, battery at 100%.
Now here is the interesting part, after the Sunday meeting I plugged the MBP into AC power as per the previous days and this time it only charged to 80% and it has stayed that way every day to today (Tuesday).
My assumption is that so long as I maintain my schedule, so will the charging pattern.