I am considering using the “charge to 80%” Battery setting in order to improve the health of my batteries a bit longer. I have that setting activated now.
However, for the times I plan to leave the charger behind and go out, where is the “fill her up, please” button? I am hoping there’s a way to just run a shortcut or widget so I can easily get to 100% this once, without changing the general setting to 80%.
This would be similar to how “Turn of wifi and Bluetooth” works - it reactivates tomorrow.
On the iPhone 15 Pro (and likely the newest iPads), afaik you have to change it in the settings. The next version of iOS will have more granular settings (80-100 in 5% increments), but idk if they’ll be accessible outside settings or feature automatic reversion the next day.
I’ve been using my 15 Pro Max heavily for almost 6 months with 80% max enabled from the beginning, and my maximum battery capacity still hasn’t budged from 100%.
With no mention of iPhone, iPad, iOS, macOS, or any particular model or type of Apple device in the original post, I simply reverted to my heavy bias towards and preference for Mac laptops.
This seems like something that shortcuts should be able to do (my answer to most little niggles nowadays!) but I’ve had a play around and you don’t seem to be able to control charging via a shortcut action. I personally think we should be able to though, so Apple should get on that!
It’s totally an option on the Mac. It’s the same feature as on the phone:
The Mac has a button to top off the charge. The iPhone does not. The premises that it learns from your behavior, and you never have to worry about it. Your mileage, of course, may vary…
I’ve known about optimized battery for a long time, and it’s worthless if you don’t keep regular hours.
In iOS 17 on the iPhone 15 Pros, there’s an option to limit charging to 80%. (I’d show you a screenshot but images still aren’t working here.) I think it may also be available on the new iPad Pros.
It’s great on my Pro Max, because there’s still plenty of battery life to last the day, and if I’m expecting to need more, I can temporarily toggle it to 100.
In macOS Big Sur or later, Optimized Battery Charging is designed to improve the lifespan of your battery and reduce the time your Mac spends fully charged. When the feature is enabled, your Mac will delay charging past 80% in certain situations.
On my iPhone 15 Pro optimized charging and 80% are two different options.
Does the Mac totally stop at 80% (which is the functionality the topic starter is referring to I think), or only delay and still try to top up to 100%?
The Mac delays the top-up. The intent is for it to be at 80% until it thinks you’re going to be disconnecting it from power, then to top up just before that.
By my understanding, there’s not really a reason to never go past 80%, as charging to 100% doesn’t hurt a battery per se. The issue is leaving it at 100% for an extended period of time.
As I understand it, that’s not true. It’s why electric car batteries don’t actually charge to 100% (they’d need to be replaced too often), which is why car manufacturers can often remotely unlock full capacity in emergencies requiring evacuations.
With laptops and phones, it’s best for battery longevity to routinely charge to 80%, with only occasional charges to 100% to maintain calibration.
Interesting. It may be that the practical truth is that there is some negative effect, but not so negative is to make it a bad idea in practicality.
I would think that cars might be a different case though as it is conceivable that people would be charging them and then leaving them sitting in that fully charged state for an extended period of time.
With something like a phone that is in constant use, Apple charging to 100% right before they figure you are ready to leave the house or whatever would be a very minimal risk as it would be discharging almost immediately.
Same with the laptop that is in constant use during the day. Charging to 100% and putting it in a drawer is entirely different than charging to 100% right before leaving the house for a day.
It’s multi-factor, whether a phone or a car. Depth of discharge/recharge (e.g. going from 20% to 100% instead of 10% to 80%), heat and charging rate shorten the battery’s life.
Manufacturers balance providing good battery life with reserving some capacity to extend the useful lifespan, but it’s little enough margin to let you significantly shorten lifespan if you want to.
By starting to add hard charging limits 80% currently in select recent devices, Apple appears to be acknowledging that frequent charging to 100% degrades a battery’s ability to hold a charge over time.
Regularly running a battery down to 0% similarly stresses it, but it’s easier for a user to avoid that.
