Samsung and Apple both released new phones this year that let you enable a setting where it prevents you from charging your phone’s battery beyond 80% to improve its lifespan. How does this work?
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Why don’t they just make 80% show as 100% charged then?
Think of a battery as a balloon. You pump air into the balloon and then the air coming out is what powered the phone. Over time the balloon will get stretched and worn out, making it not as good as pushing power to your phone. This happens to all balloons eventually, but if you’re pumping it up to the maximum size every time, it happens much more quickly.
Why don’t they just virtually cap the battery at 80% and show it as 100%. Why the need for each user to enable that feature when it clearly is counterintuitive for everyone.
You can charge to 100%, but if you leave it at 100% when stored the capacity will erode.
For very long-term storage, store at 50%, 3.7V per cell
For daily charging, charge to 90% for overnight storage, 4.1V per cell
If you are going to use a lithium-battery powered device right away, charging to 100%, 4.2V per cell, is fine.
So if 80% is optimal, why don’t smartphone makers make 80-90% the maximum and call that 100%?
It allows you to get more charge cycles before the battery starts to lose capacity from wearing out. This is effectively the same thing as what happens when the battery starts to lose capacity but it gives people the sense that they’re in control of it. To speculate a little, phone manufacturers know that battery degradation is one of the most common reasons people get a new phone. Some people like to get a new phone every year but for most it’s an inconvenient, boring expense. The manufacturers have all decided that replaceable batteries are not coming back so this is a gesture toward doing something about that. This feature was probably very cheap for Apple to develop and while it doesn’t really help it’s not hurting either. In the past apple has put out software updates that actually slowed down the processor in older devices to “save battery”. It’s been a while now but Apple customers were rightly pissed at them when it was confirmed.
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