macOS recently introduced the feature to limit your battery to only charge up to 80%, a feature that I personally appreciate as I’m mostly using my MacBook plugged into a dock and it’s arguably a great way to limit the ageing of the unit.
There’s just one huge problem. Well, two actually. Firstly it doesn’t allow me to set a minimum charge (“start charging when battery is at X%”), so when it falls to 79% it just tops it back up to 80, not a big deal but slightly annoying. The much bigger issue is that the charge limit apparently isn’t being saved to the battery firmware itself so when the MacBook is turned off and plugged into my dock it just keeps on charging to 100%…
Similar issue with my Pixel 9 Pro, it normally sticks to the charge limit quite well, but multiple times a month I’d say it just randomly charges to 100% regardless. Apparently that’s to calibrate the battery or something? As far as I know you have to do a complete cycle to calibrate a battery which 80% to 100% isn’t, also I don’t think a Li-ion battery needs to be calibrated this often, does it?
To contrast, KDE Plasma retains the limit at all times, lets you set a minimum amount and actually tells the battery to always stop charging at that amount.
Am I just not getting something about this?
Just here to vent that Pixel 9 is absolutely JAM PACKED with USEFUL FEATURES that also DO NOT WORK.
I can’t really complain… then again I probably disabled most of the features you’re talking about
Where are the options for:
- Make screen not randomly hang, filled with ghost images and artifacts
- Have phone actually give notifications when they arrive
- Respect battery charge settings
- Have app-switcher not randomly stop accepting swipe inputs
I’d like to have standardized LFP battery form factors and BMS interfaces. I’m not really enthusiastic about everyone rolling their own battery form factor for a given product that isn’t going to be available forever, even if it can save a bit of space. That battery is going to degrade over time, and unless I’m going to throw the product out soon, at some point I may want to replace the battery.
We had this solved with traditional cells (AA, AAA, C, D, etc).
Small charge cycles are the worst for the battery, so it should only charge up to charge-limit on plugging it on and then stop until it’s (let’s say 50%) lower.
I don’t believe you’re correct. Small discharge cycles are not at all bad for the battery.
https://www.batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries/
Similar to a mechanical device that wears out faster with heavy use, the depth of discharge (DoD) determines the cycle count of the battery. The smaller the discharge (low DoD), the longer the battery will last. If at all possible, avoid full discharges and charge the battery more often between uses. Partial discharge on Li-ion is fine. There is no memory and the battery does not need periodic full discharge cycles to prolong life. The exception may be a periodic calibration of the fuel gauge on a smart battery or intelligent device.
If you look at table 2, a 10% discharge is more than 2x better in terms of longevity than a 20% discharge.
You’re thinking of keeping the battery constantly charged at an elevated voltage, eg 90-100%. There’s nothing wrong with many small cycles. The most optimal way to use a lithium ion would be many charge cycles and the battery constantly going from 49-51%.
This is untrue with current lithium ion batteries. Depth of discharge is bad for longevity.
Yeah. It makes me feel like the whole purpose of the limits are greenwashing. Maintaining 79-80% is probably better than 99-100%, but the former is likely only slightly better for battery longevity, when 40-80% would probably double battery longevity vs like a 10 or 20% improvement.
See my comment above with the battery university link, small depth of charge/discharge and frequent cycling is optimal for lithium ion batteries. The longest longevity was many 75-65% cycles, followed by 75-25%, then 85-25%, and lastly 100-25%. There’s nothing wrong with small cycles on lithium ion batteries.
I installed Arch on my macbook pro and simply write the maximum charge value to a file and it worked flawlessly. The macbook has great hardware. MacOS is holding it back
What model. I’ve got a 2016 m1 touch bar. Audio and wifi are still spotty on Linux.
It’s an M2. I’m using asahi alarm. Wifi, audio, webcam etc all working. External devices like docks and dongle support saw great improvements compared to MacOS. You now have the option to use an external wifi dongle, it will work out of the box.
I think calibrating once a week is totally fair and honestly not that much of a draw on the system.
That’s excessive. There’s just not that much drift in accuracy in the space of a week. Monthly would be enough.
when the MacBook is turned off and plugged into my dock it just keeps on charging to 100%…
Why would you ever turn it off?
To save money on electricity bill, reduce wear on the components, refresh the contents of ram… why would you just leave it on if you’re not using it?
MacBooks use practically no power when in standby. Turning it off actually uses more power than leaving it on (due to the time and processing power it takes to start everything back up).
Leaving it on also reduces wear on components. Being on all the time doesn’t cause a lot of wear, it’s switching between on and off that causes wear due to the component warming up and cooling down.
why would you just leave it on if you’re not using it?
We’re talking a MacBook, not a desktop Windows machine. There is no benefit to turning it off and a lot of downsides.
Practically no power isn’t 0. It’s up to 3watts. For comparison a Pixel 10 at 100% CPU is 6.5 watts.
Oh no, 3 watts. How will I cope with the €0,00 that is going to cost me?
I bet you throw your trash onto the street too. “It’s just one plastic cup. One plastic cup doesn’t matter.”
All of you are reading way too much into it. Turning a computer on and off doesn’t hurt it. Leaving it on all the time doesn’t hurt it either. A MacBook will last at least ten years if taken care of decently.
As far as the battery thing, mine’s still at 100% output (not charge) after 2 years. I set the charge limit to 80% (OP is incorrect — macOS 26.4 didn’t set the charge limit to 80%, it didn’t set it to anything, it gave you the option to limit charge to 80, 85, 90, or 95% charge, or disable it if you’ve enabled it) and it’s fine, I imagine it might last a few months longer, but I don’t expect it to radically change the physics of Li-Ion battery degradation.
Batteries are still a consumable item. MacBook batteries are generally known for their reliability and longevity, though.
That’s just what I do. I don’t think many people just leave their computer running 24/7.
Laptops yea. It’s just like your phone.
I don’t leave mine running 24/7 either, but I fully cut off the power when I’m not using it. The dock is plugged into an extension cord with a switch so I can easily cut the power after putting the laptop to sleep or shutting it down.
I don’t think many people just leave their computer running 24/7
Why not? There is no point in turning it off. Just close the lid and it goes into a deep sleep mode. It’s super efficient and it’s ready to go instantly if you need it.
It’s don’t know anyone who turns their MacBook off when they don’t use it.
I’ve never really been a Mac user primarily so I just adopted the best practices from Windows and Linux. If macOS is supper efficient that way then cool.
I still wouldn’t leave it on 24/7.
Do you also turn off your phone at night? Or your tablet?
Yes.
Lol. Can’t tell if lying, genius, or psychopath.
Adding on, I don’t think I’ve turned off my MacBook in years. The only time I remember turning off a MacBook was when I put it away in storage for a while.
I don’t know if I’m typical, but neither desktop or laptop are ever fully off for me under normal circumstances, sleep mode is the default
