Does capping your battery at 80% really extend your battery lifespan much?

[Renton577]

So I can seem to find information on why capping your battery charge to 80% is good in the long run but cant seem to find any info on an approximation of how much longer it should extend the life. Basically I'm trying to decide if its worth it to lose the 20% capacity day to day.

[TVwazhere]

2 minutes ago, Renton577 said:

So I can seem to find information on why capping your battery charge to 80% is good in the long run but cant seem to find any info on an approximation of how much longer it should extend the life. Basically I'm trying to decide if its worth it to lose the 20% capacity day to day.

It protects the battery life by keeping the battery healthy.

[rx590overclocker]

4 minutes ago, Renton577 said:

So I can seem to find information on why capping your battery charge to 80% is good in the long run but cant seem to find any info on an approximation of how much longer it should extend the life. Basically I'm trying to decide if its worth it to lose the 20% capacity day to day.

i'm no battery expert, but i have heard that it is good for a battery to run it down all the way and charge it up all the way regularly.

[Renton577]

3 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

It protects the battery life by keeping the battery healthy.

I do know that and I've seen that video too but I just didnt know if it extends the lifespan of the battery a significant amount in the long run

[TVwazhere]

Just now, Renton577 said:

I do know that and I've seen that video too but I just didnt know if it extends the lifespan of the battery a significant amount in the long run

I personally have not seen or found a study that does a long term review like that, but I've admittedly also never looked for one. 

 

I CAN tell you from my experience with Hobby Racing RC cars that batteries do like to be used through most of their % power which makes them last longer (as opposed to recharging at 50%), and usually they're stored with 30% of their power when not in use. NiCAD batteries especially, but it's still a good practice with niMH and LIPO/Li-Ion (batteries found in our smart phones)

[nick name]

8 minutes ago, rx590overclocker said:

i'm no battery expert, but i have heard that it is good for a battery to run it down all the way and charge it up all the way regularly.

That's actually the exact opposite of what's good for it.  

[rx590overclocker]

1 minute ago, nick name said:

That's actually the exact opposite of what's good for it.  

not often, but you should run it down, and back up every now and then.

[AlTech]

11 minutes ago, rx590overclocker said:

i'm no battery expert, but i have heard that it is good for a battery to run it down all the way and charge it up all the way regularly.

This actually has the opposite effect and is worse.

 

8 minutes ago, Renton577 said:

I do know that and I've seen that video too but I just didnt know if it extends the lifespan of the battery a significant amount in the long run

The larger a battery is the faster it degrades. I won't pretend to know the physics or chemistry behind it . Laptop batteries will lose capacity faster than phone batteries if you treat both the same.

 

The ideal way to treat a battery is to charge it to 80% and make sure it doesn't go below 30%. The ideal charge level to keep your phone at is roughly 50%.

 

Charging your phone from 80% to 100% is just as damaging as charging it from 0% to 80%.

 

Also the temperature of the battery will affect it's lifespan, if the battery is too hot or too cold it'll get worn down faster.

[nick name]

As I understand it -- a popular theory is that since a lithium ion battery has, more or less, a finite number of full capacity charges it is rated for/can sustain you want to avoid using up those charge cycles.  A way to do that is to never consume a full charge cycle (0% - 100%).  So if you're only ever using a fraction of a charge cycle then you're rationing out how quickly you will consume the entirety of the healthy life of the battery. 

 

Another theory (perhaps not so different from the first) is that the extra electrical/chemical? effort it takes to fill a battery from 80% to 100% puts avoidable stress on the battery.  Think of blowing up a balloon with air.  Filling it most of the way is easier than the last bit of effort it takes to make it completely full.  Now that isn't a perfect analogy in that it points to the stress of the charger than the battery so assume there also exists stress on the vessel as it is being filled.

[nick name]

5 minutes ago, rx590overclocker said:

not often, but you should run it down, and back up every now and then.

No.  You'd only want to do this in the event the calibration was off.  For the life of the battery that should be avoided.  As goes the theory.  

[nick name]

12 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

I personally have not seen or found a study that does a long term review like that, but I've admittedly also never looked for one. 

 

I CAN tell you from my experience with Hobby Racing RC cars that batteries do like to be used through most of their % power which makes them last longer (as opposed to recharging at 50%), and usually they're stored with 30% of their power when not in use. NiCAD batteries especially, but it's still a good practice with niMH and LIPO/Li-Ion (batteries found in our smart phones)

See I've heard the opposite for NiCAD, niMH versus Li-Ion.  Things like battery training are a benefit to NiCAD, etc but not to Li-Ion.  

[nick name]

If you want some anecdotal evidence then I can tell you that a couple phones ago I always put the phone on the charger for the duration of the night and that battery went to shit.  So the phone after I almost never left it to charge overnight (maybe 5 times accidentally) and only charged as needed (sometimes to 80% and sometimes to 100%).  The major difference between the charging habits being the overnight sitting on the charger.  The latter had a rock solid battery when I was done with the phone so as such I passed it on to someone else.  

[aisle9]

7 minutes ago, rx590overclocker said:

i'm no battery expert, but i have heard that it is good for a battery to run it down all the way and charge it up all the way regularly.

That was true in 2005-ish. Li-Ion and LiPo batteries don't need to be heavily drained then full charged because there's no "memory" to retain, as in NiCad. Modern batteries last longest when drained to about 30% and charged to about 70%, and deep draining them actually causes more harm than good because of the amount of heat generated when a battery is left charging for that long. Wireless charging is also bad, and for the same reason. Lots of heat, and heat is the silent enemy that will eventually kill 100% of electronics.

 

Some phone manufacturers are putting in an intelligent charging option now that learns when you charge your phone and sets it to only charge the battery to 80-90%, then sit there until bumping to 100% shortly before you usually take it off the charger. Laptop manufacturers are doing something very much the same by allowing you to set a maximum charge threshold, and even if yours doesn't, there are programs out there like BatteryBar Pro that can ding at you when the battery hits the thresholds you want it to do so at.

 

NiCad's a different story, ditto NiMH, because those batteries are recharged via crystals (IIRC), and those crystals will hold less and less power over time. Recharging them from any point above 0% would "reset their memory" and make them consider that the zero point. I don't remember the exact chemistry of it or exactly how it worked, but that was the general idea. Some form of memory in the battery would shift the zero power point.

[dizmo]

I wouldn't worry about it. It's mostly useful if you have a laptop that rarely sees usage outside of being plugged into the wall. Chances are by the time you notice the difference it'll be time to get a new device, or if you keep your devices for a long time, just get a new battery.

 

47 minutes ago, nick name said:

As I understand it -- a popular theory is that since a lithium ion battery has, more or less, a finite number of full capacity charges it is rated for/can sustain you want to avoid using up those charge cycles.  A way to do that is to never consume a full charge cycle (0% - 100%).  So if you're only ever using a fraction of a charge cycle then you're rationing out how quickly you will consume the entirety of the healthy life of the battery. 

 

Another theory (perhaps not so different from the first) is that the extra electrical/chemical? effort it takes to fill a battery from 80% to 100% puts avoidable stress on the battery.  Think of blowing up a balloon with air.  Filling it most of the way is easier than the last bit of effort it takes to make it completely full.  Now that isn't a perfect analogy in that it points to the stress of the charger than the battery so assume there also exists stress on the vessel as it is being filled.

Cycles aren't from 0 - 100 only. You don't dodge that bullet if you never let it drop. A charge cycle counts as any time the battery's capacity is consumed. So charging it 20% 5 times would be one charge cycle. The last bit has to do with heat.

38 minutes ago, nick name said:

If you want some anecdotal evidence then I can tell you that a couple phones ago I always put the phone on the charger for the duration of the night and that battery went to shit.  So the phone after I almost never left it to charge overnight (maybe 5 times accidentally) and only charged as needed (sometimes to 80% and sometimes to 100%).  The major difference between the charging habits being the overnight sitting on the charger.  The latter had a rock solid battery when I was done with the phone so as such I passed it on to someone else.  

Charging circuits are smart enough to cut off the charge when the battery is full. Highly doubt leaving them plugged in like that caused that much of a battery issue, it was likely the logic the phone used, or a higher quality battery to begin with.

[nick name]

12 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I wouldn't worry about it. It's mostly useful if you have a laptop that rarely sees usage outside of being plugged into the wall. Chances are by the time you notice the difference it'll be time to get a new device, or if you keep your devices for a long time, just get a new battery.

 

Cycles aren't from 0 - 100 only. You don't dodge that bullet if you never let it drop. A charge cycle counts as any time the battery's capacity is consumed. So charging it 20% 5 times would be one charge cycle. The last bit has to do with heat.

Charging circuits are smart enough to cut off the charge when the battery is full. Highly doubt leaving them plugged in like that caused that much of a battery issue, it was likely the logic the phone used, or a higher quality battery to begin with.

Yeah, I could have worded it better.

 

And I should have clarified that I didn't think the phone was constantly charging, but the fact I was always charging it to 100% every night.