Apple "Clean Energy" charging

[leadeater]

17 minutes ago, starsmine said:

If what you argue is true, there would be zero reason to be building storage the way we do now. 

It is true and it doesn't at all remove the reason to build up storage or deploy more renewable. Supply preference is usually Wind and Solar first, Hydro either the same or below and then other "unclean sources". We also have grid smoothing options like batteries (Aus) or hydro based "water capacitors" which are used to control peak loads while more generation is added (if required).

 

This issue here is this feature sounds better than it actually is, in reality it's effectiveness is very very small and no better than a time based charging control because we are already just as accurate at predicting grid supply loads based on time of day.

 

The problem is the highest energy demands come when sun energy is low and wind is often on average lower. During the day the energy demand is lower while sun energy and average wind speed is higher. So what do we do about this? Try and change how people live and when they go to work, cook their food etc? That's not going to work.

 

What we can do is focus on areas that will be effective and can work, like making sure EV chargers are smart and can be controlled by the grid so they can be turned on and off to load shed when required or even export in to the grid for credit. That is something that will actually have a measurable effect and you don't need to make any claims about "clean energy". You could but it's not necessary to show the benefit of doing this. As a person who is part of our utility network provider EV charging trial and data collection for it this is something I know is being looked at.

 

What I don't like is the perception of having this feature on your phone and people thinking it's doing more than it does and has a greater benefit than it does. It's giving people a false impression.

[Godlygamer23]

2 hours ago, TopWargamer said:

All this arguing about grid this, clean energy that. All nonsense.

 

If you're not hand crank charging your electronics you hate the planet.

The problem with this method is we ourselves have a carbon footprint. We require energy and effectively burn what we consume, to produce the energy needed to function, and produce locomotion, including turn that crank, pulling in oxygen, completing cellular respiration, and breathing off carbon dioxide. So it's not necessarily as "green" as it looks. 

Edited March 5, 2023 by Godlygamer23

[wanderingfool2]

4 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

... now explain to me how it knows it's on "clean" energy? Last I checked my outlet has no means to pass on this information and electricity from a gas generator is the same as electricity from a wind generator.

Probably the biggest attempt at bs marking I've seen so far this year.

3 hours ago, leadeater said:

It doesn't change the problem that it's going to be really inaccurate about whether or not you, with your phone, is actually charging with clean energy. Actually knowing that you specifically are using renewable energy when your section of the grid has 5 different energy source inputs and the tracking is only from those input points then all you can really know is that across this large geographic area that the average supply is X% renewable/clean. What you don't know is that if you plugin your phone your net increase will cause an increase of supply from which of those 5 sources specifically.

 

If the wind generation is at 100% capacity and the overall supply is 70% "clean" and the only other source is gas and you plugin 1,000 phones to charge 100% of that will come from gas supply. That net increase could have only come from the gas supply.

It's looking at it as a general macro scale, instead of micro-scale.

 

So ignoring the more micro-side of things where they could also have been doing polling to figure out current demand (which some places do do), on a macro-scale and non-individual scale it could have an effect if the devices are charged during the low portion of the duck curve.

 

As an example, if you know that hydro can make up for 50% of the electricity during peak and you now based on the statistical data what the energy demand would be on a current day (based on temps, time of day, other factors) you can estimate when the load can be fully handled by hydro.  You won't always get it right, but you don't always have to get it right to be beneficial.

 

As an example in California, you know that charging your cell between 8am and 6pm is better for the environment than any other time and doing so at around noon would reduce it the most.

 

So while specifically in a single person aspect of measuring it might not necessarily be the best, as a whole it could have a lot of an impact (with that said, it's a phone, literally charging your EV at the right time would have a better effect).

 

The general thing is energy demands can be predicted reasonably well on a granular scale, and if you build in more based on what you know the power infrastructure is you can have a small impact environmentally.

[leadeater]

22 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

So ignoring the more micro-side of things where they could also have been doing polling to figure out current demand (which some places do do), on a macro-scale and non-individual scale it could have an effect if the devices are charged during the low portion of the duck curve.

I don't have any objection to that beyond Apple or anyone claiming forecasting of clean energy. If the local utility grid has clean energy supply then almost always that's going to be most available between X-Y time range and generally not between A-B time range. Claiming you are pulling data from suppliers/utility network to figure out if the phone, as per the claim, is going to charge on clean energy is neither really verifiable nor necessary. I can tell you with very high statistical confidence that charging your phone early morning (6am-9am) would not be a "clean" as 10am for example.

 

Very little forecasting is required, this is a data trend that's decades long.

 

Having a selection box

 

 

Like above is pretty much a feel good placebo due to the implied benefit and function it's trying to do with that style of wording. The idea that you can figure out when it's a good time to charge because there is "clean energy" is all about image and not much else. What are the optics of the very same feature simply called "Charge outside peak demand" or "Avoid Peak Demand Times" etc. Location data is not required to achieve 99.9999% of this.

 

Please refer to the South Park episode about the Prius.

[YellowJersey]

It's amazing how many people get weirdly upset by entirely optional stuff like this.

[wanderingfool2]

40 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Claiming you are pulling data from suppliers/utility network to figure out if the phone, as per the claim, is going to charge on clean energy is neither really verifiable nor necessary. I can tell you with very high statistical confidence that charging your phone early morning (6am-9am) would not be a "clean" as 10am for example.

 

Very little forecasting is required, this is a data trend that's decades long.

 

Having a selection box

 

 

Like above is pretty much a feel good placebo due to the implied benefit and function it's trying to do with that style of wording. The idea that you can figure out when it's a good time to charge because there is "clean energy" is all about image and not much else. What are the optics of the very same feature simply called "Charge outside peak demand" or "Avoid Peak Demand Times" etc. Location data is not required to achieve 99.9999% of this.

 

Let's be clear about what is being claimed though.  Their claim is it's based on "forecast of the carbon emissions in your local energy grid".  I haven't seen anything where there is a claim that they are pulling data (live) from specific suppliers/utilities...although general region based ones would generally be known, or achievable to get.  From everything that I've read about it, it's basically Apple stating that they will try reducing the footprint...and statistically they might actually be able to do that.

 

They wouldn't call it "avoid peak demand times", because it's clear from their language that they will still charge in some of the peak times if your prior usage dictates that it will need to be charged to a certain point.  At which point they could use granular data to best pick when to charge.  While it might be best to charge at noon, if you only plug your phone in at 10pm - 7am then it's best to choose to charge it at 5 am.  So specifically Apple still might charge during peak demand, they just might try minimizing the effects by analyzing when to charge though)

 

So I do think that the "Clean Energy Charging" is a decent enough term in that in it's trying to minimize it's effects, while something like "avoid peak demand times" would have a different meaning (It also has a connotation in some areas of the US of avoiding when the price of electricity is more expensive, which doesn't necessarily meet with when electricity is at it's cleanest).

 

I would argue though location data is actually required, if you are in different counties they might have a different type of grid and different duck curves.  So tailoring to a more specific area could be beneficial.  If lets say you know you are in an area where solar provides a lot of the energy, they could use weather forecasts to estimate whether or not there is enough solar to exceed the demand (and start charging).

 

Also, depending on whether or not Apple brokered deals with some utilities they might also have access to live data...but my guess is that they are using just the more broad scope here (and in some areas where data is available narrowing it down to maybe even city level optimal times)

 

  

11 minutes ago, YellowJersey said:

It's amazing how many people get weirdly upset by entirely optional stuff like this.

My issue with it is that it gets put on as an opt-out rule.  If adding a new feature that affects somethings such as charging, I think there should be a prompt after updating (where yes it's still on but make it right there so they can turn it off).  Especially given that we don't know much about the feature, like does it ping Apple servers giving it's GPS location (or is that data just local)?  Does it utilize mobile data?  Why default it on, when you could just prompt on updating

[SansVarnic]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

It's looking at it as a general macro scale, instead of micro-scale.

 

So ignoring the more micro-side of things where they could also have been doing polling to figure out current demand (which some places do do), on a macro-scale and non-individual scale it could have an effect if the devices are charged during the low portion of the duck curve.

 

As an example, if you know that hydro can make up for 50% of the electricity during peak and you now based on the statistical data what the energy demand would be on a current day (based on temps, time of day, other factors) you can estimate when the load can be fully handled by hydro.  You won't always get it right, but you don't always have to get it right to be beneficial.

 

As an example in California, you know that charging your cell between 8am and 6pm is better for the environment than any other time and doing so at around noon would reduce it the most.

 

So while specifically in a single person aspect of measuring it might not necessarily be the best, as a whole it could have a lot of an impact (with that said, it's a phone, literally charging your EV at the right time would have a better effect).

 

The general thing is energy demands can be predicted reasonably well on a granular scale, and if you build in more based on what you know the power infrastructure is you can have a small impact environmentally.

I don't want to sound ignorant or antagonizing here but my water analogy still holds more water than what you [frankly this topic] just said. The only thing is for where I live the ratio is going to be more accurate of 1pint per several gallons, but regardless I'm not buying this. Electrons are electrons no matter where it comes from, but since the energy grid is AC not DC there are no passing electrons just energy moving along electrons at a frequency... that frequency isn't going to tell my phone where it came from or how it was produced. 

Again, when am I drinking the spring water versus not?

This is a circular argument with no end. The simple answer to this entire discussion is Apple is placating and kowtowing. There is no tangible way to know, detect, summarize, deduce or accurately relate when that phone is receiving "clean" energy. 

At this point I'm going find me a comfortable spot to finish my book, it's more interesting.

[porina]

If I'm reading this thread right, some don't like the name 4080 12GB charging, but it could be ok if they renamed it 4070 Ti charging?

 

If taken too literally yes it is technically incorrect. The best form of incorrect. But the intent is there to help out with real world generation/consumption problems, especially from more variable renewable forms, however big or small that impact will have. It is a step in the right direction. How about if they called it "cleaner" as opposed to "clean"?

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Let's be clear about what is being claimed though.  Their claim is it's based on "forecast of the carbon emissions in your local energy grid".  I haven't seen anything where there is a claim that they are pulling data (live) from specific suppliers/utilities...although general region based ones would generally be known, or achievable to get.  From everything that I've read about it, it's basically Apple stating that they will try reducing the footprint...and statistically they might actually be able to do that.

It's certainly not live, I don't know how often they do or want to updates it but what remains the problem with the idea itself as present in this way is being necessary at all to know where you are and your local grid at all. Like I said time alone is enough, outside of wholesale supplier faults the ratio of clean to not clean energy within the network doesn't really change much within the same points in time across a large range of forecasted days. It's going to be the same Saturday this week as it will be Saturday next week, in general. Will it be as the same in 3 months, maybe not since solar conditions could have changed but then conversely so could wind.

 

https://app.em6.co.nz/

This is the entire country data, not regionalize but it shows the point. The variance isn't enough to care about.

 

Wholesale generators and utility network operators major job is to do this data analysis and make sure power is available when it's needed where it's need, so that means Apple doesn't need to do this. At any one point in time the supply is going to be as clean as it can possibly be so it becomes an issue around demand and capacity of energy at those known times.

 

It's certainly a good idea to prevent phones going in to fast charge mode during those times, that's a good thing and I'm not saying nor will ever say that's a bad thing. However that doesn't put aside the issue of over presenting this as a feature of your phone that you can use so you can feel like you are doing something good or better by owning an iPhone and having that feature on. When a phone is seriously low on battery I highly doubt this feature will stop it fast charging to like 50%, then it'll slow down or something like that. Without some good analysis of this nobody is going to know how effective it is on versus off.

 

What if on versus off has almost no effect at all?

 

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

So I do think that the "Clean Energy Charging" is a decent enough term in that in it's trying to minimize it's effects, while something like "avoid peak demand times" would have a different meaning (It also has a connotation in some areas of the US of avoiding when the price of electricity is more expensive, which doesn't necessarily meet with when electricity is at it's cleanest).

That's why I said etc. Instead of focusing on avoid MUST be being literally and it cannot ever charge even though it's 10% and it's 7am, nobody (Apple) is ever not going to allow that so lets look at what was being said. This is more about self gratification and satisfaction and presenting an image of doing more good than what is happening in reality. This is of course standard corporate PR and it's always going to happen, particularly while people congratulate them for it. The problem is it flies in the face of the extremely poor efforts taken in other areas that would actually have more net positive impacts.

 

When it's more important to let people know that you are "doing good" than it is to know how much good you are doing then there's rational problem heh.

 

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I would argue though location data is actually required, if you are in different counties they might have a different type of grid and different duck curves.

You are welcome to look at any country and overlay the graphs. Country by country it's simply not significantly different. People wake up, shower, have breakfast, go to work, come home, cook dinner etc across the world within the same time ranges mentioned. Name a country where the majority of the population wakes up at 11am and goes to work at 12pm? This is not in invitation to point out shift workers and night shifts etc.

[mr moose]

Just like with the xbox thing, at the end of the day it's nothing, but in support of those who think a little bit deeper about these things, it is yet another example in a trend where companies opt us into something instead of letting us do the opting.   ALL changes to a device should be opt in unless security or safety related (and even then they should ensure the consumers is aware of the changes).

 

I don't much like snowball arguments, but you know how this is going to end if everyone just keeps defending it.

[Doobeedoo]

While kinda meme yeah, if it's on by default on so many devices it's something I guess. But whatever.

[Dracarris]

Nice discussion and all, but lets be honest: A phone pulls between 5 and 20W from the grid, with most being closer to 5W. Compare that to even the standby consumption of a typical household, including fridge and so on, especially in Murica - this changes absolutely nothing.

 

There are parties discussing whether national flights within Germany should be banned to save around 0.15% of national CO2 emissions and then there's this.

 

Meh.

[wanderingfool2]

8 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

This is a circular argument with no end. The simple answer to this entire discussion is Apple is placating and kowtowing. There is no tangible way to know, detect, summarize, deduce or accurately relate when that phone is receiving "clean" energy. 

You can do it statistically though.  As an example, if I blindfold myself and walk across a highway during rush hour, I will get hit by a car.  If I do so at 3 AM in the morning I likely won't.

 

It starts boiling down to statistics.  While plugging in your phone and charging always charge when it's cleaner energy?  No, will it do so more often than it was before?  Yes.

 

To change your water analogy, imagine if your water supply was fed by a natural spring water of 100L/minute.  You know on a given day between 7am and noon people are only consuming 50L/minute of water.  Any other time of day though on average is 200L/minute.

 

Power generation is not a constant, power plants are spun up and spun down throughout the day (it's actually why there was a worry on the original Earth day where people shut off the light...because they were worried the sudden demand would overload the grid).  So your analogy is wrong, as the ratio of spring water fluctuates, and it fluctuates with predictability (sure you might get it wrong lets say 10% of the time, but those other 90% you are saving energy).

 

7 hours ago, leadeater said:

You are welcome to look at any country and overlay the graphs. Country by country it's simply not significantly different. People wake up, shower, have breakfast, go to work, come home, cook dinner etc across the world within the same time ranges mentioned. Name a country where the majority of the population wakes up at 11am and goes to work at 12pm? This is not in invitation to point out shift workers and night shifts etc.

The general duck curve is roughly similar, but yes it can be significantly different effect when charging.  You need to look at how the energy is being produced.

 

To put it in perspective, in BC it would pretty much be good to charge any time except in high peaks, in Alberta pretty much always it's bad.  Location does matter greatly

 

You don't even have to take my word for it.  Look at the following:

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46236

Location is important, and the date is important.  If you live in California in Jan you know noon is the best.  In July it's closer to 10....it's also known to try everything to avoid 6pm to midnight in July.

 

The curve shifts around enough essentially to make a difference if you only charge it between those times.

 

8 hours ago, leadeater said:

However that doesn't put aside the issue of over presenting this as a feature of your phone that you can use so you can feel like you are doing something good or better by owning an iPhone and having that feature on. When a phone is seriously low on battery I highly doubt this feature will stop it fast charging to like 50%, then it'll slow down or something like that. Without some good analysis of this nobody is going to know how effective it is on versus off.

Apple isn't claiming that it won't do fast charging during peaks if it's necessary though.  The feature the way it's worded to me says they are essentially going to try their best to reduce the footprint, which it looks like it does.  Even if it is by using time of day into account.

 

Tell me where do they claim they are pulling actively local grid data (even if delayed).  They are likely just using historical local grid information, along with local grid information of what types of power plants supply local grids.  i.e. If you live in an area that's all coal it won't matter, if you live in an area where coal only fires up when there is excess demand then time matters.

 

Like I said as well, they can't present it as off peak hour charging because it might not do it.  It's charging your phone to predict your needs, so yes it means it will have to charge during bad periods but it will pick the least impactful time period.  That in itself would lower greenhouse gas, even if it's by a small amount.

 

Again, Apple isn't claiming they are doing things live, they aren't even saying they are doing it hourly.  Their reference to local grid data literally could just mean looking at specific energy production based on the data from local grid (in the past).

[starsmine]

1 hour ago, Dracarris said:

Nice discussion and all, but lets be honest: A phone pulls between 5 and 20W from the grid, with most being closer to 5W. Compare that to even the standby consumption of a typical household, including fridge and so on, especially in Murica - this changes absolutely nothing.

 

There are parties discussing whether national flights within Germany should be banned to save around 0.15% of national CO2 emissions and then there's this.

 

Meh.

yea I mean, we are talking about megawatts of power either not being shed (wasted) from renewables and or not being produced by peaker plants (the most innefficient of power plants) 

Which aint much when states do gigawatts. 

But a cacophony of little changes like these do add up over time. 

[suicidalfranco]

Just my daily reminder that environmentalists are cultists

[DrMacintosh]

On 3/4/2023 at 7:51 PM, SansVarnic said:

now explain to me how it knows it's on "clean" energy?

The phone knows where it is. Using that data Apple knows what power company the phone is being charged with. Knowing that Apple knows if that power grid is using renewable energies. Knowing that the iPhone will adjust its behavior accordingly. 
 

Not that hard to figure out how it works. 

 

23 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

Mix a pint of spring water with a gallon of tap water.... tell me when I drink the spring water, then tell me when I'm not ..

You’re missing the point entirely. Clean energy charging isn’t to charge your phone only on renewables. The point is to charge when renewables are producing to most to reduce the impact of charging your phone. 

[darknessblade]

What kind of utter BS is this?

 

How can your phone know if the electricity coming into your house is green or not?

As people on the same electricity net getting green energy, while the neighbor is getting Grey energy from the utilities company.

Meaning it is not possible to send green energy to person A, while sending grey energy to Person B.

 

Since each house is attached to the same electricity net, meaning all electrons are the exact same. so how can the Iphone distiquish between green and grey electrons?

 

So is apple gonna fund a special electricity net just for green charging their Icrap??

 

---------------

With apple enabling this by default, I am instantly reminded with Microsofts Carbon aware update.

 

I am also reminded of some other BS they pulled while ago

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51413724

 

[Dracarris]

1 hour ago, Caroline said:

Other than that there's not really anything else that would use stand-by power in my house, I wouldn't count a fridge as it's operated by a thermostat that lets power flow to the compressor, at least mine is.

Do measure the standby consumption of your household. I'd bet a nut it's much more than 5W - and even a fridge with an open thermostat still consumes power.

 

1 hour ago, Caroline said:

Normies sure love standby mode and have tons of stuff constantly plugged in using power 24/7

For reference, my full Desktop setup which includes 2x 27" 4K screens pulls 6W from the grid when in deep standby (PC in suspend-to-RAM). Even with the expensive European energy prices, this accounts to around 5-10$ per year, depending on how often I'd anyway use the PC in full-on where it consumes somewhere between 100 and 400W.

TLDR: Killing standby consumption of modern electronics isn't really worth it anymore.

[Dracarris]

2 minutes ago, darknessblade said:

How can your phone know if the electricity coming into your house is green or not?

As people on the same electricity net getting green energy, while the neighbor is getting Grey energy from the utilities company.

Meaning it is not possible to send green energy to person A, while sending grey energy to Person B.

 

Since each house is attached to the same electricity net, meaning all electrons are the exact same. so how can the Iphone distiquish between green and grey electrons?

JFC, really? Your discussion point is literally decades old, when people started paying additional for getting green energy. Which of course is only added to the grid and a mix supplied to everyone. Literally, really, you have never heard about this?

 

Whether a specific household at hand gets green energy or not is utterly irrelevant.

[Sauron]

I mean... it's really a drop in the bucket and chances are in many areas the renewability of the supply is more or less constant, but sure, why not?

[starsmine]

1 hour ago, darknessblade said:

What kind of utter BS is this?

 

How can your phone know if the electricity coming into your house is green or not?

 

 

Just because you dont know, doesn't mean others dont and haven't for decades (or rather since the start of electrification in the 1800s). Yes the grid is entirely shared, but that's also misleading. Wires are resistors, the farther power travels the more the voltage drops so you need new generators/transformers. So sure, its distributed across the entire grid... but its not. its in equilibrium state and you really only** use the local power generated, not power made in a state half way across the country as the voltage drop from the transport alone shows that. yes, an electron fungible. but like when you drink water, yes the entire water cycle is connected, but your water still came from your local distribution path. 

Your local grid (however you want to define it, its semi arbitrary) knows all the inputs and outputs. It knows the energy production mix in terms of how much is made with coal and how much is made with wind and how much is made with hydro. A house/business is a variable resistor/load, and each generator is a Real Constant voltage source (as in, not Ideal), and it knows how much power is being taken from and given to outside interconnected grids through the whole mesh. 

We are just getting to the point of propagating load side time based balancing that wasn't fully necessary viable before the energy mix/production got this complicated(necessity)/before internet as a utility(viability). 


This specific story is the tiniest of tiny drops in the bucket. but as new electric codes get updated and rolled out, these will soon be regulated into things like your breaker boxes as well (regulated does not mean required fyi) that makes retrofitting housing to go all electric without having to upgrade the entire grid. 

[darknessblade]

2 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

JFC, really? Your discussion point is literally decades old, when people started paying additional for getting green energy. Which of course is only added to the grid and a mix supplied to everyone. Literally, really, you have never heard about this?

 

Whether a specific household at hand gets green energy or not is utterly irrelevant.

the fact that people "pay extra" for green energy is a whole different discussion itself.

energy in my country has a set price for a set term. and you can renew your contract easily, or go to a different supplier when your old contract is over.

----------

Unlike in the USA where there is a monopolistic domination on the energy grids. where the power companies are even trying to fight the use of solar-panels

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/13/solar-power-us-utility-companies-kansas

----------

Just like with the Carbon-aware update from microsoft, this is just the big-tech shifting the carbon issue to the consumer, shoving a feature to their throat they don't even need.

especially in countries where consumer protection laws state contracted prices cannot change during the term of the contract, NO MATTER WHAT. 

 

meaning it does not matter if you charge your phone at 1AM midnight, or 1PM in the afternoon, since the price you pay for the electricity is the same, {depending on your contract}

------------

Example:

 

Person A has a grey electricity contract with a default price of 0,15234$ per kwh.

How much CO2 would said user save if they charge at 1PM or 1AM?

 

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. meaning its a BS feature

-----------

If there is a ACTUAL initative that actually incites people to use said feature, please tell me.

 

Since I do not see the benefit of such a feature that slows down charging for NO FRIGGING reason at all.

 

  

4 minutes ago, starsmine said:

Just because you dont know, doesn't mean others dont and haven't for decades (or rather since the start of electrification in the 1800s). Yes the grid is entirely shared, but that's also misleading. Wires are resistors, the farther power travels the more the voltage drops so you need new generators/transformers. So sure, its distributed across the entire grid... but its not. its in equilibrium state and you really use the local power generated, not power made in a state half way across the country the voltage drop from the transport alone shows that. yes, an electron fungible. but like when you drink water, yes the entire water cycle is connected, but your water still came from your local distribution path. 

Your local grid knows all the inputs and outputs. It knows the energy production mix in terms of how much is made with coal and how much is made with wind and how much is made with hydro. A house/business is a variable resistor, and each generator is a Real Constant voltage source (as in, not Ideal), and it knows how much power is being taken from outside interconnected grids through the whole mesh. 

And is all this data Public knowledge, and visible to the public? or only to devs, who pay the power companies a massive price to access the API that shows this data?

 

Since it does not matter if the data is there, if you as a consumer do not know why your phone suddenly stopped charging, or is only charging at 10% speed, because the NON-PUBLIC-API says that there is currently 0% green energy on the net.

 

People will start complaining their phone is broken, just because apple decided to shove a update trough the consumers throat enabling a feature by default that they do not even want.

 

if people plug their phone in the charger, they know its often at 100% after a hour or so. but with this update it could be 3 hours. with them not understanding why their phones are not at 100% as they always had before the update.

 

It is all fine and happy, that apple makes this feature a option, but they should NOT enable it by default.

 

Just like with them slowing down older iphones, because of "battery degradation" which they got called out for by European consumer protection agencies, this is yet another feature that does not benefit the consumer in any way shape or form possible.

 

[leadeater]

6 minutes ago, darknessblade said:

People will start complaining their phone is broken, just because apple decided to shove a update trough the consumers throat enabling a feature by default that they do not even want.

 

if people plug their phone in the charger, they know its often at 100% after a hour or so. but with this update it could be 3 hours. with them not understanding why their phones are not at 100% as they always had before the update.

The feature and update that introduced this is not new FYI, it's been around for a while. September 12, 2022 if I'm looking at the correct iOS version update.

 

Anyway the point is this doesn't have much impact at all, since nobody noticed nor complained about it and a lot of people will have it and it will be enabled. Which comes back to one of the problems I have, where is the data from the preview trial group from Apple that shows this actually does something? Where is the proof this is actually doing something tangible or does people charging habits like plugging it in below say 20% result in charging safety override and full charging speed to X% so people won't complain or won't have problems.

 

With no actual details about how the feature works and with no data from sample testing to show what it does or can do then it could be a box that is enabled that looks and sounds good but does nothing. For all I know there is zero code behind that slide button and it literally does do nothing lol. Jokes aside this really does look to me 99% appearance motived and not benefit motivated.

[Lightwreather]

13 minutes ago, darknessblade said:

Person A has a grey electricity contract with a default price of 0,15234$ per kwh.

 

…

There is no such thing as "grey" electricity. And I'm fairly certain that NO contract will specify mix of energy generation sources because that is a downright idiotic thing to do. As for how it will know, you've got historical data. I mean have you read the first page of this thread before posting?

Edit: That aside leadeater's post above does sum up my thoughts

[starsmine]

16 minutes ago, darknessblade said:

the fact that people "pay extra" for green energy is a whole different discussion itself.

energy in my country has a set price for a set term. and you can renew your contract easily, or go to a different supplier when your old contract is over.

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Unlike in the USA where there is a monopolistic domination on the energy grids. where the power companies are even trying to fight the use of solar-panels

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/13/solar-power-us-utility-companies-kansas

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Yes, because production balancing the duck curve sucks ass and costs money. This load balances it (at a very small scale). And regulators told that specific company to go kick dirt and touch grass. 

16 minutes ago, darknessblade said:

Just like with the Carbon-aware update from microsoft, this is just the big-tech shifting the carbon issue to the consumer, shoving a feature to their throat they don't even need.

especially in countries where consumer protection laws state contracted prices cannot change during the term of the contract, NO MATTER WHAT. 

 

meaning it does not matter if you charge your phone at 1AM midnight, or 1PM in the afternoon, since the price you pay for the electricity is the same, {depending on your contract}

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Example:

 

Person A has a grey electricity contract with a default price of 0,15234$ per kwh.

How much CO2 would said user save if they charge at 1PM or 1AM?

 

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. meaning its a BS feature

A (CONSERVATIVE ESTEMATE) of pound or two of CO2 aint nothing when expanded to millions of people. 

 

16 minutes ago, darknessblade said:

And is all this data Public knowledge, and visible to the public? or only to devs, who pay the power companies a massive price to access the API that shows this data?

Granularity and easy of access is location dependent (guess what a phone has... a gps). But yes, all this data is publicly accessibly. Department of Energy has baseline regulations on reporting. How do you think they are able to make their reports?
Like I pointed out as an example here of a somewhat decent one readable to the average joe https://www.caiso.com/Pages/default.aspx

16 minutes ago, darknessblade said:

Since it does not matter if the data is there, if you as a consumer do not know why your phone suddenly stopped charging, or is only charging at 10% speed, because the NON-PUBLIC-API says that there is currently 0% green energy on the net.

 

People will start complaining their phone is broken, just because apple decided to shove a update trough the consumers throat enabling a feature by default that they do not even want.

 

if people plug their phone in the charger, they know its often at 100% after a hour or so. but with this update it could be 3 hours. with them not understanding why their phones are not at 100% as they always had before the update.

  My dude

19 hours ago, starsmine said:

it explicitly tells you what is going on when it triggers and is easily overridden temporarily or permanently.

 

 

16 minutes ago, darknessblade said:

Just like with them slowing down older iphones, because of "battery degradation" which they got called out for by European consumer protection agencies, this is yet another feature that does not benefit the consumer in any way shape or form possible.

Dude, the problem wasnt slowing down, it 100000000% benefited the consumer(since when is a crash/less battery life beneficial to a consumer), the issue was not telling the user clearly what was going on.