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Apple have "invented" a new way of charging LiPo batteries in phones??

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Halcyon:
Apparently Apple have come up with "Optimised Battery Charging" as of IOS 13. From what I can gather, they are trying to suggest that charging (and keeping) a Lithium battery at 100% is bad.

I don't profess to be a battery expert and please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of most modern phones, laptops, tablets and other Lithium-based devices is this:

- Lithium batteries aren't "float" or trickle charged at the end of their charging cycle like NiCd or Lead Acid batteries, once the're full, charging is suspended and there is no risk of over-charging.
- Once the battery is fully charged, the device itself is powered by the charging cable (until such time it's unplugged and switches over to battery).
- Lithium-based batteries prefer shallower discharge/charge cycles. So if you run your phone to about 50%, you should top it up as opposed to letting it run low.

Has Apple actually improved things or is this just marketing wank?

Source: https://www.macrumors.com/2019/06/05/ios-13-optimized-battery-charging/

Psi:
It has been common knowledge for many many years that lithium batteries do not like being at 100% charge or 0% charge.

Anyone who flys RC aircraft knows this effect very well because the lithium polymer type cells we use are very susceptible to this issue.
We store all our batteries at whats called "Storage charge"   about 3.8V per cell and approx 40%
We have to charge them up to full the day before we fly and put them on the battery charger set to "storage change" mode when we get home. This returns them to 40% before we putting them away for a flight another day.
Model RC batteries left stored at 100% charge for a month are almost ruined, they somewhat loose their ability to supply burst of high current.

Electric cars, like the tesla, use lithium ion cells but they still do not like to be full or empty. They actually have a user configurable option via the touchscreen to make the car pretend its battery capacity is less than it really is, Like maybe you set it to use between 30% and 80% of the battery.
This allows you to get better longevity out of your car before the battery pack needs replacing.

So Apple are just doing what they always do. Pretending something is unique/new when its not.

ogden:

--- Quote from: Psi on July 18, 2019, 11:18:06 am ---Anyone who flys RC aircraft knows this effect very well because the lithium polymer type cells we use are very susceptible to this issue.

--- End quote ---

Right. Apple is kinda late here :D Not only RC hobbyists knows that. Android (part of) community knows about battery health issues, there are many articles this for example. My quite old Android phone have "battery life extender" function which actually charges to 90% while saying that battery is full. There are some laptops with same option, dunno maybe it is even Win10 function nowadays.

Mechatrommer:
yup samsung and probably others with android phones already did this in background much earlier without making this as a buzz feature, i guess as the original battery can last for many years. while buying my galaxy A7 last year, the sales person also promoted to me another china brand, oppo or huawei cant remember that has this feature specifically and configurable in OS GUI. so either they have the technology or not, it doesnt really matter as smartphone model can obsolete much earlier than the battery life... and yes btw, as a noob RC wannabe, i learnt this the hardway, stored LiON in full charge and within a year it bulged and died prematurely before being put into real good use :palm:

filssavi:
If any of you managed to reed the actual article, the new feature has nothing to do with how  the battery get's charged, but rather when...

The idea behind this is clearly that since everyone attaches the phone to the charger when they go to bed and wakes up at a very predictable hour in the morning, instead of charging the battery to the max right away they charge it only to 70/80% and then in the morning just before wake up they top it off to 100%, so the battery doesn't sit all night at 100% and this should reduce wear.
On the top of my head I don't know of any android phone that does this

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