[HN Gopher] Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to i...
___________________________________________________________________
Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery
health
Author : uptown
Score : 131 points
Date : 2020-04-16 17:18 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sixcolors.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (sixcolors.com)
| lilyball wrote:
| Apple has been doing this with iOS already, the only thing that
| surprises me is that they've waited so long before doing it with
| laptops.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I wish they'd give us the option (on the iPhone and iPad as well)
| to arbitrarily set the maximum charge level. Just like on my
| Tesla, I'd like to be able to tell my phone not to charge above
| 80%.
| bochoh wrote:
| The only thing wrong with my Note 8 at this point is battery
| life. I'd gladly have dealt with 80% charge over its entire
| life in order to still have a good battery life now.
| lloeki wrote:
| iOS has made steps towards this by learning your charging
| habits (e.g at night), going to 80%, and wait to the last
| minute before topping up.
| overcast wrote:
| Then 500M people complaining on Reddit that their phones only
| charge to 80% for some reason.
| [deleted]
| Slartie wrote:
| Easy: make the charge percentage display relative to the
| maximum configured charge. Just like it already is with
| battery deterioration over time: if my battery only holds 80%
| of its design capacity, the phone will still tell me to be
| 100% charged as soon as the battery hits that 80%-of-design-
| capacity-brick-wall.
|
| I just want the option to manually move that brick wall down
| a bit (they're already telling me exactly where it is right
| now, on iPhones at least, on the MacBook I ask
| coconutBattery).
| mc32 wrote:
| And then they'll do the same thing they did to the antenna
| signal strength bars and fake it to make people happy...
| arprocter wrote:
| They could probably get away with changing what is
| technically 95% to read as '100'
|
| I realised the other day that Macs don't give 'battery time
| remaining' anymore, although I'm not sure when that was
| removed
|
| Edit: apparently you can still see time remaining in Activity
| Monitor
| [deleted]
| leetcrew wrote:
| you can mostly fix this issue by hiding the option in
| "developer settings". on android, there's a lot of weird
| stuff buried in here but you never hear people complaining
| about it.
| RcrdBrt wrote:
| Long time ago Ezekeel, a xda-developers user, published a
| kernel mod for the Nexus S that let you choose the max
| percentage that the battery could reach while charging. It was
| called BLX aka Battery Life eXtender. I always set it to 80%.
| I've always been intrigued by extending the life of li-ion
| cells and that's the only work that goes into that direction
| AFAIK. I believe it was 2011. There hasn't been anything like
| that ever since.
| gok wrote:
| Note that essentially all modern battery systems essentially do
| this under the hood. The "100%" shown to the user isn't the
| most you could charge the cells, just as high as you want to
| charge it to meet lifetime degradation targets. Tesla just goes
| a bit crazier here and exposes more headroom because they can
| rely on drivers being more involved in charging strategies.
| killion wrote:
| This is exactly what I was thinking. The article doesn't
| mention if there is a setting to temporarily allow the battery
| to charge to a higher percentage.
|
| I assume checking the box to not use this setting will work the
| same way but I want to make sure I switch it back. Just like
| how Tesla prompts you intermittently.
| treyfitty wrote:
| I thought keeping a MacBook plugged in was advertised as OK (Even
| said to be BETTER) since the power is being drawn from the AC
| source rather than the battery. What's the deal, is it better to
| leave it plugged in, or not?
| jb775 wrote:
| >Charging a modern laptop battery to 100% and leaving it there
| for extended periods of time--especially at warm temperatures--
| can dramatically reduce the battery's usable life.
|
| This has been known for years, and this feature is relatively
| simple to build. I don't think it's an act of benevolence from
| Apple, I think the estimated cost of another class-action lawsuit
| has surpassed the estimated gain from decreasing the perceived
| life of MacBooks.
| bertil wrote:
| I'd be surprised if the risk wasn't seriously mitigated by
| hiding that option in an obscure enough menu, or a command-line
| tool.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| We desperately need better energy storage tech.
|
| It's amazing what we were able to squeeze out of lithium ion, but
| it's fundamentally a stop-gap.
| Marsymars wrote:
| I wonder why this applies only to Thunderbolt 3 MacBooks and not
| non-Thunderbolt USB-C MacBooks.
| monadic2 wrote:
| I really wish we could have greater control over these choices--
| the ones apple goes with rarely align with the way I would
| ideally use my laptop.
| machello13 wrote:
| Not sure what there is to complain about here. There's a
| checkbox to turn it off if you don't like it, and anyway it's
| designed to adapt to how you use your laptop.
| rusty__ wrote:
| I wish people would stop using the generic 'MacBook' when talking
| about 'MacBook Pro' and 'MacBook Air' - makes it very diffcult as
| a 'MacBook' owner to find support articles.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| Don't they have specific code names? A9999X?
| tipsysquid wrote:
| For Dell users, you can do this as well in the BIOS if you run
| Linux, and the Dell battery utility in Windows 10
| adav wrote:
| Hey Apple, this is the perfect opportunity to take advantage of
| the clean USB-C ports arrangement on new MacBooks!
|
| Charging Mode 1) By plugging the charger into the rearmost port,
| full 100% fast charge please. Charging Mode 2) By plugging the
| charger into the other, nearer port, I'm indicating that we'll be
| here for a while... please trickle my battery up to 50-75% to
| prolong the battery's lifespan.
|
| Indicate which mode I have instigated with a difference in "on
| charge" noises and show an explanatory notification in the MacOS
| UI. Perfect opportunity to explain what's going on and espouse
| your green design credentials.
| aaomidi wrote:
| This is a terrible idea.
|
| Even if you're going to do this it's far better to be a toggle
| on software rather than tying it to the port you're using.
| adav wrote:
| But you can see what state the laptop's in from across the
| room.
| kube-system wrote:
| I don't think the ability to signal users from across the
| room is a use-case that Apple is designing for, or one they
| would ever consider. And even if it was, this metric is
| likely not high priority.
|
| Design continuity is often more important for usability
| than the number of features, and Apple especially
| priorities this.
| skrtskrt wrote:
| I can't even glance at a MacBook on my desk and tell if I
| plugged into the closer or further USB-C port
| [deleted]
| Someone1234 wrote:
| I cannot say I've ever needed to know the charge-rate mode
| from across the room.
|
| I can say though that I've wanted to be able to plug a
| device in on both the left and right depending on location
| and usage. I really wouldn't want to lose that
| functionality for this, particularly when a simple software
| toggle is more flexible long term anyway.
|
| 9 times out of 10 I am going to use the same charge mode at
| the same physical location (e.g. at home, slow, at work
| fast). That would be the real killer feature, geo-fenced
| software toggle that knows where I am and what mode I
| previously used here.
| adav wrote:
| It's a good point. Maybe I just really miss the little
| green or orange light on the MagSafe chargers. Then it
| was just a case of picking up the laptop and going, now I
| have to open it, give it a second to refresh its status,
| just to check. I've left the house a couple times with a
| dead laptop since getting the newer machine. Sorry for
| conflating two issues because I still wouldn't know if
| the battery is full or not just from the different port.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| I didn't think the USB-C / Thunderbolt port situation could get
| any more complicated and confusing [1], but congratulations,
| this would certainly do it.
|
| [1] https://www.macworld.com/article/3535896/how-to-tell-
| whether...
| adav wrote:
| We aim to please! :)
| lilyball wrote:
| This is a great way to confuse 99% of customers. It also
| violates the idea that all 4 ports are identical, and also
| poses a problem if the user has stuff in the other ports
| because now they need to swap multiple cables every time they
| want to change charge behavior.
| adav wrote:
| Agreed it could be confusing without some sort of prompt. Or
| maybe it could be opt-in from the settings just like the iOS
| "Optimised Battery Charging" toggle.
|
| Wrt all the ports being identical, it's a bit of an edge case
| but there are already plenty of MacBook USB-C oddities.
| Instructions for monitors strictly plugged in on either side
| springs to mind as an example: https://support.apple.com/en-
| us/HT210754
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| It says changes the default. Could this be chosen manually then.
| Can I set up the same behavior on High Sierra?
| maa5444 wrote:
| is there any he I can buy to do the same .. like something to put
| between my the wall socket and the plug .... it should kill the
| charging at some point ever when plugged in
| dartdartdart wrote:
| For people who use their laptops primarily as plugged in
| machines, there should be a 50% max charge mode.
| sambe wrote:
| Why is it not possible to completely save the battery when on
| AC? i.e. charge the battery to 100% (or something close) but
| power the laptop directly via the charger.
| [deleted]
| intopieces wrote:
| Why 50%?
| leetcrew wrote:
| the optimal charge state for long-term storage of a lipo cell
| is about 33%. 50% is a nice buffer on top of that if you use
| it unplugged for an hour or so, then put it away.
| intopieces wrote:
| The use case here is plugged in and, presumably, using the
| laptop, not storing. Is 50% still the ideal charge state,
| in that case?
| leetcrew wrote:
| maybe not, but it's probably not much worse than the
| optimal charge state. you want to keep a lipo cell at
| 3.7v for optimal longevity. usually this corresponds to
| above 20% charge but below 80%, but the concept of
| "charge level" is sort of arbitrary. the manufacturer has
| already set safety buffers on either end of the spectrum,
| but the exact amount will vary based on risk tolerance,
| application, etc.
| nodesocket wrote:
| I keep my MacBook Pro 16" plugged in 80% of the time, but when
| I want to go work at a coffee shop on battery having 50% would
| be a big inconvenience. How much longer in terms of battery
| life are we talking doing 50% charge vs 100%?
| [deleted]
| aeyes wrote:
| Just let me set a max charging percentage like on my Thinkpad
| please.... After 2 years the battery on my MacBook Pro is pretty
| much dead.
| m_eiman wrote:
| You should probably check your battery cycle count:
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201585
| wrs wrote:
| I've noticed that on newer (past few years) MacBook Pros, if
| their battery runs down too far they refuse to start up, even
| when plugged into the charger. The battery has to charge for
| 10-15 minutes with the "dead battery" icon on the screen. It's
| exactly the same behavior as iPhone/iPad. In past MacBook models,
| the battery could be dead--or even completely removed--and the
| charger would power the laptop fine.
|
| Anyone know why this extremely irritating change had to be made?
| copperx wrote:
| This is the most irritating thing about the iPhone. Phone shuts
| down in the middle of an important call? Sorry, you'll have to
| wait 15 minutes before you can call again. This doesn't happen
| in my Pixel phones. Plug it it, turn it on.
|
| I would be irritated to no end if this happened to my laptop.
| gjs278 wrote:
| manage your battery better. do you routinely run out of gas
| driving as well?
| leejoramo wrote:
| I haven't noticed this on my 2017 MacBook Pro.
|
| However, waiting for a initial charge has always been true if
| you use a smaller power adapter than the one that shipped with
| your MacBook. For example you use a MacBook Air 40w charger
| with your Pro
| KarlKemp wrote:
| That's been the default behaviour for as long as I can
| remember. I'm fairly certain of my 2008 Macbook Air doing this.
| Less so (but still better than even odds) for my 17" PowerBook.
|
| You'd want some minimum charge to, at least, safely start up
| and immediately shut down again. Maybe throw in a little extra
| to be on the safe side. The higher-performance MacBooks also
| operate within a an _extreme_ width of power requirements, from
| about 5W to close to 100W. I 'm not sure if they can throttle
| based on battery status. But if not, you'd need a buffer to
| accommodate load spikes.
|
| I guess you could criticise them for not trusting you to keep
| it plugged in. But any UI to clearly communicate that
| _unplugging now might cause data loss_ is bound to be a
| horrible sludge. It could also easily fail if you happen to
| trip over the cable or the power went off.
| flyingswift wrote:
| I have one of these for work and it's the first Macbook I
| have used
|
| I have never experienced this behavior on any other laptop I
| have ever used. When I ran into this for the first time, I
| was completely appalled, it is a horrible user experience
| nicoburns wrote:
| They definitely throttle based on battery status, mine gets
| noticably slower (laggy UI, etc) when it dips below 5%, and
| picks up immediately if I plug it in.
| rubatuga wrote:
| My MacBook Pro 2015 showed this behaviour, however my MacBook
| Air 2019 starts up immediately with the stock charger, however
| it takes a few minutes with a lower 15W adapter.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| My guess is they want to be able to perform clean shutdown if
| charger is removed.
| ratww wrote:
| I've been explained that this is because those computers might
| need more power than the AC Charger is able to provide, so the
| battery is also used as a "backup" for burst loads. This [1]
| seems to confirm it.
|
| [1]
| https://web.archive.org/web/20081225111200/http://support.ap...
| konschubert wrote:
| That would mean that it would not charge while being used.
|
| That's not the case I assume.
| zeusk wrote:
| No, that only means it can't be charged will on burst load
| (turbo boost). Intel's chips can consume > 200% of their
| TDP during all-core turbo.
| leetcrew wrote:
| the case where the laptop draws more power than the AC
| adapter can provide is probably some sort of brief turbo
| state for the cpu and/or gpu. it can't maintain this for
| long without overheating.
| knodi123 wrote:
| ha, well I've noticed my battery discharges if I play Civ 6,
| even when plugged in. so that confirms it too.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| That reminds me of the original PowerBook Duo, which couldn't
| run plugged in if the battery was missing.
| varjag wrote:
| I think this was a "feature" among all pre-Jobs Powerbooks.
| blihp wrote:
| Not all... I remember my 540c running without a battery.
| falcolas wrote:
| If you look at how the charging amperage is in current
| chargers, as compared to those of a few years ago, it's
| pretty easy to tell that this is the case.
|
| Sure, some of it is due to improved efficiency of the
| components, but when combined with power drain while on a
| charger under high loads, it's fairly obvious.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| PSA: If you have a thinkpad, the lenovo settings app lets you
| control this too. In lenovo vantage, go to Device > My Device
| Settings > Battery settings > Battery Charge Threshold.
| sahaskatta wrote:
| The Dell XPS 13 also offers an interface in the BIOS that lets
| you set a charge limit, hours not to charge the laptop, and a
| bunch of other great controls.
|
| The only big issue is that they don't expose it through a
| friendly UI within Windows 10. It's nonsense that I need to go
| to the BIOS to tweak these settings.
| post_break wrote:
| Honestly it's great that it's in the bios because I run Mac
| OS on mine and it still works.
| jonfw wrote:
| What's really nice about that approach is that I run linux on
| mine and it all still works perfectly!
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| There's an application named something like Dell Command
| Center (maybe Dell Power Manager on windows?) that comes
| preinstalled with the default xps win10. Or you can get it
| yourself from the dell website. It exposes all of the bios
| settings.
|
| There's also a DCC package for Linux which can do the same
| thing. I made a thin Python wrapper which would read a number
| and set that to the maximum battery charge limit (e.g. $
| battery.py 85). Unfortunately I got rid of the xps so I don't
| have the script, but it was very simple. Hard part was
| figuring out what the cmdline arguments to the DCC executable
| were.
| simonh wrote:
| Except that's a fixed threshold you have to set manually. This
| tracks the thermal and charging profile of the battery, learns
| it's characteristics and adjusts the threshold dynamically.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Which has a huge impact on battery health. Good and bad
| battery management explains a non trivial difference between
| high and low quality LiPo battery products.
| jb775 wrote:
| Why not just get rid of built-in batteries entirely? Not only
| does it lead to unethical business practices (linking battery
| life to hardware performance), but it facilitates a privacy
| nightmare.
| leetcrew wrote:
| the built-in battery is what makes an "ultrabook" possible.
| lenovo still makes laptops with removable batteries if you
| really want such a device. consumer choice is not really the
| hallmark of the apple brand.
| jb775 wrote:
| how is it that an ultrabook is not "possible" unless it has a
| battery that cannot be easily removed?
| leetcrew wrote:
| check out this teardown of the new 16" macbook pro: https:/
| /www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+16-Inch+2019+Tea...
|
| everything inside the chassis that isnt pcb, heatpipe, or
| fan is part of the battery pack. it takes up almost all the
| otherwise unused space inside the device. how would you
| design a battery door for this chassis that doesn't
| decrease the size of the battery or make the whole thing
| much bigger?
| kube-system wrote:
| Built-in batteries can be replaceable.
|
| Modular batteries can have firmware, and can still be attached
| to systems that reduce current draw when the battery health
| diminishes... these are not exclusive or required features of
| internal batteries.
|
| And reducing current draw to prevent voltage sags is an
| engineering feature to compensate for the limits of physical
| science, not an arbitrary business decision. There are
| alternative solutions, like not booting at all, or letting the
| system crash. Those are not necessarily good solutions.
| lilyball wrote:
| > _Why not just get rid of built-in batteries entirely_
|
| Built-in batteries allow for custom battery shapes that
| increase battery life or allow for thinner computers at the
| same battery life. They increase laptop durability by not
| requiring a removable battery cover. They allow for putting
| other components on top of the battery as well to better take
| advantage of the space inside the enclosure.
|
| > _it facilitates a privacy nightmare_
|
| How does it do that?
| jb775 wrote:
| > How does it do that?
|
| If I remove my laptop battery, I know no one can tap into my
| hardware covertly. E.g. turn on the microphone, enable
| bluetooth hardware to see who I'm near, enable 3G/4G hardware
| to track which cell towers I'm near, etc.
|
| I'd gladly deal with a battery cover on my MacBook in
| exchange for definite privacy. Better yet, remove the battery
| from inside the laptop entirely and can plug one in via USB-C
| port as needed.
| lilyball wrote:
| For such a niche use case, just stick the thing in a
| faraday cage bag. It doesn't matter that it has power if it
| can't exchange any signals with the outside world.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| This makes a ton of sense. I assume it's smart enough to use data
| like your location to charge up all the way (or more than usual)
| if you're in some random hotel, instead of having to remember to
| turn it off when traveling.
|
| If it's smart and takes all these things into account, that would
| be so much better than setting some arbitrary threshold (is 50%
| okay? is 80% okay?). Adding arbitrary options enables a lot of
| bullshit advice to spread.
| Sephr wrote:
| It would be nice if I could keep my MacBook battery at a healthy
| level without having to drain it.
|
| With the MacBook Pro 16 you can easily draw enough energy to
| drain your battery while using a 100W power adapter.
|
| Dell addressed to this issue in their USB-C laptops by making and
| allowing 130W power adapters. Apple requires you to tap into your
| non-user-replaceable battery to supplant the power usage.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I had the issue that my charger was overheating so much it
| would stop charging entirely. Had to ask the IT guy for a 2nd
| charger so I can swap between the two to make sure my laptop
| wouldnt lose its charge. My former employer had us all with
| Macbook Pros even though due to the nature of our work we
| couldnt do jack while outside of the office. Still unsure why
| they didnt just buy us iMacs.
| ben_w wrote:
| Huh. That explains why my MacBook Air is doing so much worse than
| I expected from the number of cycles it's reporting.
|
| It's a mid-2013, so I'm not expecting much, but a few times I've
| seen "100%" when waking it unplugged, only for this to be
| immediately followed by an emergency shutdown, and when the
| reboot completes it claims "42%".
|
| It's plugged in almost continuously these days.
| geoelectric wrote:
| If you check the power tab under System Information, you can
| find some battery health info that might be illuminating. For
| example, my newish MBP16: Charge Information:
| Charge Remaining (mAh): 8362 Fully Charged: Yes
| Charging: No Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 8647
| Health Information: Cycle Count: 18 Condition:
| Normal
|
| Looking it up, specced full capacity is 8818 mAh, so I'm at 98%
| health right now--probably lost a point or two because I leave
| it constantly plugged in at work. Willing to bet yours is much
| lower.
|
| There are a few apps out there that can do a better analysis
| too. CoconutBattery used to be a good one, no idea if it's
| still around, but they were common.
| teejmya wrote:
| FruitJuice is a good app for this. https://imgur.com/dY0n6Uw
| bdcravens wrote:
| Yikes - I have the same, and with a cycle count of 41, I'm
| down to 94%.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I have a 2015 13" MacBook Pro, and I'm on 85% after 940
| cycles (5560/6559mAh - I guess the battery was smaller back
| then). I most often run it on the charger, but fairly often
| run it on battery down to a low percentagr too.
| frizkie wrote:
| Just another datapoint here for a 2019 16" MBP bought at
| launch: 8542/8587 mAh for ~99.5%.
|
| I have 46 cycle count, I keep it at my desk plugged in at
| 100% the vast majority of the time.
| bdcravens wrote:
| I don't think that's how you calculate it. You measure
| the Full Charge Capacity against what it's originally
| rated at. (What I've seen online is that the original
| capacity is 8790)
|
| In your case, that'd be 8587/8790, or 97.7%.
| shantara wrote:
| 8246 mAh after 34 cycles on my 16" 2019 MBP. That's a lot
| worse than I expected.
|
| What's the best way to slow battery degradation if I use it
| for 8-10 hours daily for work? Run MBP from an outlet and do
| full discharges once a week? Run MBP from the battery and
| recharge the battery when it depletes? Run MBP from the
| battery, but charge it only to 80%?
| AlphaSite wrote:
| I suspect the original capacity must have some variance.
| geoelectric wrote:
| Almost certainly, yes. I didn't note the capacity out of
| the box, so that 98% from spec is a bit handwavy for sure.
|
| That said, Apple's usually pretty good about shipping
| things erring over spec, and publishing the low side of the
| real range. It was probably at least the spec amount when I
| got it.
| jonshariat wrote:
| Same. Its in otherwise great condition. I wish it was as easy
| to replace the battery as ordering one and popping it in.
| [deleted]
| lloeki wrote:
| Probably there's build up inside the battery simply given its
| age, and it's unable to provide a steady power output, which
| also makes the reading wrong.
| prismatk wrote:
| I had a similar issue with a 2012 MBA, tried SMC and PRAM reset
| which worked intermittently and ultimately replaced the battery
| for about $60.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| What you describe does sound just like a battery that was
| almost always fully charged, and is about .. six? years old.
| You may want to try the "rumored to work" calibration process,
| or replace the battery after the latest OS update:
|
| https://help.ifixit.com/article/265-battery-calibration
|
| Which is essentially "set it never to sleep automatically, plug
| it in overnight, unplug it for 24 hours lid open and let it die
| and stay dead a while, charge it fully" without ever
| interrupting the charging process.
|
| On a healthy battery this will slightly reduce capacity each
| time due to deep cycle so don't go doing this if you're not
| experiencing "shuts down at 42%" problems!
| druidcz wrote:
| I have destroyed three MBP batteries by having the laptop plugged
| in to the wall 24/7. Luckily Apple always replaced them in
| warranty for free.
| idoby wrote:
| They should just make 50% the new 100% and then let you
| "supercharge" to 150% when you need to. I'm kind of surprised
| Apple hasn't done this already.
| stygiansonic wrote:
| Nitpick: if 50% was the new 100% then the supercharge option
| would be to 200%, which sounds even better :)
| thanksgiving wrote:
| Another nit: Maybe we never let the user get to 200% by
| refusing to charge beyond 150% (internally known as 75%?)
| ever.
|
| Better yet, all devices, phones, tablets, notebook computers,
| headphones, speakers, ... should automatically stop charging
| at about 75% and then continue to run directly off of the
| wall. I used to think that's what all devices do because that
| just seems like common sense to me.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| I believe this is approximately how modern rechargeable
| devices work in order to get so much life out of lithium
| ion batteries.
|
| Maximum charge state is some percentage below the batteries
| physical maximum, and maximum discharge is state is above
| the batteries physical minimum.
|
| There's a bit in this Wikipedia article[1] that state
| _charging Li-ion batteries beyond 80% can drastically
| accelerate battery degradation_.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-
| ion_battery#Charge_and...
| bitL wrote:
| Additional idea - alongside RAM and SSD size, one chooses also
| supercharge size while shopping (the same battery, locked to
| the amount you paid for). Great, isn't it?
| NullPrefix wrote:
| This could actually work for Apple devices, because no one
| compares them against other laptops by specs.
|
| Although they would be compared against last gen macs. Saying
| "Battery is half the size" would need some marketing polish,
| implying that it's lighter or something.
| p_l wrote:
| They already removed time left on battery because of that.
| ksec wrote:
| We need a leap in Battery Tech, in Charge Cycles, Capacity,
| Durability, Non-flammable.
| rb808 wrote:
| Its amazing how dumb most charging is for smart devices. I plug
| my phone in every night and it does a quick charge then sits
| there and does nothing the rest of the night. It even knows my
| alarm clock time, surely it should be smart enough to slowly
| charge all night.
| duskwuff wrote:
| iPhones will selectively delay charging past 80% if you're at
| home and if your usage history indicates that the phone will be
| left on the charger for a while longer.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210512
| praseodym wrote:
| Apparently a notification will show up when optimised
| charging is enabled. I've never seen it, because the
| functionality also requires Significant Locations and other
| location services (listed near the bottom of the page) to be
| enabled.
|
| That seems to me to be quite unfriendly to privacy. And given
| that I always charge my phone overnight and use my phone's
| alarm function, it could simply use that as the target time
| to finish charging to 100%. No complicated location-based ML
| needed.
| AlphaSite wrote:
| It's all on device so I don't think there are any
| significant privacy implications.
| nix0n wrote:
| > it should be smart enough to slowly charge all night
|
| I have a Sony which does this (XZ1c, stock firmware)
| [deleted]
| floatrock wrote:
| It's not necessarily that it's dumb, there's a bit of battery
| physics and chemistry involved. If you look up EV charging
| curves for example [1], the first bit goes fast and the last
| bit slows down. A rough analogy I've heard is it's like blowing
| up a balloon -- as it gets bigger, there's more back-pressure
| so it gets harder to fill up the last bit. That's why the EV
| roadtrip strategy is "frequent fast-charging" -- you spend less
| time if you recharge from 10% to 60% twice instead of going
| from 10% to 100% once (also safer to take driver breaks).
|
| If your phone _never_ gets past 80%, it could be the battery
| just needs replacement. Batteries are consumables, and they do
| degrade after a year or two or three (depending on cycling,
| temperatures, use, etc). iOS has a battery health indicator
| giving you a rough estimate of the state... if the health is
| low, get a repair kit from ifixit and then it 's a fun evening
| activity to open one of those puppies up and see just how tiny
| everything in there is!
|
| [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=ev+charging+curves
| lutorm wrote:
| This is a total tangent but I can't resist:
|
| "it's like blowing up a balloon -- as it gets bigger, there's
| more back-pressure so it gets harder to fill up the last
| bit."
|
| That's _not_ actually the case with a balloon. :)
|
| If you think about it I'm sure you've noticed that you have
| to blow the hardest right when you _start_ , and then it gets
| _easier_. The reason has to do with the curvature of the
| balloon and the fact that the same amount of air causes less
| and less stretching of the material as it fills up.
| noisem4ker wrote:
| On my old Galaxy Nexus running CyanogenMod, quick charging had
| to be explicitly activated. I still think that off-by-default
| is the most sane configuration, as I've rarely needed it.
| rubber_duck wrote:
| I got a top spec 15 MBP a year ago and I have to say the
| experience is appalling - 4000$ device that goes full airplane
| takeoff levels of noise at any serious workload, no ability to
| control performance (I would gladly throttle the CPU sooner to
| avoid everyone in the office turning my way when I start an
| emulator or keep the fans at lower RPM but constantly instead of
| letting the CPU idle at 60-70 degrees with no fans).
|
| All of this could be fixed if the device gave me power settings
| but even third party paid tools that require custom kernel
| extensions (Volta) still don't work reliably.
|
| My next computer is not going to be from Apple for sure.
| vpEfljFL wrote:
| Laptops isn't designed for serious workloads. It's a small
| portable devices to hash some errands at starbucks. You can't
| change physics laws unfortunately to make all the heat
| disappear somewhere.
|
| Keep in mind Intel marketing as well which advertises CPU with
| way less heat than they expose in real life.
|
| The way you have this machines is because apple is commercial
| company and they should follow market demands.
|
| "10 cores", "silent": you can only choose one.
|
| If you want a reliable silent machine, use the proper tool for
| the job. I.e. mac mini / imac. There is the only way to get
| proper cooling. You can't have silent cooling in your laptop.
| Especially if it's "a top spec".
| haxxorfreak wrote:
| I use a 15" 2018 MacBook Pro with the six-core i9 at work and
| Turbo Boost Switcher[1] has been my favourite discovery. It
| lets you disable the turbo boost function of the processor
| which means the fans never spin up and the battery lasts
| longer. I pretty much always leave it disabled unless I am
| going to be transcoding video or compiling something and can't
| notice a performance hit even with a couple of VMs running.
|
| The only bad thing is that it requires a kernel extension so
| will stop working when they are deprecated in 10.16. Hopefully
| Apple introduces a similar feature as there were rumours of a
| "Pro" mode coming which would ramp up the fans and clock, my
| hope is they add a complementary "quiet" mode or similar to
| disable turbo boost.
|
| [1] https://github.com/rugarciap/Turbo-Boost-Switcher
| rubber_duck wrote:
| I have the same machine and I used this option with volta -
| it was the most reliable in turning down the heat while
| keeping the system stable but at the same time it made the
| system considerably slower even in day to day tasks (with
| just a few of background build watchers and server + a YT
| video on the second screen the RubyMine become unresponsive
| regularly)
| mjayhn wrote:
| If it makes you feel any better I branched off to a XPS 13 2in1
| 4 months ago in between jobs (where I use the latest mbp) and
| used the thing for 2-3 months with no MBP as backup.
|
| I absolutely hate it. It throttles constantly even after
| undervolting it. I had to do a bunch of black magic to get it
| to sleep properly (which is evidently happening to every Dell)
| and eventually gave up on that and just set it to hibernate any
| time the lids closed (it's 32gb so that adds about 30 seconds
| to the start up time). I've spent more time tweaking this
| thing, reading forums and reddit about how to make it perform
| DECENTLY than I did building my last hackintosh and I don't
| enjoy that experience ever. When you get past all these issues
| it's still Windows 10 which I just find to be the most annoying
| OS I've ever used.
|
| Just got my new MBP yesterday and couldn't be more excited to
| be back on osx. I do really, really wish my MBP was smaller and
| a 2 in 1, though.
| rubber_duck wrote:
| I know what you mean - had my share of random issues with
| Lenovo, HP, Dell - but at the end of the day
| Windows/Linux/Android are more customisable and I'm missing
| that a lot when I switched ecosystems.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Unfortunately this is not new. A lot of good can be said about
| Apple's devices (inc. Macbooks), but in terms of thermal
| performance the Macbooks are pretty bad and have been for a
| very long time. They often use software to paper over the
| problem. Part of that seems to be a design trade-off to hide
| the exhaust vent and continuing the match towards thin.
|
| As an aside the 2019 redesign of the Mac Pro likely has the
| best thermal design we've seen from Apple by far. I often
| wonder what an actual mobile workstation laptop from Apple
| would look like, I'm talking at least three times the
| thickness, hardy case/screen, great thermal design, and huge
| battery. It would be niche but fantastic.
| greedo wrote:
| Perhaps try https://www.rugarciap.com/turbo-boost-switcher-for-
| os-x/
|
| This can extend your battery a decent amount, and obviously
| would cut down on fan noise.
| gruez wrote:
| ...at the cost of speed. A big % of a computer's performance
| comes from its turbo clocks. For instance, the 16" MBP with 6
| cores is 2.6GHz base, up to 4.5GHz turbo. Disabling turbo in
| this means you're slowing down the computer as much as 40%.
| satysin wrote:
| I have almost identical spec laptops from Dell and Apple (XPS
| 15 and 15" MacBook Pro with same CPU) and on both they ramp up
| to full fan speed when I do any serious work on them so it
| isn't limited to Apple laptops.
|
| Pretty much all 15" laptops with 45W Intel CPUs turn into jet
| engines when under load, at least in my experience.
|
| Also not to defend Apple but I do find the MacBook Pro cools
| down and gets quieter quicker than the Dell does although that
| could down to my personal setup (tools, configuration, etc).
| Could be the more powerful Nvidia dGPU on the Dell although I
| am talking purely CPU workload however with the shared thermal
| solution the Dell has it could be a bigger factor than I think?
| eecc wrote:
| Just search for it https://www.eidac.de/
| rubber_duck wrote:
| This is fan control - but I want CPU/GPU power control - I
| wouldn't mind lowering my boost clocks to limit peak
| temperatures on heavy workloads.
| cmckn wrote:
| Why doesn't the UI report 80% as 100%? It seems like exposing
| this to the user is more confusing than anything, when the cells
| could be over provisioned and treated politely by a system
| controller, without the user being part of the decision.
|
| Aren't SSD's over provisioned in this manner? You sell a drive
| with a terabyte of storage, but actually ship more than a
| terabyte of chips in the case to accommodate degradation over the
| life of the device.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > Why doesn't the UI report 80% as 100%?
|
| The Verge piece on this says that this is what will happen.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/16/21223607/macbook-battery-...
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| > Why doesn't the UI report 80% as 100%?
|
| Because the last time they tried "silently manage the battery
| without the user being part of the decision" it didn't go over
| real well?
| outworlder wrote:
| That wasn't even managing the battery, per-se(although it is
| power management, it wasn't strictly about health). It was
| reducing clock speeds to extend the amount of time the device
| would be on. They _still_ do it even if the device has a
| healthy battery: drain the phone to 1% and you will see.
| Rather than running at full blast and shutting down, you can
| extract more runtime.
|
| Some EVs do something similar: the Nissan Leaf, when the
| battery gets really low(and I mean it, far past the point
| where you lost all percentage and mileage indicators), will
| enter a reduced power mode (or popularly called "turtle
| mode"). This allows it to eke out a few more miles out of an
| otherwise mostly dead battery. There is a "turtle" that
| lights up on the screen, maybe Apple could just do that.
|
| Turns out batteries hate when they are almost empty and you
| are trying to extract full power from them, voltage drops
| even more. So there are some compromises that have to be
| made.
| Lammy wrote:
| Reminds me of how they changed Finder in Mac OS X Snow Leopard
| (10.6) to report disk capacity in base-10 bytes instead of
| base-2 bytes.
| duskwuff wrote:
| Eh. That was more for consistency with how storage devices
| are sold -- if a 10^30 byte hard disk is described by storage
| vendors as "1 TB", it's incredibly confusing to users to have
| it show up as "931 GB".
| noisem4ker wrote:
| There's nothing wrong with letting users learn how hard
| disk marketers are ripping them off, instead of playing
| their game. But, as usual, Apple prefers to choose blissful
| ignorance for their sheep customers.
|
| Besides that, we have proper units for binary multiples:
| KiB, MiB, and so on. I've only seen KDE use them properly
| so far, and it's a shame.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Some samsung tablets (and phones, I think?) have an option that
| does this - it remaps 80% so it appears as 100% and won't
| charge past it. Nice way to improve battery health for a device
| that spends a good chunk of every day plugged in.
|
| A fun side effect of this is that the tablet can boot while at
| '0%' battery, and then it will automatically shut off a little
| bit later to avoid dipping below the safe range - presumably
| '0%' is actually like 10% or so.
| atombender wrote:
| It's my understanding that modern EVs like the Kia Niro EV or
| the Chevy Bolt work this way. When nominally charged to 100%,
| the actual charge is closer to 80%. A 75 kW battery will
| typically only go to 64 kW.
| floatrock wrote:
| During one of the last few hurricanes, Tesla did an OTA
| update that unlocked extra range for people trying to leave.
|
| I seem to remember it being something like the hardware
| capacity is one number but there's a software upsell that you
| normally need to pay to unlock full capacity. But it may have
| also been a "we'll push the normal operating parameters to
| give you this extra boost", don't quite remember.
| szhu wrote:
| Tesla sells two versions of that car, one with longer
| range, even though they have identical hardware. During the
| hurricane, they lifted the software cap on the shorter-
| range version.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| So many people on here seem to be intent on micromanaging their
| device's battery. IMO the whole point is to let macOS handle it
| so you can focus on actual work.
|
| I know Apple has screwed up in the past with throttling iPhone
| CPU's (bad). At this point they know not to go to those lengths
| again.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| Previously, iOS 13 (released in 19Q4) changed the default iPhone
| charging behavior to improve battery health:
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210512
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