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Comment by justo-rivera | Hacker News Reader

I can't imagine caring about this honestly. The way i feel it is like constantly caring if your white shoes are dirty, i only trust my shoes to help me walk.

Technology should be as transparent as possible in my opinion and not bring us back to thinking about said technology, just what we can do with it.

It's tiresome enough to worry about having a charged phone, i couldnt bring myself to look at battery percentage or even phone charger options just because i am calculating how long will my phone last in the long run.

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This is just an optional feature, nobody is forcing you to turn it on, or to care about it. Personally I rarely need a 100% charge: my iPhone 13 easily gets through a typical day with 40% remaining. But I do get annoyed when a phone is 2 or 3 years old and the battery is already worn out. Genuine iPhone batteries are expensive, and limiting charging to 80% will significantly extend their life.

Worn out batteries don't just have limited capacity, they charge slower and create more heat while charging due to internal resistance. I'd much rather charge to 80% for my typical day, but have the option to 100% charge on those rare occasions when I know I might need it (long day travelling, etc).

While not ideal, maybe we could have more trickle chargers? My worry is that the battery actually gets used often but for short periods and that could effect long-term wear.

Personally, I have a Shortcut to put my phone into "low power mode" once it hits 90% (why not?).

Maybe a Shortcut could do the same and turn off power once it hits 80% on your overnight charging dock and then use a small amount of power while the screen is off.

> Personally, I have a Shortcut to put my phone into "low power mode" once it hits 90% (why not?).

Isn't low power mode for when your phone has very little battery left? I don't understand why one would put a phone in low power mode when it's charging and hits 90%.

That's the original intent, but there's nothing stopping you from enabling it whenever to try to get the absolute max possible out of your battery. Low power mode does sacrifice quite a bit of functionality by default though.

Personally, my 15 pro can do >72 hours on a single charge WITHOUT doing stuff like this, even starting at 80% (note: mostly standby, no always on display, with ~3h screen on time total). The 80% limit is definitely something I'll be using virtually all the time.

Oh sure, I put my phone in LPM sometimes when I know it's going to be a very long day. But why would someone put it in LPM when it hits 90%? Is that referring to when it charges up to 90%, or when it's in use, unplugged, and is "down to 90%"?

The latter.

For me, I find the performance/lost functionality fine: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT205234

On the other hand, I’ve pretty much stopped using LPM after getting a 14 Pro and getting used to the higher refresh rate of the ProMotion display; I find the slower refresh rate really jarring (I also have a non-Pro 14 which I don’t like using for the same reason).

If iPhones have replaceable batteries (the kind you can slot in and out) then you’d be right.

Replacing an iPhone battery at an Apple Store costs about 1/3 the price of the phone by the time you need it replaced, so ideally one would want the battery to last as long as the lifetime of the phone. One way to delay liion battery ageing is to shallow charge.

Case in point I’ve a 6 year old dell laptop that is set to shallow charge to 75% in BIOS and the battery still holds 3 hours of charge (from 75% to forced standby)to this day. Most laptop battery stop holding a charge 2 to 3 years in.

IME, an iPhone battery lasts minimum 3 years. (I've actually never needed a new battery the ones I've owned). $99 over 3 years is $0.10 a day. I'd easily pay that for an extra 20% battery capacity and it's definitely not worth fussing over.

>Most laptop battery stop holding a charge 2 to 3 years in.

Counterpoint. I have a lenovo thinkpad t480s that I bought second hand and is now 4+ years old. The battery lasts at least 6 hours. I haven't discharged it fully in a while to be more precise. Ubu 22.04 running in power save mode as selected from the default gnome menu.

Dell? Yeah, terrible company making terrible laptops for sure. Used to think differently before owning one.

1/3 the price of the phone?

An iPhone battery replacement is $49-99 at an Apple Store.

The rest of that was,

> about 1/3 the price of the phone by the time you need it replaced

So that sounds plausible if iPhones can be purchased for $150-300 at the age you'd replace the battery. (Though that does strike me as a little low, still? Depending on how long the battery lasts...)

How is that logical? Why would you buy a phone for $150-300 that’s the same as the one you have, likely with ann old battery for that price, instead of replacing the battery for <$100.

We have phones plugged in 24/7 for work. The phones where I can limit the battery charging have never had expanded batteries. The ones that cant expand regularly (sometimes as little as 6 months).

Personally i hate the optimized battery charging ios does. It’s awful. I’d rather being able to keep my phone plugged in basically 24/7 and always have it ready to go, but not have to worry about expediting its death.

It is possible to use something like Chargie to limit battery charge if you want to keep your phone plugged in.

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