


Lithium-ion suffers from stress when exposed to heat, so does keeping a cell at a high charge voltage…Exposing the battery to high temperature and dwelling in a full state-of-charge for an extended time can be more stressful than cycling.Īpple recognized this as a problem with iPhones in particular, and built into iOS an awareness of a battery’s available capacity, which led it to throttle certain tasks when the battery couldn’t deliver enough juice without the iPhone shutting down. And 100 percent isn’t really “100 percent.” It’s the maximum that a battery’s controlling circuitry or connected operating system believes it can safely hold when “full.”Įven with the most careful algorithms to get to 100 percent, lithium-ion batteries simply age faster when they’re topped up all the time. If you ever wondered why your devices charge very fast and then very slowly, that’s why. That’s why battery circuitry on all devices throttles charging speed from 80 to 100 percent. After that point, it’s easy for the batteries to overheat, which can damage them or, in the worst case, cause bulging or even fires. Li-ion batteries are excellent at charging and discharging in varying amounts over time and losing relatively little charge when idle for long periods.īut the way in which they store energy requires careful charging past about 80 percent capacity. Even the later nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries required a regular full discharge-taking the battery down to no stored capacity-to keep them in good shape. Lithium-ion batteries are a far sight better than their nickel-based predecessors. In macOS 11 Big Sir, recent Mac laptops will have more modern options enabled by default.With modern Apple laptops, in macOS Catalina’s 10.5.5 release you can make sure that Battery Health Management is enabled in the Energy Saver preference pane’s Battery tab by clicking Battery Health.Notes, “If at all possible, avoid full discharges and charge the battery more often between uses.…There is no memory and the battery does not need periodic full discharge cycles to prolong life.”


As Battery University (not a degree-granting institution)
