Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple's 80% Charging Limit for iPhone: How Much Did It Help After a Year?

UltimaKilo said:
This is the way. I don't understand why you cannot set the capacity to 60%. As close to 50% as possible is best to not strain the battery and 60% is perfect. Moreover, use the slowest wattage charger you can in the evenings, which limits the temperature of the battery and preserves battery.

You can safely charge to 80 or 90%+ on days you really need it and expect to quickly drain the battery. In other words, if it's occasionally only going to sit at 80-90% for a very short while, that's fine.
Click to expand...
ive found a lot of use in using the old 5/10w chargers now, even on my MacBook Pro, and leaving it plugged in over night. 8 hours later and my MacBook is at like 84% charge from a 10w charger from 20-30% the night before. this might too far and extending the charging time but doesnt heat up the bottom like a 85/100/140 charger does
 
  • Like
Reactions: G5isAlive, ikjadoon, UltimaKilo and 1 other person
Launch day 15 Pro Max in blue titanium. 80% limit on, most charging done via USB-C. The only time I use MagSafe charging is in the car using the Belkin vent mount MagSafe charger with A/C cooling the phone in the summer and the vent closed during the winter. I also try not to let the battery drop beyond 25%-30% and I sometimes try to charge in 20% increments.

Maximum Capacity: 95%
Cycle Count: 264
 
Since the iPhone 14, Apple has started to put in poor quality batteries. Since X I use charging in the same way, but only 14 After Max and 15 After Max have big problems with battery life
 
Interesting article but it sounds like a lot of effort for very little gain.

At the end of the day, we have a 3 year warranty in Europe so I’m pretty relaxed about it and will continue to charge my iPhone 16 Pro to 100% as and when I need to.
 
iPhone 15 Pro
80% limit all year
92%
398 cycles

I mostly charge with MagSafe. The fast charging burns up the battery too, it generates too much heat. I do live in TX, and connect to usb when in my car for CarPlay, so that's definitely a factor in the insane summer months.
 
15 Pro Max
97% at 294 cycles
Only used magsafe (literally never used the port) and seldomly played games on it.
 
Boneslasher said:
Thank you for your calm and educated response. I appreciate it.
Did I understand it correctly that you never charge your iPhone to 100% ever?
In macOS I have not found an option to stop charging at 80%, only CoconutBattery with notifications for 20% low battery.
Click to expand...
You're welcome, I'm glad if it helps. Apple implicitly admits it's a good thing with their "optimized charging" feature and now 80% hard limit.

I do charge my iPhone to 100% by disabling the 80% limit, usually when traveling. It's nice to just decide for yourself instead of relying on automatic stuff. I'm not that I'm overly concerned about 100%, I just don't use it when not needed.

Yeah, on mac, they only have the automatic "optimized charging" feature at the moment. Which is not as useful for my variable schedule. It's easier to just decide when to go to 80 or 100% myself. To do this, you can use an app like "Al Dente" (the free version is enough to keep it at 80%) or "Battery" (on github).
 
Eric_WVGG said:
insurance fraud fun & games
Click to expand...
Maybe I shouldn't have posted that on main.

But in truth, I have never and would never intentionally harm a device just to get a battery upgrade, but then again I've never had to. A combination of natural carelessness, and natural charging lifespan means our household averages a little under 1 warranty event per year per phone.

The real calculus is the relative value of a case once a replacement handset is only $30. With my outgoing iPhone 14 Pro, I had to replace my clear magsafe case twice over the two years I owned the phone, as the original became cloudy, scratched and battle scarred over the course of the year. (Note that I prefer the clear cases because I like the colorful handsets, and I've never found a single third party clear cases that was anywhere near as good as the Apple models in terms of durability, feel and clarity).

That's an additional $150. I would have to damage my phone 5 times in 2 years for the investment in cases to be worth it.

This is discounting the annoyance of replacing a phone. The one time I replaced my 14 Pro (after getting unlucky with a 10 foot drop), I had to go to the Apple Store for a replacement and spend several uncomfortable hours waiting for the new handset to sync appropriately over public WiFi. This clearly cost more than $30.
 
Last edited:
Personally, once I switch to my iPhone 16 Plus, I may just limit the maximum charge to 85% and use only USB-C chargers where the port is limited to 20 watts initial charging rate. Yeah, it may take longer but I'd rather have a battery with over 90% capacity after a few years.
 
15 Pro since the first week it came out with 80% limit on except for when I know I need 100% on a certain day, but those were less then 10 during the year I think. Still 100% battery health with 242 cycles reported.
Charging every night with 5 watt charger and regularly during the day with MagSafe, fast charger when needed and CarPlay very often.
 
Would be interesting to know how it compares both iphone 15 pro max with 87% but charged at 100% vs the one with 94% charged at 80%

I mean, if you are planning to upgrade your iphone in a 3 years basis, how much juice have you lost because chatging at 80% all time and running out of battery against how much healthy your battery is the third year.

thanks for article, it helps a lot to understand this feature, I think this is a great feature very useful at least for office situations where we have the phone plugged all day
 
Fascinating to see. I have a 15 Pro Max that I left it with the default settings (whatever that is) and I just checked: mine says 227 cycles and max capacity is 100%. I charge every night on a slow-ish wireless Qi charger. I plug it into CarPlay maybe once or twice a day. I don't charge at work basically ever, and I don't do anything crazy with the phone. It's usually still well above 50% when I lay it down at night for bed.

I'm not sure my numbers are correct, though... I'm running the 18.1 beta right now, so maybe the battery health stuff is broken in this build?
 
My iPhone 15 Pro Max was a launch day iPhone, and it had 211 cycles on it and it was at 97%. Wired charging using a 10W charger every night, and plugged into USB-C every time I got into my car. Each day I drained it To 30-something percent from 80%.

We’ll see what the iPhone 16 Pro Max does.
 
msackey said:
It can take a LONG time for the battery health to go below 80% (2 or 3 years or more). AppleCare will NOT replace a battery under its warranty if it's not below 80%. So, it could end up that it's a waste of money to get AppleCare. Now, it may not be a waste of money if the user is a rough user as AppleCare can kick in for other damages.

I'm a pretty careful user and in my experience of having owned 4 iPhones, I would not have been able to use any of the benefits from a 3-year AppleCare package. It would be insurance that I wouldn't end up using. It would be cheaper to just pay upfront.
Click to expand...
You can get the continuation for apple care after two years. I still pay for my apple care on my devices that are 3-4 years old. If you pay the lump sum at once, Apple will ask you to switch it and continue with monthly payments, but this is not an option if you pay it monthly either way.

I know it’s overkill but my luck with iPhones is that something always happens, I just realized the issue with green screens on iPhone 14 Pros 🤣🤣
 
I'm late to the party, but I only used optimized charging on the 15 PM and it is at 89%, 388 cycles, manufacture date: August 2023, first use: Sept 2023 with wired fast charger almost exclusively. First day iPhone.
 
Get mine 15pro on the release date.
A mix of C charging, MagSafe and Qi charger at work, not set to the 80%.
96% and 221 cycles, seriously don’t know if that’s good or bad:D
 
I bought my 15 Pro Max on launch day and have been using it with 80% max limit.
With 320 counts, I'm at 89%.

Is there any possibility that using an apple charger made things differently? I've been using a 3rd party fast charger and am aware that it still capped at 20w.
 
Flight Plan said:
I know nobody cares about iphones older than the 15 in this subject, but I'll toss this in here: My iPhone 12 ProMax, bought in early 2021, is down to 80% life, and I hardly notice it because it's always on a charger. Here's why that is:

At home, I have Belkin MagSafe/magnetic chargers in the kitchen, family room, and in my home office. The phone is always plugged into one of these, depending on where I am in the house. It's just a convenient place to put the phone Even when the phone is playing music or a podcast to my Sonos devices via WIFI, it's just easier to know where the phone is if I want to change the channel or change to a different podcast.

In the car, I have Apple Carplay which is USB-only and does not work with magnetic charging. So I just have a simple magnetic holder for the phone and I use a USB to Lightning cable to get the Carplay interface and be able to use Waze, Amazon Prime music or Pandora, or the Apple podcast or music apps. The cable is required for Carplay, and as a side-benefit, it also charges the phone. My car is an Acura, so it has a built-in touch pad below the multifunction display. The car's display is not touch...but the little touch pad actually works quite well and allows me to change apps, answer the phone, respond to Waze prompts, and much more; all without taking my eyes off the road...plus, there's no poking at either the car's or the phone's screens, which I kind of like when I'm driving.

So yeah, my phone is almost always charging all the time. And after 4.5 years, it's only down to 80%. I've occasionally seen a message that it expects "to be fully charged by 8 am tomorrow" and stuff like that. I haven't tried to change any settings. And because it's always on a charger, I don't really notice the battery life going down. It just works, and that works for me.

Tentatively, I plan to get a 16. I probably will just leave the default settings alone. It just doesn't matter all that much to me.
Click to expand...
Please specify cycles. I’m compiling a data spreadsheet and older models is lacking in this thread and stats are very welcome for the longer running phones.

I have a 7plus that is my second phone currently (my old one) and it is at 75% with 960+ cycles, original battery. These older phone stats are important too.
 
Rob9874 said:
I live in AZ and set my iPhone on my wireless charging spot in my Tesla while driving. During the summer, I often see the message "charging is on hold until the phone temperature reduces". Am I correct in thinking that is doing more harm to my battery than charging over 80%? Should I not use wireless charging in my hot car?
Click to expand...
Can you please specify current battery stats? % left, cycles and phone model. Heating is not normally mentioned which is why I want to get see how your phone is handling that.
 
JPack said:
The scientific data shows shallow charge and discharges are less harmful to the battery.

In the long term, an 80% habit could potentially get 50-100% more cycles compared to a full charge/discharge practice.
Click to expand...
My own numbers plus most on here (if you read them) indicate “that’s a lie”
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back