Battery management app

[sircharlo]

Hey all,

I'm looking for a application that will allow me to control how my battery charges. E.g.: I would be able to plug in my MacBook at, say, 35% battery charge, and it would not charge the battery, just feed the mac directly. And when my charge would be 5% and under, it would then and then only charge my battery (since it is nearly empty). Anyone know of free/open source software that does this ?

Thank you

 

[koobcamuk]

Why do you want to do this??

Battery cycle count only increases when the total charged cycle is 100%, that is, if you go down to 50% then charge up to 100%, that's only 50% of a cycle. Do that again, and it'll be one cycle.

I cant see why someone would want to do that and thus I do not know of any software.

 

[sircharlo]

Say my mac is charged 80%. I use it (with the battery) until only 35% remains because i don't want to recharge a non empty battery. I could leave it unplugged and let the battery drain until it reaches 0% before recharging it. However, say I need to use my mac on the go tomorrow. If i leave it unplugged, i am effectively left with a dead or low battery tomorrow. Now i could plug it in to get my 100%, but recharging the battery if not empty is not good.

Now say that when my battery was at 80%, i use my miracle app to have my mac plugged in without charging it, so as to not damage the battery while still having a usable charge demain. Tomorrow, when I'm on the go, i will still have 80%, all this done without damaging my battery.

 

[TheKnifeFight]

sircharlo, pay attention to what koobcamuk has said. these batteries are not like a traditional battery. you do not need to kill the entire battery before charging it. even if you use the battery a little bit, it doesn't take up an entire cycle. so if you use it for 20% and charge it back up to 100% you still have 80% of that cycle before it counts against you.

hope that helps.

 

[sircharlo]

So you're saying that i don't need to fully discharge before recharging. But then what does battery health depend on ?

Thank you.

P.S. I have always completely discharged my battery before charging it, and my health is 100%, with 101 cycles. More specifically, (current|maximum capacity) 5275|5020 mAh. You're saying my battery would be healthier if I didn't wait until it was empty before charging, or that it wouldn't affect at all ?

 

[entanglemint]

Long Term optimization

There would be numerous advantages to having a more complete battery management utilities. If you read the link above you will see that a completely charged battery degrades much more quickly than a partially charged battery. I use my laptop as my workstation during the day and typically leave it plugged in. I would like to have software to fix the charge at say 70%. This help keep the battery in good shape and still allow me to use it when I go home.