MartinAppleGuy
macrumors 68020
But if it's going on change over night, would the extreamly overcharge be bad for the battery?
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Is it 18 hours including stand by?
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But if it's going on change over night, would the extreamly overcharge be bad for the battery?
mightyjabba
macrumors 68000
No, because lithium ion batteries have circuitry to ensure that they charge properly. Apple literally tells you to leave it on the charger overnight, and that's how it was designed. No need to overthink this.
Quite impressed with the battery on my 42mm. With moderate use and no workouts, easily 30+ hours and that's conservative.
On a heavy day of use like today with lots of texting, a billion time checks, and 1 hour of workout, still 40% left after 12 hours off charge, which projects to 20 hours.
On a heavy day of use like today with lots of texting, a billion time checks, and 1 hour of workout, still 40% left after 12 hours off charge, which projects to 20 hours.
hm
hmm, then why would apple (and others) recommend that one frequently perform complete discharges of LITHIUM ION batteries in order to maintain their maximum capacity and charge discharge cycle time?
they even put it on their websites.
hmm, then why would apple (and others) recommend that one frequently perform complete discharges of LITHIUM ION batteries in order to maintain their maximum capacity and charge discharge cycle time?
they even put it on their websites.
Actually, apple's battery performance website (https://www.apple.com/batteries/maximizing-performance/) doesn't mention completely discharging your battery at all, much less doing it frequently.
And on their 'why lithium ion' website (https://www.apple.com/batteries/why-lithium-ion/) it says:
mightyjabba
macrumors 68000
Do they? Link? I know that they sometimes recommend doing that not for the battery itself, but to calibrate the software that manages your battery. But it's certainly not something you need to do regularly.
If you COMPLETELY discharge a rechargeable battery, you will kill it, that is why iPhones, Apple Watches etc. switch off BEFORE the battery is empty.
They don't, at least not outside of tivoboy's own little world😉 See my post above, the apple web site actually says that you don't need to let it fully discharge.
Well, another (more relevant) reason is that batteries have only a certain number of charges to them, and if you only do it half as often, theoretically, the battery will last twice as long.
1000 charges = 1000 days
vs
1000 charges = 2000 days
Of course - that's like 6 years, so....
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Actually, this isn't true either... again from apple's 'why lithium ion' website (https://www.apple.com/batteries/why-lithium-ion/):
Newtons Apple
Suspended
You phone uses power even if it is not in your pocket so it is not the watch that is dumb
xraydoc
Contributor
Not correct. A charge from 50% to 100% only counts as half a charge cycle, not a full charge cycle.
mightyjabba
macrumors 68000
Yep, almost all of the tips for "conditioning" batteries are from previous technologies like nicad and nickel metal hydride batteries. They no longer apply to lithium ion batteries (and some, like the advice to always drain it fully before charging can actually be harmful) but they keep getting repeated. Lithium ion batteries are really quite intelligent and convenient things. There's no need to make this so complicated -- just plug in every night and the watch will take care of everything.
used to
well, as recently as last August apple was recommending monthly complete discharges and re-charges for notebook batteries (pretty certain they were Li-on then too)
http://web.archive.org/web/20140701174823/http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html
so, It's not a complete fabrication of reality, but it does appear to be old information or at least not the company line from now on.
there are several other support articles than this one which HAD recommended letting li-on batteries draw down, go to sleep, sit idle asleep are recharge again in order to both calibrate and optimize their performance.
Apparently I'm moving to a nightly plug in or so going forward. 🙄
well, as recently as last August apple was recommending monthly complete discharges and re-charges for notebook batteries (pretty certain they were Li-on then too)
http://web.archive.org/web/20140701174823/http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html
so, It's not a complete fabrication of reality, but it does appear to be old information or at least not the company line from now on.
there are several other support articles than this one which HAD recommended letting li-on batteries draw down, go to sleep, sit idle asleep are recharge again in order to both calibrate and optimize their performance.
Apparently I'm moving to a nightly plug in or so going forward. 🙄
mightyjabba
macrumors 68000
Well, what it says is this:
That's geared toward people who use a laptop mostly as a desktop computer or who use a desktop most of the time and a notebook only occasionally. You do need to actually use a battery (charging and discharging it) once in a while to keep it working properly. But they're not talking about a complete discharge, and they're also not giving this advice to people who use their laptops on battery regularly. Needless to say, I don't think many people here will be using the watch exclusively plugged in, so I don't think we need to worry. 😉
apple
someone should tell the apple store employees in palo alto, since they were preaching the same thing just last week. ;-)
And oddly, they informed all the apple watch owners during one of the workshops that "best practice" to maintain optimal battery life was to let it run down to 0% and run it back up to 100%..
I'm not trying to further this discussion at this point, but honestly THIS is what THEY are saying in the stores.. at least the one nearest the mothership.
someone should tell the apple store employees in palo alto, since they were preaching the same thing just last week. ;-)
And oddly, they informed all the apple watch owners during one of the workshops that "best practice" to maintain optimal battery life was to let it run down to 0% and run it back up to 100%..
I'm not trying to further this discussion at this point, but honestly THIS is what THEY are saying in the stores.. at least the one nearest the mothership.
mightyjabba
macrumors 68000
I don't doubt you, but that doesn't make it true. 😉 As I said earlier, there is some confusion on this point because draining the battery to zero is good to do occasionally just to calibrate the software, but it's definitely not something you should try and do every time you use it.
He was saying that your battery's lifespan would theoretically be doubled if instead of charging it every night at 50% remaining, you waited until it was 0% and then charged. However, this is not true with lithium ion batteries, as two charges from 50% are basically equal to one charge from 0%.
You're right, my bad. I skimmed his post too quickly and thought he was saying if the battery lasted 2x longer, the same 1000 charges would mean 2x longer lifespan.
zacheryjensen
macrumors 6502a
This used to be necessary. It's no longer necessary. And it was only necessary for certain types of batteries with certain charge/discharge formulations. Never for phones. And no longer for any new Apple products.
In older LiIon laptop batteries, if you never actually used the battery fully at least once ina while, the total capacity would be severely reduced. This problem is no solved by battery circuitry automatically shifting around the charge/discharge targets to the multiple cells in each battery.
You may still have issues on a device if you actually never take it off the charger ever, though. But, that would be very strange to do and I guess if you were like that, you wouldn't really care?