• Dave@lemmy.nz
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    1 year ago

    Never heard of the tool, but by the sound of it, it extends your battery life by letting you not charge to 100% (e.g. only charge to 80%).

    That’s real. Doing that will prolong the life of your battery.

    Should you pay $25 for a tool that will do that? Well, if you’re on Android 12 (edit: and your device manufacturer has implemented it), there may be an option in the battery settings to limit charging to 85% which gives you most of the benefit.

    If you’re not on Android 12 but have a rooted phone, you can get a free app that does the same thing.

    If protecting the battery is important to you, you don’t have a rooted phone (and don’t want to root it), and don’t have Android 12, then as far as I can tell from reviews, Chargie does do what it says.

    • Amilo159@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If you’re on older phone that is before Android 12, it’s probably a few years old and you already charged it to 100% several hundred times.

      Maybe chargie won’t really help that much then.

    • spiderman@ani.social
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      1 year ago

      Doing that will prolong the life of your battery.

      Why? What is the difference between charging just upto 80% and 100%?

      • Dave@lemmy.nz
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        1 year ago

        To be honest I don’t know why. Manufacturers from Samsung to Apple to Microsoft say is the case, but I haven’t managed to find an answer with a better source than itself.

        I get the impression that it’s about staying at high levels of charge.

        For example, this page: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/caring-for-your-surface-battery-9ccdfa7b-d074-f629-425c-1c090ac66bed

        So when I go to bed I put my phone on the charger. After about 1.5 hours it is at 100%, then it spends the rest of the night on the charger at 100%. It spends 1/4of its life on the charger at 100%. From what I read of this, if it was taken off the charger and allowed to discharge, it would be less of an issue than having it at 100% then every time it drops to 99% the charger tops it up to 100% again.

        But TBH I have not found anything that backs up the idea of charging to 80% only vs charge to 100% and taking it off the charger (you can get apps that give you a notification when it gets to a certain charge level). Lot’s of people and articles talking about it as a known fact, but not so much in the way of sources.

      • FrameXX
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        1 year ago

        Because the battery is less stressed when it is in percentages near 50% than if it is in percentages near 100% or 0% AFAIK.

    • ViciousTurducken@lemmy.oneOP
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      1 year ago

      Are you sure AOSP 12 built this feature in? I’m on GrapheneOS on Pixel 7 and there is no such option in battery settings.

      • Dave@lemmy.nz
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        1 year ago

        Sorry, I read this during an internet search but it turns out it’s not in AOSP but something that various device manufacturers have implemented.

        While searching I found GrapheneOS say they will not add this feature as it’s not privacy related, and that the OS is not rootable, so you might be a good use case for Chargie.

        • ViciousTurducken@lemmy.oneOP
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          1 year ago

          If I recall this was in reference to LineageOS’ charging control feature. Perhaps this is what you are referring to?

          • Dave@lemmy.nz
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            1 year ago

            I didn’t save the source but I believe is was just someone talking about some mainstream phone, assuming it was baked into android. The downfall of using internet comments for sources.

  • Zak@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I use Advanced charging controller to set charge rate and capacity thresholds. Limiting both (but especially capacity) will absolutely extend the service life of the battery. I limit it to 60% in normal use, which extends service life greatly and also have presets for 80% and 100%.

    ACC requires root access. This device accomplishes the same goal without it using external hardware.

  • Margot Robbie@lemmy.worldM
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    1 year ago

    Hard to say. I thought most modern Android phones have charge management in software now.

    I’m very reluctant to plug my phone into random USB-C devices though, you just don’t know what’s on these things.

  • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    If your phone can’t do charge control on it’s own, Chargie is totally legit: I have 8 of them - As and Cs - and they work great.

  • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Snakeoil.

    The fact that some people are saying “maybe” or “it might” means there is enough uncertainty out there to get a few suckers to buy this shit.

  • Racle@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Got one when I got my Samsung Fold 3. I liked smart charging on my old OnePlus but Samsung doesn’t have that… Only way is to limit it to 85% or charge to full 100%. And I rather use full 100% of my battery because I use it a lot.

    Last time I checked my battery health was still “good” after 2 years of use (via Samsung diagnostic tool).

    I’ve set my chargie charge to 85% and then recharge only when battery drops 10% or more. And at 5:00 it charges once to 100% so I have my full battery at morning

    Couple of times in last two years it hasn’t charged up to 100% (stopped to 85%). Don’t know why, but it hasn’t been huge issue.

    Don’t know if charge helps with battery, but at least it doesn’t make it worse 🤷