After a long time of users asking, Valve has actually added an official Battery Charge Limit setting in the latest Steam Deck Beta update so you no longer need to use third-party tools.
Keep your battery at 80% to preserve it’s health, because Lithium batteries prefer that. Sure. But here’s what it effectively means:
Keep your battery forever stuck at 80%… to avoid losing battery capacity… so to avoid having less battery runtime you limit your battery runtime… Thus suffering today the consequences you feared in the future.
Consider two decreasing lines, one with a slightly lower slope. Now imagine the steeper line starting higher on this graph, eventually the lines will cross and despite starting lower the shallower line will be higher.
You’re missing the point. Obviously the battery health will degrade faster without the feature - otherwise there’s no point even having it.
The point is that the consequence of two years of heavy battery degradation is the total capacity dropping to… Around 80% of the nominal capacity.
Which means all you’re doing is limiting your battery artificially to avoid having it limited by the actual chemistry later on. Which is analogous to amputating your arm today because five years from now you might develop a disease.
No, I’m not suffering the consequences I’m fearing now. Having 80% capacity is enough to last me through the day, what I’m fearing is when the capacity drops below 60%, 50% or even less which I can greatly delay by only charging to 80%.
Additionally, I’m not forever stuck at 80%. If I know I will need more capacity, I can always disable the restriction for the next charge.
The logic isn’t flawed, your priors are. You’re assuming that people are constantly on a cycle of charging their battery to the limit, running it down low, and then charging it again. If you mostly play docked or with a charger plugged in then capping the battery at around 80% prolongs the battery runtime for when you do turn the limit off and want to use the full battery.
If you mostly play fully charged and stationary, then lowering the charge limit means you have more future opportunities to experience the fully battery runtime when you disable the setting.
There’s absolutely no way a setting buried in a menu is designed to be constantly enabled and disabled based on when you’re using the device docked or not.
Otherwise, the toggle would exist in the quick access menu.
That’s also not how it works on laptops that offer it, so I doubt the idea is having users constantly toggling it.
That’s less of an issue with devices you use in battery mode all day, but the Deck sits on the docking Station most of the time and constantly getting held at 100%
No, I’m referring to the fact that unplugging early to avoid decreasing the battery health and therefore capacity makes no sense… Because you’re decreasing the battery capacity by only using 80% of it’s charge
I think it comes down to driver support. It’s not that the hardware can’t do this, but rather it’s that you need to pass the option to control it all the way up from the lowest levels of the system eventually into user space where you can select an option in settings.
That, and it’s just not the first priority on devices that are generally low-margin.
Finally!!
Still can’t believe some phones don’t have this
The logic is deeply flawed though.
Keep your battery at 80% to preserve it’s health, because Lithium batteries prefer that. Sure. But here’s what it effectively means:
Keep your battery forever stuck at 80%… to avoid losing battery capacity… so to avoid having less battery runtime you limit your battery runtime… Thus suffering today the consequences you feared in the future.
But this 80% will last a lot longer.
80% is 80%, there’s no “80% that will last a lot longer”
Consider two decreasing lines, one with a slightly lower slope. Now imagine the steeper line starting higher on this graph, eventually the lines will cross and despite starting lower the shallower line will be higher.
You’re missing the point. Obviously the battery health will degrade faster without the feature - otherwise there’s no point even having it.
The point is that the consequence of two years of heavy battery degradation is the total capacity dropping to… Around 80% of the nominal capacity.
Which means all you’re doing is limiting your battery artificially to avoid having it limited by the actual chemistry later on. Which is analogous to amputating your arm today because five years from now you might develop a disease.
… do you know how batteries work? Or how they degrade?
I mean, 80% corresponding to X mAh battery capacity. It will stay at that value for much longer.
No, I’m not suffering the consequences I’m fearing now. Having 80% capacity is enough to last me through the day, what I’m fearing is when the capacity drops below 60%, 50% or even less which I can greatly delay by only charging to 80%.
Additionally, I’m not forever stuck at 80%. If I know I will need more capacity, I can always disable the restriction for the next charge.
The logic isn’t flawed, your priors are. You’re assuming that people are constantly on a cycle of charging their battery to the limit, running it down low, and then charging it again. If you mostly play docked or with a charger plugged in then capping the battery at around 80% prolongs the battery runtime for when you do turn the limit off and want to use the full battery.
If you mostly play fully charged and stationary, then lowering the charge limit means you have more future opportunities to experience the fully battery runtime when you disable the setting.
There’s absolutely no way a setting buried in a menu is designed to be constantly enabled and disabled based on when you’re using the device docked or not.
Otherwise, the toggle would exist in the quick access menu.
That’s also not how it works on laptops that offer it, so I doubt the idea is having users constantly toggling it.
That’s less of an issue with devices you use in battery mode all day, but the Deck sits on the docking Station most of the time and constantly getting held at 100%
The Deck automatically stops charging and let’s the battery drain to around 95% when plugged in anyway.
deleted by creator
How exactly is a screenshot supposed to disprove a dynamic process that happens over time, again?
Why do you reply to a deleted comment?
I can still see the contents. And the point still stands, the logic won’t change just because you apparently removed it.
Why do you think I did delete the comment 1 minute after I posted?
Stop arguing with yourself
I mean, I was just gonna unplug it at 80 and plug it back it at 40.
Beforehand I couldn’t just leave it cause it would go to 100%.
If your referring to always keeping it plugged in, can’t I cap it at 60% then?
No, I’m referring to the fact that unplugging early to avoid decreasing the battery health and therefore capacity makes no sense… Because you’re decreasing the battery capacity by only using 80% of it’s charge
What about only charging to 80% until I actually go on a road trip?
It’s same with electric cars, there is day to day mode and road trip mode.
Short term vs long term gains.
I think it comes down to driver support. It’s not that the hardware can’t do this, but rather it’s that you need to pass the option to control it all the way up from the lowest levels of the system eventually into user space where you can select an option in settings.
That, and it’s just not the first priority on devices that are generally low-margin.