this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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Steam Deck
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Isn't keeping it plugged in all the time really bad for the battery? It should stay between 30 and 80% iirc.
Iirc the SD does discharge from full battery a bit when plugged in for a while to preserve battery health.
It lets the battery discharge to 90% while plugged in. If you’re not using it for a few days you should still unplug.
It will still keep it above 90% all the time which is bad according to most comments I just found by googling about it, it's just the nature of lithium batteries. Steam deck allegedly has a feature to use direct power from outlet if in use while charging and if at max, but it still keeps battery at high %.
Most of that is really old knowledge from before the days of sophisticated charge controllers.
Maintaining a high SoC is still very damaging to battery life.
Which is why the charge controller does not do it. It will drop to a sustainable voltage when it detects longer wired connection after being charged and adjusts the "percentage" it shows you accordingly so you still see a 100 to 0.
Do you have anything to back that up with or are you speaking from personal incredulity? What you said certainly does not apply to e.g. contemporary smartphones.
Contemporary smartphones tend to push things a bit harder to offer the "best" performance in the first few weeks. Though I have to say comparing today's newest phones with phones from 2015, battery management has gotten a lot softer.
It’s worse than storing it in the ideal zone - between 3.6 and 4.0 volts (% means nothing if we’re getting technical as there is an interpretation later in software). Constantly at 4.2 is bad, dropping below 3.0 is very very bad, and going to ~2.7(iirc) is simply murder. I have a telemetry module in a rocket which doors not have a low voltage cut off and every time I’ve left it on at least one cell in the lipo is permanently damaged.
In the telemetry case, it’s designed to run absolutely a long s as possible because the cost of a (interchangeable) battery is small compared to the cost of the rocket and telemetry payload.
I’m not a battery expert, but I’ve left lipos in computers and phones on chargers for years without substantial/excessive deterioration relative to their number of charge/discharge cycles; my experience with the telemetry makes me more wary of full discharge as a cell damage condition (not a direct analog as the deck certainly shuts down before lipo cell death)
—-I should point out that I’m not terribly worried about battery damage - that’s a red herring. I’m just pissed when I grab my deck and its battery is dead and I was hoping to squeeze in a quick game. :-)
Below the 3.0 volt limit will reduce usable cycle count by 30-80% Everytime the cell drops that low. Charging over 4.1 will reduce usable cycle count as well.
Example # of usable cycles if you stop discharge at 3.2 and stop charging at 4.0 for modern lipos can be 5000-10000 cycles.
Charging to 4.3 every cycle (phone batteries are rated to 4.3 not 4.2... it's why they have the larger than expected wh capacity numbers) will reduce that to 500.
Discharge it to 2.5 and you will get 10-50 cycles.
For those who are just looking at the SD or their phones... Most devices report 0% at 3 or 3.1v and 100% at 4.3 or 4.2 volts... So basically discharging to 0% doesn't matter... It's the charging to 100% that matters to most people.
If you charge to 100% you will get about 500 charges (it doesn't matter what the % is you start at is... 90% -> 100% is the same one cycle as 20% -> 100%). That's about two years of use for most people before your battery starts to suffer and you will see noticable decrease in battery life.
If you charge to 70% you will get about 10 years before you will see a drop in battery life. 80% will get you about 6-8 years.