BU-808: How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries (2023)

I may be a bit odd, but I store lithium ion battery containing electronics in the vegetable drawer in the fridge. You lose 20% of capacity in a year if you have 100% state of charge but only 6% loss of capacity at refrigerator temperatures. So tool batteries, small electronics and whatever else that isn't used weekly gets put in.

I also try to charge fully only just before use (and only if I need 100%), and store at partial charge. If I am charging for storage, I just set a 30 minute timer. Since 1C charging is the most common, 30 minutes at 1C will be about 50% state of charge from empty, which is useful for items with no state of charge indicator.

I use AlDente[1] on my Apple laptops, and the 80% charge feature on my Pixel phone. My bedside phone charger is a slow charger.

Maybe I'm doing too much to manage my batteries, but I also haven't needed to retire anything for having a bad battery in many years, nor had items with dwindling capacity.

[1] https://github.com/AppHouseKitchen/AlDente-Battery_Care_and_...

+1 for battery university, they're an excellent source. Does anyone have any other suggestions for similarly technically deep (while approachable) articles on any other facet consumer electronics?

My understanding from this article is that:

1. Charge the battery to as low a max percentage as possible (till about 65%) 2. Keep it as cool as possible (up to zero degrees C at least) 3. Use it as little as possible before recharging it (minimize charge-discharge bandwidth)

Aka, over-rate and over size the battery if you're building the device, and minimize extremes on any side of soc (state of charge).

Do EV manufacturers use any other tricks not covered by this?

(Of course, use the device as needed, these are just guidelines for the best perfomance.)

Reminds me of “Chargie”, a gadget that goes inline with your USB charging cable and controlled by an app on the device to limit the charge level to whatever you choose. I think it was born via kickstarter.

  “The most Intelligent Battery Health Protection for Phones & Laptops”
  https://chargie.org/

After the first battery of my Samsung S4 expanded at the end of its life in less than 2 years, I found a utility that didn't work perfectly but could limit charge anywhere between 30 to 100% most of the time, and it prolonged the lifetime of the couple of later batteries during the 10+ years I used the phone with a limit around 66%.

I was glad to see my new Samsung XCover 7 has a built-in option to limit charge to 80%, although a flaky usb cable could sometimes overcharge to 100%. And also has a removable battery.

Between 50% 3.7V and 80% ~4-4.2V is the best.

Don' let the voltage go to far below 3.7V and don't over charge above ~4-4.2V.