Why isn’t the 80% charging limit coming to older iPhones?

My iPhone 13 has had almost 500 cycles and the battery health is at 93%. This was a trade up from an iPhone 6S. Obviously things have moved on a lot with power consumption much lower and with the phone on low power mode, even after 2 years I am still getting more than 24 hours out of one charge.

You have the ability through shortcuts to keep an iPhone always on low power mode even when it charges past 80%. The great feature that would significantly extend battery life is of course only charging to 80%. Tesla now recommend 80% down from 90% for its NMC/NCA higher performance batteries.

Battery University points out that 3.92 volts is the optimum charge for a lithium ion battery which removes all voltage related stress. This is around 65% SOC. This is where I keep my Tesla for day to day use.

Back on topic - Apple should give us the option to manage how long we want our device batteries to last. We will get many many more battery cycles to what is considered end of life for the cell if we can stop charging at 80%.

Apple, please bring this feature to all iPhones which support the latest iOS.

Really i want this option so please give this option 80% limit.

In my opinion, I guess Apple wants to avoid some bugs in this feature, so just let a bit of iPhones use this feature first for testing it.

Additionally, it guides some people to buy new devices to earn more money.

I guess this feature will be released in the future for older iPhones, I hope this will happen as soon as possible.

If the phone is turned on when it is charging, the iPhone 13 Pro hardware should be entirely capable of supporting an "80% Limit" option. After all, it supports "Optimized Battery Charging", which requires the phone to predict the time when you'll need a full charge, as well as to selectively delay that charge.

Even when the phone is turned "off", whatever hardware and software is still operational has to be able to prevent the phone from overcharging. But maybe the "turned off" hardware and software on the iPhone 15 models is set up to be able to enforce an 80% limit where the previous models have a "hard-wired" 100% one.

K Shaffer wrote:

There is a support article which again addresses this concern

~ while uncertain (if or how) that's supposed to work again..

If your iPhone or iPod touch won't charge - Apple Support

//support.apple.com/en-us/HT201569

An internal link goes to this part within article:

"My device stopped charging at 80 percent"

[And other (helpful?) details are sprinkled here too.]

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/f1f780d9-6c86-4e9b-ba49-10a851ca5e1c

The OP isn't complaining that his iPhone 13 Pro will not charge past 80 percent.

iPhones have had "Optimized Battery Charging" for a while, as a way of reducing wear and tear on the battery. Now iOS 17 is offering a more manual alternative ("80% Limit", which limits the battery charge to 80% or less, most of the time). The OP seems to want the option to use "80% Limit" on his iPhone 13 Pro, but Apple is only offering that new feature for iPhone 15 family models.

Thats the most apply thing I have heard today. Like almost all supported iPhones can hold charge and charge to full near morning if you enable the optimization option. But of course the hardware only supports it when it does it on it’s own or when it does it at 6 am, certainly doing the same things on other times of the day or when the user wants to do it would require more hardware changes.

Yup, makes sense.

There is a support article which again addresses this concern

~ while uncertain (if or how) that's supposed to work again..

If your iPhone or iPod touch won't charge - Apple Support

//support.apple.com/en-us/HT201569

An internal link goes to this part within article:

"My device stopped charging at 80 percent"

[And other (helpful?) details are sprinkled here too.]

AlethomDaze wrote:

Why isn’t it capable? It already supports optimized charging and when that feature was released every iOS 16 (if I’m not mistaken) had it, and it’s a much more complex feature working with machine learning and location to learn habits, while this feature is VERY basic.

So if you tell me the hardware can’t support this feature I simply don’t believe you.

Maybe older phones could support the feature, but Apple chose not to offer it for marketing reasons.

Maybe older phones could support it when turned "on" – but not when turned "off" – and Apple decided that, rather than offering a partial feature that was a bit difficult to explain, it was better not to offer the partial feature at all.

You're talking to other users here, and we don't know the full answer to your "Why" question. I'm guessing that Apple will never answer the "Why" question and that it is what it is. If you want to provide feedback to Apple, in the hope that they will change the way the feature operates in future version of iOS, you could try sending them feedback at:

Product Feedback - Apple

Thankfully my iPhone is older and cannot see that as a cure to anything.

However there is an answer in what I posted, nonetheless; just not what

you suggest, & perhaps was not my point, to offer that to reflect as one.

We are users just like you. We are not privy to all the details of Apple’s code.

You don’t have to believe us if you don’t want to, but that will not alter reality at all.

If you only charge your Tesla up to 65%, you will damage the battery because the battery packs cannot balance, as they have too little voltage. A Tesla battery is indeed not like a cellphone battery, a Tesla has not just one battery but, for example, 4416 cells (in the case of the Model 3 Long Range). So to speak, if you only charge up to 65%, you are only using half of the cells up to 100% and the others less. I have been charging to 82% for 2 years and have only lost 2% capacity. Also, a Tesla service employee told me I should definitely charge above 80%, otherwise, the voltage would not be sufficient for balancing.

Hi

This is interesting. Why would Tesla say don’t charge beyond 80% unless going on a trip? Wouldn’t that mean the cells never balance for a local use EV? LFP require 100% because the voltage curve is very flat so you can’t get an accurate SOC for any individual cell until at or near 100%.

NMC cells are quite different and you can more accurately determine SOC by individual cell voltage and I assume the BMS balances to whatever SOC you choose. But what you are saying is no cell balancing is done on NMC until an SOC of 82% is chosen?

Did they say what cell voltage is the trigger for 82% at which balancing on a Tesla commences?

thank you

adam.

Worth a read for anyone wanting to keep their batteries in service for a long time.

https://x.com/LimitingThe/status/1676642700613787660?s=20

Also I find this a useful and clear explanation.

https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries

I believe the Tesla employee mentioned over 4 volts. I found this in a Tesla forum: If you charge right before you leave, the cells will not balance. In order for the car to balance the cells the SOC has to be > ~85% (minimum brick voltage of 4.0 volts) , AND the car has to be asleep AND the imbalance has to be >=5mv. Keep in mind, if imbalance goes over 200mv the car cannot fix it (At 201mv imbalance, the lowest brick is 3.99 and the car will not balance unless minimum brick voltage is >=4.0 volts). It takes 24 hours of sitting there balancing the cells to fix 1mv of imbalance.