Hands-On Tech 277 Transcript
Please be advised that this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word-for-word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-free version of the show.
Mikah Sargent [00:00:00]:
Coming up on Hands-On Tech, let's settle a debate between loved ones about whether it's a good idea to keep a laptop plugged in, plus some bonus info about charging. Stay tuned. Hello and welcome to Hands-On Tech. I am Micah Sargent, and today we are once again answering fantastic tech questions. Today's tech question comes in from Angela. Angela writes, Hey Micah, settle a household argument for me. My laptop lives on my desk plugged into power 95% of the time.
Mikah Sargent [00:00:43]:
My husband insists I'm killing the battery and should let it drain regularly. I say it's fine and he's stuck in 2009. Who's right? Does leaving a modern laptop plugged in all the time actually hurt anything? And are those battery charge limit settings I keep hearing about worth using? Well, Angela, love the question. And let's start with a short answer. Angela, I gotta tell you, you mostly win this one. Yeah, you are, you're almost entirely correct. Your husband's advice is 2009 advice. Love that part.
Mikah Sargent [00:01:21]:
But there is one modern twist worth adopting, and it is that thing that you talked about, charge limit. So let's kind of start with the myths and bust those in real time. Here's the myth. The myth is you're overcharging it. False. Wrong. No. Modern laptops will stop sending power to the battery at full charge and then run off of the wall adapter instead.
Mikah Sargent [00:01:49]:
And they do this in many different ways and will discharge and recharge and do all sorts of magical stuff in the background to make it happen. Overcharging is a myth on any laptop. I'm gonna put— I'm gonna set the— I'm gonna, I'm gonna set it down. I think overcharging is a myth on any laptop made in the last decade. Okay, so it's been a while since overcharging a laptop was an issue. Here's the next myth. The myth is you need to drain it regularly. That's also false and frankly is actually harmful.
Mikah Sargent [00:02:25]:
Uh, that advice comes from the nickel-cadmium batteries of yesteryear that had what was called the memory effect, but lithium Lithium-ion batteries don't have the memory effect, and regularly draining to 0% will stress a lithium battery rather than actually help it. You don't need to do it. So no, plugged in 95% of the time is not killing the battery. However, I do have to give a little bit of grace, a little bit of understanding here, because there is a kernel of truth on your husband's side of things. Lithium-ion batteries age fastest when we're at the extreme ranges. Okay? So parked at 100% charge for months is going to age the battery. Drained to 0% is going to age the battery. Kept very hot is, say it with me, going to age the battery.
Mikah Sargent [00:03:24]:
The real enemy here is heat paired with a full battery. That's the, like, that's the grand boss, the big bad guy. Heat plus a full battery is gonna be the worst case. A laptop that sits plugged in at 100% in a warm room or on a bed that's blocking its vents, that will age the battery faster than one that is able to cycle gently. So the happy zone for lithium-ion batteries is roughly between 20% and 80% charge. And here's the thing, I'm not just making all of this up. Uh, this is, this is the real deal. In fact, uh, HP.
Mikah Sargent [00:04:05]:
Yeah. Along with others, uh, talk about whether it's a bad idea to leave your laptop plugged in. And in fact, in this guide from HP, it says no. Modern laptops use battery management systems, also known as BMS, that prevent overcharging by cutting power to the battery at 100% charge. Now listen though. However, keeping batteries at extreme charge levels, 0% or 100%, and exposing them to heat can accelerate degradation over time. So there is something to understand there that those extremes can be an issue. You can, we'll of course link this guide in the show notes so you can read more about that.
Mikah Sargent [00:04:46]:
So how do we go about fixing this? Well, we can do, well, we don't actually have to do a whole lot of anything. In many cases, companies have taken care of this for us. So the modern fix is that manufacturers have already built the solution right in so that you You don't have to babysit percentages anymore. You don't need to do all of the work of keeping these batteries tracked. It's understandable that you did it before when the battery technology was different and before we also had software/firmware to help manage it, but now things are taken care of. So with the Mac, you've got optimized battery charging. This will learn your routine. It'll hold the battery at 80% when it predicts that you're going to stay plugged in.
Mikah Sargent [00:05:28]:
And Apple also has a great guide that's all about optimized battery charging. So you can see here, here that Apple explains what optimized battery charging does with your Mac, since we're talking about a laptop. And as of macOS, I believe it's Tahoe 26.4, Macs also have a hard charge limit slider. So in System Settings, in Battery, you can even say never charge it above 80%. And that's something that you can do. So if you want to do a little bit of babysitting, if it makes you feel a little bit better, Go ahead and set that up. On the Windows side of things, of course, it's going to depend on your laptop maker. So if you have a Lenovo laptop, you can use the tool called Lenovo Vantage, which does the battery performance work for you.
Mikah Sargent [00:06:22]:
If you have a Dell— Dude, you're getting a Dell. Then you should check out the Dell Power Manager. That's also going to keep things tracked for you. The, there are similar tools, of course, from HP and ASUS. And then there are some that require you to kind of look in the BIOS to be able to track this. But for a desk-bound laptop like yours, Angela, setting an 80% limit, if you're able to, is the single best thing that you can do for long-term battery health. Okay? And there's zero downside if the machine rarely ever leaves the desk, right? If you're not taking it places, then you don't need it to be at 100%. 80% is going to keep it safe until you do need it to go somewhere and do something with.
Mikah Sargent [00:07:09]:
If you're not doing a lot of traveling, set that limit and you're good to go. Now, if you, again, if you take it traveling, go ahead before that and set yourself a reminder or something, flip the limit off for the trip, and then you can turn it back on when you get back home. I want to also mention, because, you know, we're kind of busting myths here, uh, there's A question then that often comes up, if we're not talking about laptops, we're talking about phones. Because I and many people I know charge their phones overnight. But I know people who have been told or who have learned or who believe that charging your phone overnight is an issue, that it's hurting the battery. But The chemistry's the same here, folks. Same chemistry, same answer. Phones don't overcharge.
Mikah Sargent [00:08:02]:
iPhones, modern Android phones use optimized charging. So again, charging to like 80%, pausing, finishing to 100% right before your wake-up time. Apple has a guide about its optimized charging and charging limits for the phone as well. We'll include a link to that. And the newer iPhones, so if you've got an iPhone 15 or later, lets you set that hard limit. And overnight charging, frankly, was a reasonable worry 15 years ago. But today, our phones are smarter than the myth. I do want to say though, in the same way that we talked about some of the issues that you might have with, um, the, the extremes, the same applies here.
Mikah Sargent [00:08:44]:
And so if you do use a wireless charger, uh, and you have a case on your phone, You may wanna sort of check how much heat is involved in the charging process because that will have some impact. A wireless charger, sort of by the nature of wireless charging, is going to introduce more heat to the situation than a cable that's plugged in. And that's because the sort of, as the charging is happening, The not as connected nature of the charging process means that it's— that what's not— what energy is not used in the charge is lost in heat, is dissipated in heat. And so it is involving more heat. So if you're— If you aren't someone who maybe exchanges your phone every 3 years or who is not really in the business of just getting a new battery or something like that, if you keep your phone for a very long time, then maybe, maybe, maybe I would suggest that overnight you plug it in to charge as opposed to slapping it on a wireless charger. But the fact is Apple and others have introduced magnetic alignment on newer phones that help to improve the charging, which reduces the heat— the efficiency of the charging, I should say— which helps to Reduce the heat. So you still do see some impact over time because there is still heat, but it isn't as much of an issue as it once was. So here's the bottom line: plugging it in all the time, keeping your laptop plugged in all the time, is fine.
Mikah Sargent [00:10:37]:
Deliberately draining it is not only outdated, it's counterproductive for modern technology. The one upgrade that I give again on the 2009 advice, so you know the 2009 advice isn't completely wrong, is that you can turn on that 80% charge limit for a desk laptop. And frankly, more than anything, the reason why we watch our charging and why charging has been an issue with batteries is heat. To this day, heat is the real battery killer in most cases. So keeping those vents clear, if you have a laptop that has fans or even just vents, that are for letting heat leave the unit. Keep those clear. Keep the machine off of soft surfaces where it can't reliably send out the heat and bring in cool air, if again you have a fan. And ultimately, Angela, you're right.
Mikah Sargent [00:11:39]:
That is the true answer. But your husband? Does get partial credit for caring about the battery, but it's like this much, okay? So don't worry, Angela, you're the real winner here. Thank you so much for taking the time to write in with your question. hot@twit.tv is how you can get in touch. And with that, it is time to say goodbye to all of you. Thank you so much for writing in this week. If you have questions, again, hot@twit.tv, and I look forward to hearing from you and answering your questions soon. Bye.
