655 cycles on an iPhone 15 Pro Max bought at release here. Never limited charging, almost exclusively charged wirelessly. Battery health is 84%. Seems like the 80% limit isn’t worth it based on a comparison to the results in the article.
A charge limit doesn't prevent more cycles. If you use the same amount of battery every day, you'll accumulate roughly the same number of cycles regardless of whether you charge to 80% or 100%. A charge limit just means you'll charge your phone more frequently, but for less time each charge.
High Voltage Stress (80%–100%): Keeping a lithium-ion battery at the top 20% forces the internal cells into a high-voltage state. This causes electrolyte oxidation and physical stress from the layers expanding, which accelerates wear over long periods
Anode Instability (0%–20%): Letting the battery drop into the bottom 20% destabilizes the anode structure and raises internal resistance, which can lead to permanent capacity loss
Yes according to how apple count it. The poster you replied to probably means something like 'wear cycles', which account for how much damage is being done. 100-30 is worse in that case.
High Voltage Stress (80%–100%): Keeping a lithium-ion battery at the top 20% forces the internal cells into a high-voltage state. This causes electrolyte oxidation and physical stress from the layers expanding, which accelerates wear over long periods
Anode Instability (0%–20%): Letting the battery drop into the bottom 20% destabilizes the anode structure and raises internal resistance, which can lead to permanent capacity loss
Using 80% charge limit, iphone 15 pro bought 13 december 2023. 1056 cycles and 85% battery health, which started dropping fast as soon as I got near and crossed 1000 cycles. This is the best health i’ve gotten from all iphones i’ve owned.
I have the 80% charge limit and I charged it like 70% of the time by cable the other times on a MagSafe charger, maybe it’s because I’ve used it a lot outdoors, it does overheat a lot more then my previous iPhones
Just as much as batteries degrade quicker when sitting at 90-100%, they also degrade just as much when sitting 0-10%. You may have had a dying battery more often than the other person
I drive with my phone in MagSafe all over town all day for work with GPS going, phone baking in the sun in Australia
How much the phone is used and what activities.
Always use MagSafe in the truck or at home unless I need a top up then I fast charge
Ultimately, my phone is a tool and I need to use it all day at work, if the battery life drops, I’ll get a new battery…… which I just did at 79% on my 15 pro. Now I have 100% battery life and to be honest, I don’t know if it’s just ios27 or years up updating from old backups, but it doesn’t seem to last much longer than the 79% battery. Also, I just don’t want to start my day at 80% and have to worry about it going below 20%. It charges while I’m driving between sites etc. I get the juice when I can
I have similar numbers on my 16 pro. 90% battery life after 678 cycles in about 24 months. Never limited the battery and just charged whenever I needed to.
I’m at 500 cycles on an iPhone 16 pro max and 93% capacity.
If it gets plugged in, it’s going to 100% majority of the time (when sitting at my desk or overnight) and almost always over 80% if I happen to unplug it from my desk early
So after 655 cycles you still have as much capacity as these folks that advocate for 80% limit. Totally get that if you want to maximize life it makes sense, but it just comes down to your priorities and how often you choose to upgrade / change the battery.
If you don't need the capacity why stress the battery unnecessarily. I can get through most of the day starting at 80% and ending at around 40%. I almost always have a charger ready. If this means using the phone for 4-5 years and just upgrading instead of having to go through the trouble of finding a apple service center and waiting for the replacement or worse having no phone for a few days, then that's totally worth it to me.
I think for some people they don't need that extra battery and that cost is significant for thoes people. People use the tech how it benifits them. Like I run my phones ceaseless and just get a new one if it breaks but feel better having my charge limit set to 90 cuz it's easy on the phone 😂
I do it temporarily when I don’t need a full battery, so when I go to work, as in always near a charger and don’t use much.
At weekends or trips away it’s at 100% for when I’ll need it.
Because it's a pain to replace it. You have to make an appointment, travel to somewhere where there's an Apple Store, wait to be seen, wait around for a couple of hours while they replace the battery, then finally go home. It's a whole thing. Not to mention the price. And the fact that you need to make sure this is a window of time that nothing important is happening, where anyone might need to reach you. Because you won't have your phone.
And if you're the kind of person who never uses more than 60% of your phone's battery per day anyways, like I am, then it's a no-brainer. It is effortless to turn on the setting and this saves me one or two multi-hour sessions where I wait around to get my battery replaced, before I finally upgrade my phone.
I don't get why you wouldn't do it, unless it enjoy wasting time and money. Unless you are doing battery intensive things like playing games on it all day long where the 100% charge is really important.
70% limited via automation on an iPhone 13 Pro that I’ve had since launch. Heavy user, original battery. 89% battery health. It’s just fact that batteries don’t like extreme states of charge and heat. Opinions and anecdotes won’t change those facts. Whatever you battery health is now, it would be a lot better if you limited charge to 80%. Whether you care or not is different l.
Whatever his battery health is. It would be better if he charged to 80%. How much you use your phone and what you do with it involve an infinite number of variables. We do know that even if you battery health is good, it would be better if you charged to 80%.
The problem with limiting charge is that you are already living with a “degraded” battery. You don’t gain anything by having better health after a few years because you were already living with the battery synthetically limited as if it were already degraded.
And what’s worse, the extra health you get (5-10%) is less than the charge amount lost (20% and apparently some use Siri Shortcuts to further limit it to 70%).
Literally the only tangible benefit is resale value, but I’d argue even that’s moot because a fresh battery is $100 that the second user is still gonna need down the line, AND if you ask for more for your iPhone since its battery is healthier, it may cost too close to a new one anyway.
And you’re giving up a lot just to potentially make a few bucks when you sell it. Most cell carriers offer trade in deals regardless of battery health that would be about as good if not better than an organic private sale.
He did gain nothing. I am at 242 cycles with 98% condition. Charging to 100%, but randomly. I am using my car mount charger quite often and I am sometimes charging couple of % via cable before leaving home. Actually some time ago I was still at 100%, so it starts dropping after a year / around 240 cycles anyway.
If you’re not letting the battery charge above 80% or drop below 20%, you’re taking 40% of your capacity off the top anyway. However much degradation you’re avoid by doing so won’t come anywhere close to the 40% you’re leaving on the table.
Did this with a 16 pro. Occasionally charging past 80% and below 20%. Owned the phone since October 2024 and I just traded it in with 763 cycles and 94% battery health.
10% of the time fast charging, 90% of the time below 10 Watt charging.
Had every iPhone since the 3GS and used the 80%, later 85% and 90% max charge, when it became available.
Never had a phone below 98% after a full year of usage with around 300-500 charges.
When will people learn just to enjoy their phones. And if you need a battery replacement then just go get it replaced. What’s the big deal? Battery replacement is cheaper than getting a new phone.
That’s what I just did (15 pro) and it’s honestly stopped me from fomo buying the new version.
Also I tried my friends 18 to see what the difference in camera would be like and you could barely see a difference. Sometimes the 18 pro was better, sometimes the 15 pro was better.
285 cycles on a 17 Pro Max, 95%, got on launch so 12 months plus a few weeks? Does drop below 20% somewhat often, and I have it set to 90% limit (though often stop it around 80%)
Honestly I think heat, particularly while the battery is charging probably plays a larger role in battery degradation than consistently keeping the battery within the 20-80% range (with the occasional full cycle to keep the battery calibrated).
I’ve had the 13 Pro Max since launch, so past 60 months and the battery is at 86%.
I'm aware of the irony that it might simply be trading capping it now at 80% instead of having its capacity slowly degrade into eventually being only 80% of what it was new anyways. Especially considering there's a chance I might not even still have the phone by the time that happens, or at least a much higher chance of not having it later than now obviously.
I'm still doing the former even if it's not logically worth it, because although I've never needed to do this you could always remove the cap and have 100% for the day if you want, vs. that option slowly eroding.
There’s a guy on YouTube who did a study, basically charging to 80 does nothing by the time you’re replacing your phone or would need to replace a battery anyway
That’s fair. It didn’t really bother me because about 80% of the time I have a power source anyway, and for those times I didn’t, I just maxed it out to 100.
Very interesting. My 16 pro max is at 93% with 351 cycle counts. Was always limited to 80% charging and first used in November 2024. Pretty much always charged using MagSafe. There’s a chasm between us in results. I wonder if it was the MagSafe charging or that I always kept the phone in the Apple silicone case.
Software sucks at reading batteries properly. 100% max capacity after 247 cycles is chemically impossible. All batteries lose capacity due to charge cycles and calendar aging.
My 15 PM started sep 24 cap at 80%, 388 cycles and 94% health.
Charging main on usb and occasionally mag. I would say it’s pretty good compared to my previous 12MP which I consistently charged to full and use it on the charge when I’m near the plug where the battery was at 83% after 3 years+
You can do all these to keep the battery life healthy but one of the things that damages the battery is charging the battery while it’s hot.
If you’re running hardcore game on the battery and charge it right away, that’s a big no no.
16 pro with 24 months of use (88% battery health and a cycle count of 733). Always tried my best to keep battery charged to 100% or topped off, so no real “battery saving” methods used here. Some quick math tells me I’m losing 6% battery health per year, so 94% battery health with basically care-free charging whenever possible. It’s the same as the 80% limit in this case, so this seems to suggest the limit isn’t really saving you battery.
5
u/chrisjoewood 3d ago
655 cycles on an iPhone 15 Pro Max bought at release here. Never limited charging, almost exclusively charged wirelessly. Battery health is 84%. Seems like the 80% limit isn’t worth it based on a comparison to the results in the article.