Is there a technical reason that Windows 11 doesn't have built into it battery charge limitation?

[Space Lynx]

I noticed on my new work laptop battery always charges to 100%, but I would like to limit that to 80% since it protects the battery longevity. My phone I have limited to 85% as Samsung understands this and offers that in settings. So, I was wondering why does Microsoft not have this feature to limit the battery charge to a desired number around 80-85% to preserve battery longevity?

Is it just impossible for Microsoft to control that function? Or just an oversight? Just curious.

 

[Bill_Bright]

If your laptop supports it, it should be there and already enabled UNLESS your laptop manufacturer disables it - perhaps to enable their own version of it. In W11 it is called Smart Charging and it is built in there.

See: What Is Smart Charging on Windows 10 and Windows 11? (howtogeek.com)

 

[Wirko]

Some googling reveals that manufacturer-supplied bloatware often includes the charge limiting feature (which you rightfully expect to be part of Windows, and manageable via power plans or some other standardised UI).

@Bill_Bright that article apparently applies to MS Surface. As for the others, it says this:

Most laptop manufacturers have something equivalent to Microsoft's smart charging, though the implementation varies.

 

[Space Lynx]

I'm aware most laptops have the option in the BIOS, I haven't checked the bios of this new laptop yet. I was specifically wondering why Windows 11 doesn't just offer it for everyone is all. It's no big deal, just seems like such a waste to preserve battery life. Should come default turned on imo.

 

[Bill_Bright]

or some other standardised UI

Standards are the problem and why I am not sure I would expect it to be part of Windows. Laptops are notoriously proprietary with no ATX Form Factor type standard. And batteries and their charging circuits are definitely part of the hardware.

To me, it would make sense, if the feature existed in Windows, it would be like the rudimentary basic support we see with keyboards, mice, graphics and network interfaces - just enough support for basic functions to work. After that, if the user or manufacturer have or want any advanced features enabled and/or functional, additional specific drivers would need to be installed.

Should come default turned on imo.

As I noted, it normally does - UNLESS the laptop maker changes the defaults, which it would seem they did with your laptop.

 

[bonehead123]

Well, we certainly can't have mfgr's (let alone M$) doing anythings that make sense, now can we, hehehe

But OTOH, we just got new work lappers too, and the IT guys said that was the 1st thing they checked before handing them out to the crew (since alot of them are tower replacements and will rarely leave the cubicles)...and guess what....

about 1/2 of them had it turned on by default, the rest did not.....how much sense does THAT make ?

Note that they were all (168.43) were (supposedly) of the exact same model & Rev # too, so what does that tell us ?

 

[Space Lynx]

about 1/2 of them had it turned on by default, the rest did not.....how much sense does THAT make ?

doesn't make sense at all, sounds like whoever was in charge of that quality control was a bonehead indeed.

 

[remixedcat]

I'm aware most laptops have the option in the BIOS, I haven't checked the bios of this new laptop yet. I was specifically wondering why Windows 11 doesn't just offer it for everyone is all. It's no big deal, just seems like such a waste to preserve battery life. Should come default turned on imo.

what laptop did you end up getting?

 

[cvaldes]

This really should be the responsibility of the hardware manufacturer. Program the battery management chip to handle the details of when to start and stop charging and just report status to the operating system.

It's similar to TRIM on SSDs. Initially there were OS-based utilities that handled this. Today the SSD controller chip usually handles TRIM so the OS doesn't have to worry about it.

Also, if you run VMs or alternative operating systems, you would still get the proper behavior whether you're running Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, ChromeOS or something else. The battery would charge correctly regardless of what sort of sloppy operating system is running on top of it.

This is one of the reasons why battery management performance on Linux has a well earned reputation for sucking, regardless of the distribution.

And frankly with my experience with Windows, I'm not sure if I would want Microsoft to handle this. They can't even run an app store correctly and let's not dive into hexadecimal error codes during Windows Updates.

 

[Space Lynx]

This really should be the responsibility of the hardware manufacturer. Program the battery management chip to handle the details of when to start and stop charging and just report status to the operating system.

It's similar to TRIM on SSDs. Initially there were OS-based utilities that handled this. Today the SSD controller chip usually handles TRIM so the OS doesn't have to worry about it.

Also, if you run VMs or alternative operating systems, you would still get the same behavior whether you're running Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, ChromeOS or something else. The battery would charge correctly regardless of what sort of sloppy operating system is running on top of it.

honestly I just wish battery manufactures would require this automatically, 20% min limit charge, and 85% max charge - should just be a law that says they have to ship batteries that way, for longevity/environmental reasons.

maybe that is a little hardcore, I don't know, I just feel like we are such a wasteful society in so many ways these days. /shrug

 

[cvaldes]

honestly I just wish battery manufactures would require this automatically, 20% min limit charge, and 85% max charge - should just be a law that says they have to ship batteries that way, for longevity/environmental reasons.

maybe that is a little hardcore, I don't know, I just feel like we are such a wasteful society in so many ways these days. /shrug

People want more battery life, they don't really care if they need to replace them six months earlier.

That's just consumer preferences. Maybe not yours but for sure Joe Consumer would rather have 8 hours of notebook runtime rather than 7.

Maybe you have never run out of battery juice with a notebook PC but I have.

 

[Space Lynx]

People want more battery life, they don't really care if they need to replace them six months earlier.

That's just consumer preferences. Maybe not yours but for sure Joe Consumer would rather have 8 hours of notebook runtime rather than 7.

Maybe you have never run out of battery juice with a notebook PC but I have.

I am talking about laptops only, since when they are plugged in all the time as mine is, the battery will die very very fast.

Unplug Your Laptop Now, or It Will Stay Plugged in Forever

So many of us are "perma-charging" our laptops, but it's a performance myth that shortens your computer's lifespan.

gizmodo.com

so for my particular scenario it would just be nice to have the option to make it charge to 85% only.

 

[cvaldes]

I am talking about laptops only, since when they are plugged in all the time as mine is, the battery will die very very fast.

Unplug Your Laptop Now, or It Will Stay Plugged in Forever

So many of us are "perma-charging" our laptops, but it's a performance myth that shortens your computer's lifespan.

gizmodo.com

so for my particular scenario it would just be nice to have the option to make it charge to 85% only.

That's like labeling an amp to 10 just so sometimes you can turn it up to 11.



You're just chopping off runtime now for the tradeoff of delaying a battery replacement by a few months. But maybe there's someone likeminded who has written a utility to do that.

But Joe Consumer wants maximum runtime available every time they turn on their notebook, tablet, phone or smartwatch.

Same with anyone operating a work issued notebook PC. No work user cares if their IT department needs to change the battery in Q4 2026 rather than Q1 2027, they will just care about getting the most runtime before plugging in the device to recharge.

People don't get paid to save battery life, they get paid to do other things.

 

[remixedcat]

Just wish there was something I could use in Linux to change the thresholds so I don't have to go to bios...

Dell has one for windows and sorta one for Linux (command line and some say it doesn't work all the time) but it doesn't work w all models just a few and not any that I have..

 

[Dr. Dro]

I am talking about laptops only, since when they are plugged in all the time as mine is, the battery will die very very fast.

Unplug Your Laptop Now, or It Will Stay Plugged in Forever

So many of us are "perma-charging" our laptops, but it's a performance myth that shortens your computer's lifespan.

gizmodo.com

so for my particular scenario it would just be nice to have the option to make it charge to 85% only.

I miss removable batteries. Had an Ivy Bridge HP laptop many years ago, plus 4 battery packs for it. It was bliss. My current laptop's battery is heavily degraded, even though it must have like 20 cycles on it if that. I got almost a whole hour out of it last week! Amazing.

 

[remixedcat]

I miss removable batteries. Had an Ivy Bridge HP laptop many years ago, plus 4 battery packs for it. It was bliss. My current laptop's battery is heavily degraded, even though it must have like 20 cycles on it if that. I got almost a whole hour out of it last week! Amazing.

What current laptop you got??

 

[Dr. Dro]

What current laptop you got??

Dell G15 5515 with Ryzen 5600H, RTX 3050, 16GB RAM and 960 GB (2x 480 GB) SSD. Mine has the low-capacity battery too. There's a 86Whr battery available for it, I was looking at getting one of those and upgrading the RAM sometime.

 

[ThrashZone]

honestly I just wish battery manufactures would require this automatically, 20% min limit charge, and 85% max charge - should just be a law that says they have to ship batteries that way, for longevity/environmental reasons.

maybe that is a little hardcore, I don't know, I just feel like we are such a wasteful society in so many ways these days. /shrug

Hi,
Sorry but what ?
20-85% = 65% battery life law ?
Nobody would buy a device that only had half the battery life that they stretch the numbers for now lol

With your logic you'd be charging more not less.

 

[Space Lynx]

Hi,
Sorry but what ?
20-85% = 65% battery life law ?
Nobody would buy a device that only had half the battery life that they stretch the numbers for now lol

With your logic you'd be charging more not less.

As I already linked, this is only for one scenario....

Unplug Your Laptop Now, or It Will Stay Plugged in Forever

So many of us are "perma-charging" our laptops, but it's a performance myth that shortens your computer's lifespan.

gizmodo.com

 

[Wirko]

Also, 0% and 100% are arbitrary limits defined by cell manufacturer, or battery manufacturer, or laptop manufacturer, or some other party involved in design. A battery could go below and above these limits by a small margin but its life would be shorter. What we have is a tradeoff, like most things in tech.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Also, 0% and 100% are arbitrary limits defined by cell manufacturer

Ummm, sorry, but no. That is not so. A simple multimeter can show if a battery is fully discharged (0%) with 0.0V output or fully charged (at 100%), at full voltage AND no longer taking on a charge (increasing in voltage). So they are not arbitrary at all. This does assume when charging, the correct charging voltage, which is always slightly above the battery's rated voltage output, is being applied.

One common phenomenon with all batteries is the closer they get to being fully charged, the slower the charging rate becomes. That is, a 50% discharged battery can rather quickly be charged to 80%, but take longer to go from 80% to 90% and even longer from 90% to 100%. Some say it is similar to trying to go the speed of light. In theory, we can never go that fast because time goes slower and slower the nearer we get to that speed.

This is exactly why, by the way, battery chargers always output voltages a couple volts higher than the battery's rating. A 12V charger will never fully charge a 12V battery. This is why the alternators in our cars typically output ~13.6 - 14.5V.

The issue with keeping a battery plugged in all the time is about allowing it to sit fully charged, day in and day out for weeks or months at a time.

Generally with laptops and with a good battery, it is impossible for it to fully discharge to 0%. This is due in part because the laptop simply cannot run if the voltage drops too low. That is not a safety factor. It just can't run if the voltage drops too low.

The battery can come close to 0% but the chemical reaction does not completely stop. This is how a low battery will slightly recharge itself on the shelf - the chemical process is still going on.

There are exceptions, of course. Super cold can halt the chemical process. A short in the battery can result in constant drain that will eventually take it to 0.0V. Or a short on the output of a battery can fully discharge the battery (like leaving a flashlight on).

 

[Space Lynx]

Also, 0% and 100% are arbitrary limits defined by cell manufacturer, or battery manufacturer, or laptop manufacturer, or some other party involved in design. A battery could go below and above these limits by a small margin but its life would be shorter. What we have is a tradeoff, like most things in tech.

One of the reasons I made this topic is because battery life expectancy issues when plugged in all the time.

I just read this here, some universities in Germany have apparently had a major breakthrough, a new algorithm for how current batteries are charged doubles their lifespan... this is pretty awesome and I hope it gains traction.

New charging algorithm could double life of li-ion batteries

A team of European researchers from Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and Humboldt University in Berlin developed an alternative charging solution to make li-ion batteries last much longer than...

www.techspot.com

 

[ARF]

I noticed on my new work laptop battery always charges to 100%, but I would like to limit that to 80% since it protects the battery longevity.

My laptop is since 2018 at 100% battery 99.9% of the time. The battery is all alive and doing exceptionally well.
I don't know who tells you these myths, but I would advise - don't trust them. There is no scientific evidence, nor a technical reason that a battery would feel better if it's half empty.

My phone I have limited to 85% as Samsung understands this and offers that in settings. So, I was wondering why does Microsoft not have this feature to limit the battery charge to a desired number around 80-85% to preserve battery longevity?

Is it just impossible for Microsoft to control that function? Or just an oversight? Just curious.

 

[Space Lynx]

My laptop is since 2018 at 100% battery 99.9% of the time. The battery is all alive and doing exceptionally well.
I don't know who tells you these myths, but I would advise - don't trust them. There is no scientific evidence, nor a technical reason that a battery would feel better if it's half empty.

View attachment 343942

It's not a myth, experienced it myself a couple of times, primarily on my gtx 1070 laptop, the battery no longer will hold a charge, it will still read 100% when plugged in, but when you go into portable mode it don't last very long at all like it did when first bought. I only used maybe 100 actual charge cycles on it, because I used it plugged in most of the time... should have around 2000 cycles... also I provided a link above for my evidence, which you must have skipped over....

 

[Bill_Bright]

I would not call it a myth but I also do not accept it is a foregone conclusion either. There is evidence (and a lack thereof) that supports both sides of the argument.

I know many users who use their laptops as desktops, and keep them plugged in 24/7 for weeks and even months on end and their batteries have lasted many many years. My own personal experience with my 12 year old 17" Toshiba was that way. The first year I owned it, I was on the road a lot. But after that, it stayed plugged in and still worked fine until I retired the laptop. It originally got about 4 1/2 hours of run time when new (17" displays are power hogs) and by year 12, it was down to a little over 3 hours. But degraded runtimes due to age is normal.

Anecdotal? Yes, but really, that's all we got here, on either side.

I only used maybe 100 actual charge cycles on it, because I used it plugged in most of the time... should have around 2000 cycles

I agree you definitely should have got more than 100 charge cycles. But how do you know you just didn't get a bad battery? How do you know it died early because you used it plugged in most of the time? You don't. That is NOT a criticism, but an observation. There is no way of telling why it died. And that's part of the problem. I am not aware of any actual study where these failed batteries were scientifically analyzed and determined to have failed simply and only because they were kept fully charged all the time.

And FTR, the claim is not that it will shorted the life because it is "used" plugged in most of the time. But that it is left plugged in and fully charged most of the time - even when not in use.

Also, regarding that article, it is misleading. For example, it concludes,

Stop charging your laptop past 100% today, so you can free yourself from being plugged in tomorrow.

That is misleading because no charging system should ever charge a battery "past" 100% charge. It that happens, something else is wrogn. Also, many laptops today have smart charging technologies where they allow the battery to deplete to some percentage before it charges it up again.

I also have some doubts when it comes to the documentation provided by laptop makers about charging practices. I am certain the corporate shysters... err... legal teams had a say in that so they could cover all their bases to avoid getting sued in the extremely rare chance a plugged in laptop catches fire. Similar clauses are in the warning pages of almost every electronic item we buy today.

I think, just to cover our bases, if you typically leave your laptop (or other portable device) plugged in 24/7, then try to get into the habit of once every week or so, unplug it and let it discharge. Then plug it in again. Do that every couple weeks and I suspect you will enjoy many years of life out of the battery - ASSUMING it is otherwise not defective.