Control Battery Charging on New MacBooks - Optimizing Battery Life

Discussion in 'Parallels Toolbox Feature Suggestions' started by NeilS2, Oct 1, 2021.

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  1. NeilS2

    NeilS2 Bit poster

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    New MacBook Air and MacBook Pro computers have USB C connections to external monitors. If you use an external monitor, the battery is always charging to 100% which is bad for the battery. The MacBooks have "Optimized battery charging" which charges to 80% and waits until it predicts when you need to charge to 100%. This works great for people who use battery during the day and charge overnight -- the computer waits until, say 5am and finishes the charge to 100% so the battery is not full for very long (extending battery life -- confirmed by Apple).

    Unfortunately, this feature is defeated by leaving it always plugged in to an external monitor. Since there now is a software way to control when the machine is charging and when its not, a huge new feature would be to allow the Mac to only charge to 80% while plugged in and allow the user to say when to continue charging to 100%. For example, I would like to work for several hours at a monitor with the machine at 80% and and hour before leaving, I let it go to 100% (and have the ability to set a future time to start charging again). This feature would SIGNIFICANTLY extend the battery life of the computer. Especially with the super-long battery life of the new machines, you never really have to charge more than 80% until you plan on an extended batter session (such as a trip).
     

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