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All iPads Any successful $99 battery replacement service?
- Thread starter mlody
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Contrary to popular belief, regular cycling is not what destroys battery health. I have an iPad 2 with 800 cycles and 93% health. What kills batteries is extreme voltage (and heath, but iPad don't overheat like laptops, especially x86 ones).
This means for instance leaving the device dead for weeks, which is more damaging than hundreds of cycles. Or leaving it plugged in all the time. So you won't kill your device by using it every day and charging it regularly, but by not using it and letting it discharge to zero.
We killed our iPad Air 2 by using it every day and charging it regularly. Now at even "100%" charge, it will shut off after a couple of seconds of video playback.
Occasionally it had been discharged to zero (briefly) in the 10 years we've had it, but so have other devices in the same household, some much more often than this iPad Air 2.
Yeah, people generally don’t use their iPads enough for this. Is there any optimisation you can do, like settings and the like? Or altering your usage pattern in some not-too-annoying way? Perhaps you can make it so that battery life is good enough.
It won’t be great on iPadOS 17 regardless, probably, but perhaps you can make it so it works for you.
Absolutely! Like you said, contrary to popular belief, those people who cycle their devices quite a lot and quite quickly have amazing health-to-cycles ratios.
Time also degrades batteries, so an iPad that’s almost a decade old may not have a great ratio simply due to age, but that doesn’t mean that the ratio is bad.
@Etienooo has a great example. I’ve always stated that I’d love to use an iPad enough so as to see whether I can get to 1000 cycles with 80% health, and if you use it enough, you can.
You know, it’s interesting. Time is extremely important. I have a 9.7-inch iPad Pro. I’m not a heavy user, I’m an efficient one, so even though it was forcibly updated to iOS 12, I still get 10-11 hours. As a result, I have around 760 cycles with 84% health in a bit over 7.5 years. Decent for the timeframe, but not amazing.
A family member has a 6th-gen iPad, also on iOS 12. Battery life is a little better than mine simply because it’s closer to the original iOS version, but they’re a significantly heavier user than me. Therefore, they cycle it more quickly. That iPad is at 690 cycles after 4.5 years. Battery health is at 92%.
I have the most extreme example: my 2015 MacBook Pro. Also a bit over 7.5-years-old. Barely used, spent most of its time turned off. 113 cycles, 93% health.
So, again, like you said, contrary to popular belief, the more you use a device, the better its battery health is.
Battery health is, in my honest opinion, only relevant to discuss in terms of cycles. Age disrupts this. The more you use a device in as short of a timeframe as possible, the better its battery health, interestingly.
So, like I always say: avoid heat, charge as slowly as possible. All the rest is irrelevant for battery conservation if you use a device regularly.
I have experience with many devices. Currently I have more laptops/tablets than anyone here will probably have in their lifetime (10 iPads, 5 android tablets, 3 MacBooks and over 20 Windows laptops/tablets).
And I have had others in the past (sold or broken now).
Not counting my phones, none of which I have ever sold and which are all in 2 drawers (don't fit in just one....).
For the devices I use (most of them) I keep track of battery health (except in Android which has no information) and sometimes test battery life. (I also have several electric scooters)
Based on my experience, X86 devices degrade more quickly, mainly because of heat.
Arm devices tend to last longer.
But one point they have in common, is that light and regular use does not degrade the battery much if at all, on the contrary it keeps it healthier than lack of use.
Batteries don't like stress. Stress can take the form of prolongued high/low voltage (= fully discharged/charged), heath, but also intense use (the device demands a lot of energy from the battery at a given time). Stress can kill cells, but dead cells don't mean dead battery. It means less reliable battery but also a battery that over time can die faster and more easily. Regular use is almost like light muscle training, it keeps the battery in shape. While intense training causes damage. You can stress even arm devices (for instance hotspots demand a lot of energy, or games that stress the devices).
But there is one important caveat. Batteries are not all made equal, even from the same OEM. Some devices use better quality batteries (and this can change when the OEM changes the battery provider etc.). It's like genes, better genes make you live longer and healthier.
But of course age has an impact at some point.
Best results come from a high quality battery used regularly but not intensly, with as little stress as possible in terms of voltage, heath and energy peaks.
Of course this is not to say that stress should be avoided at all time, sometimes it's necessary and if it's not all the time it's not a big deal, but it's useful to create habits that allow to maintain battery longevity, especially where batteries are not easily serviceble (like with Apple making it almost impossible to service an iPad battery for most people).
Yeah, absolutely, that’s my experience, too. I don’t have as many devices as you, but I’ve tested many from close family members (around 8 iPads and several dozen iPhones), and, typically, it matches what you say:
More frequent users have a higher cycle count, but a far better cycles-to-health ratio. Lighter users (like myself) typically barely get by, with a little luck, I can get to spec (way easier on iPhones), but sometimes, especially on iPads, it’s more difficult. Primarily because users tend not to use iPads as much: how many users do you really see with 1500 cycles on any iPad, regardless of age? That’s way more frequent on iPhones.
In fact, this goes with what you said: a family member has an iPhone 8. 80% health... 1800 cycles! Used very heavily throughout its lifetime (in terms of frequency). A user like me won’t ever see that.
The highest cycle count I have personally seen on an iPad is about 1350 on... a 12-year-old iPad Mini 1! So yeah, it’s tougher to find.
None of these devices have been stressed too much. And heat has been avoided. Of course, it’s like you said: luck and the often-referred-to-as “battery lottery” play a part. An iPad 4 I had was used fairly heavily, and within three years, it had 77% health with 530 cycles. That’s way worse than I’d expect. Sometimes it’s just luck.
But I think the main conclusion should be just to avoid extremes like heat and then use the device normally. Even constant 100-0% cycles shouldn’t be bad provided you don’t leave it dead for months. If you’re going to leave it unused for a while, try turning it off at 50%. That would be my full set of recommendations, then, just use it however you like, because a significant part of this provided you avoid extremes is merely luck of the draw.
And yeah, if you play a game with the device charging and you see it heat up, unplug it, I’d just keep all of this in mind and wouldn’t worry about anything else, but that’s just me.
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Also only charge up to 80%.
Edit
If I remember correctly from some where a university electrical engineer said “Goldie lock” zone is 30%-80% charged.
I don’t really believe in that. There’s so much variation that I’ve seen people have poor health whilst doing that. Conversely, others are great.
I don’t want to shift the topic, but I think health is irrelevant if the device isn’t updated, so I just don’t update iOS and avoid heat.
I charge to 100% a lot, and frequently have devices at a high percentage, and none of my devices have ever had a poor health-to-cycles ratio. Like I said above, this is not because of the high SoC, this is because I don’t cycle it heavily enough for that (due to, primarily, being an efficient user on early iOS versions who doesn’t use the device enough).
If I get 16 hours on an iPhone Xʀ on iOS 12, and if the device has been on iOS 12 for the device’s whole lifetime, I can’t cycle it enough because battery life doesn’t drop from those 16 hours.
In terms of iPads, my 9.7-inch iPad Pro was forced into iOS 12. Battery life is not as good as it was on iOS 9, but it’s decent, at 10-11 hours, down from 14. Battery health has been stable for the past 4 years, and I haven’t followed any of those patterns.
That 30-80% is a waste of battery capacity and time, in my opinion, especially if you keep the device updated, and it is as well if you don’t.
I won't comment on updates, you know what I think about it, and regardless, updates do not apply to any Li-ion battery device.
Having said that, people take those 30-80 too literally, you do not need to keep the battery within those ranges. You should just avoid leaving it for prolonged period at full or emply capacity. You can charge at 100%, just don't leave it plugged in or turn off the device and leave it there for prolongued periods. Discharges to zero are worse but again what's much worse is leaving it at zero for a while
And I mean every device, not just iPads or iPhones.
Yeah, I think that this comes back to what you said in your original comment: avoid extremes and you’re okay.
Avoid heat, avoid prolonged periods at 100% or 0%; keep in mind, henceforth, not to keep devices stored with 0% battery, and that’s pretty much it in terms of battery conservation. Everything else is a waste of effort.