Charging level changed last night, only 80%

[gbynum]

MBAir , M1. 2020, 8G, Sonoma 14.4.1

First, this is not a complaint; I'm glad that long term battery life will be improved.

I typically charge my system overnight every 2 or 3 days, when the charge falls below 35% or so. I've always found it at 100% the following morning.

This morning, my battery level was 80%. Battery in system settings showed it charging to that, stopping, but still connected to power.

What is likely to have caused the change? Is the level adjustable via software?

Thanks!

 

[chabig]

About Optimized Battery Charging - Apple Support

Use the battery status menu to resume charging if you need to have your Mac fully charged sooner.

support.apple.com

 

[Mockletoy]

The built-in battery management is not user configurable and only seems to work well in two scenarios:

1) You have a very regular usage pattern that it can learn to anticipate, or
2) You leave your machine plugged in all or almost all the time.

In the first case, if it learns that you tend to charge overnight and then unplug at, say, 7:45 a.m, then when you plug in it will charge the battery to 80% and hold it until just before it thinks you're going to need it before topping it up. That way the battery doesn't sit at 100% all night waiting for you to use it the next day.

In the second case, it will keep the battery at 80% all the time and say "Charging On Hold (Rarely Used On Battery)" if you click on the battery icon in the menu bar.

Newer iPhones do allow you to manually limit their charge to 80%, so maybe it'll come to the Mac one of these days. Some people use apps like Al Dente Pro in the meantime.

 

[gbynum]

Thanks @Mockletoy !

I've seen case 1) on my iPhone 12 and understand it. I'd surely like to get an 80-85% limit on it, typically using less than 25% in any day. I run current iOS and wish your "Newer iPhones" was newer iOS versions but we cannot have all we'd like.

In your case 2), I wish mine did that. I left it on the power cord for a month and it stayed at 100%. I THINK I did it on the currently used Anker power supply, but maybe not; will swap to the Apple unit to see if it is sensitive to that. I'd prefer it; travel is rare.