How To Guide How to limit charging on Pixel 6

[Galaxea]

With credit to VR-25 from Github:

If you edit these files and put you own values in then your phone will start charging when it drops below 75% and stop when it gets to 80%. (put your own values in, etc.)

I have only tested it briefly but it seems to work for AC and USB charging for me so far. No other apps or tweaks needed.

/sys/devices/platform/google,charger/charge_start_level:75
/sys/devices/platform/google,charger/charge_stop_level:80

 

[WibblyW]

If only there was a way to use that without root :-S

 

[vandyman]

What would be the purpose for this.
I always charged to a 100% and never had issues on my devices.

 

[Tool Belt]

I use the adaptive charging overnight and think that will help with battery life.

 

[Galaxea]

What would be the purpose for this.
I always charged to a 100% and never had issues on my devices.

If you do some reading you will see that charging over 80% and draining under 20% will significantly shorten the lifespan of your battery. This is important for those of us that have devices not sold in our country so getting replacement batteries would be very difficult and expensive. I have phones that are more than 9 years old and still going fine if charged like this.

 

[vandyman]

If you do some reading you will see that charging over 80% and draining under 20% will significantly shorten the lifespan of your battery. This is important for those of us that have devices not sold in our country so getting replacement batteries would be very difficult and expensive. I have phones that are more than 9 years old and still going fine if charged like this.

If you would have read the correct information on this subject. You would know that this not true for today's battery technology.
This is nothing but a myth.
You will have a better chance looking for Bigfoot.

Why waste 40% of your battery use....

 

[WibblyW]

If you would have read the correct information on this subject. You would know that this not true for today's battery technology.
This is nothing but a myth.
You will have a better chance looking for Bigfoot.

Why waste 40% of your battery use....

On the contrary. The most recent phones attempt to limit the time that they spend at 100% exactly because it's so bad for battery longevity. Having options like the OP's approach just gives users more flexibility, should they want more control than, in this case, Google's adaptive/AI approach.

And it's not 'wasting' 40% of the battery. Keeping between 80% and 20% just optimizes battery service life during those days you only actually only need 60% of it's possible capacity. When working from home that's often the case for me. I actually tend to use ~30% of the battery in a day. Better to charge it up daily to about 70% than all the way to 100% and let it go down to 10% over 3 days. If it's easy to do, why not?

Not quite the same, but EV design also has their batteries normally operating in the middle range so as not to compromise their service life...

Definitely not myth. The only myth is that lithium cells exhibit a memory effect and need to be deep discharged and fully recharged periodically to maintain their capacity. It's actually bad for them to do this! The only reason to do this would be in an attempt to recalibrate the software for the battery level gauge (at the cost of a little damage to the battery each time you do that).

 

[WibblyW]

What would be the purpose for this.
I always charged to a 100% and never had issues on my devices.

Most folk don't notice reduction in battery capacity until it becomes severe. For example, a friend claimed it wasn't a problem charging his iPhone to 100% ritually. When he checked the OS, it said his battery capacity was 80% of what it was when new. He said he hadn't noticed it affect how long the phone lasted.

If your usage is such that you can predict how much capacity you need, you can choose to charge to 100% only those times you will actually need that capacity. Other times you can look after the battery so it's able to actually give near on 100% for longer, those times it's important to you.

Others who keep their phones a short time or are comfortable with the cost & inconvenience of a battery replacement, or simply don't care, don't have to worry....

 

[vandyman]

On the contrary. The most recent phones attempt to limit the time that they spend at 100% exactly because it's so bad for battery longevity. Having options like the OP's approach just gives users more flexibility, should they want more control than, in this case, Google's adaptive/AI approach.

And it's not 'wasting' 40% of the battery. Keeping between 80% and 20% just optimizes battery service life during those days you only actually only need 60% of it's possible capacity. When working from home that's often the case for me. I actually tend to use ~30% of the battery in a day. Better to charge it up daily to about 70% than all the way to 100% and let it go down to 10% over 3 days. If it's easy to do, why not?

Not quite the same, but EV design also has their batteries normally operating in the middle range so as not to compromise their service life...

Definitely not myth. The only myth is that lithium cells exhibit a memory effect and need to be deep discharged and fully recharged periodically to maintain their capacity. It's actually bad for them to do this! The only reason to do this would be in an attempt to recalibrate the software for the battery level gauge (at the cost of a little damage to the battery each time you do that).

This all maybe good if you are planning on keeping your device for a few years.
Most people buy a new device every other year. If not once a year.

 

[WibblyW]

... and if you really want to knacker the battery, heat it up too!

Worst case scenario - using a sat nav app on your phone in the car on a hot day with the phone plugged into a car adaptor. It's going to be sitting there at elevated temperatures, possibly with the sun shining on it, whilst being kept at 100% battery....

I'm only a customer (and have no other affiliation) and like to tinker, so I got one of these for use in the car to limit temperature when charging and limit max charge. Not cheap, but ok compared with the cost of the phone https://chargie.org/

 

[Biggenz]

I'm sorry, but at the snails pace this phone charges I'd be very surprised if charging it to 100% every night will make any noticeable difference in the long run. I had a Xiaomi Mi10 Ultra with 120W fast charger. That phone used to charge from 0% to full in like 20 minutes. Now that's one way to quickly kill your battery.

The Pixel uses your alarm to adaptively charge the battery so it should never overcharge it anyway. I'd much rather us all of my battery than use it only between 20 and 80% just for it to last a little longer.

 

[Galaxea]

The files are overwritten on reboot so I created a Tasker task to write the values on reboot each time.

 

[WibblyW]

I'm sorry, but at the snails pace this phone charges I'd be very surprised if charging it to 100% every night will make any noticeable difference in the long run.

On what basis? All the research and tests are based on charge level not charge rate. Fast charging potentially just makes it worse...

But at the end of the day it's your phone. You'll charge it in whatever way works for you.

 

[scottspa74]

I feel like this post sort of misses the point. It clearly is aimed at those intending to keep their phones >1yr, it is stated explicitly.

 

[sic0048]

I'm not rooted right now, so I've been using the AccuBattery app. One of the things it does it gives a notification every few minutes when the battery is at 80% or above so that you can physically unplug the phone from the charger. Obviously having this done automatically would be better, but I've been surprised at how well the notifications have worked in my case. Plus, I can always leave the phone plugged in if I know I need a full battery for some reason (ie a long day away from any charging source).

 

[Gibsonflyingv]

With credit to VR-25 from Github:

If you edit these files and put you own values in then your phone will start charging when it drops below 75% and stop when it gets to 80%. (put your own values in, etc.)

I have only tested it briefly but it seems to work for AC and USB charging for me so far. No other apps or tweaks needed.

/sys/devices/platform/google,charger/charge_start_level:75
/sys/devices/platform/google,charger/charge_stop_level:80

Dumb question but what did you use to write values into those files? Did you use a text editor (with root access) or just termux or something? I tried with the built in MiX text editor but it seems to choke once I open up the file.

 

[Galaxea]

Dumb question but what did you use to write values into those files? Did you use a text editor (with root access) or just termux or something? I tried with the built in MiX text editor but it seems to choke once I open up the file.

I used FX File Explorer (root option). Look for the #. SYSTEM (Root).

 

[Galaxea]

I was wondering if changing the file permissions after writing to them to read-only would make the changes stick, but I am sure the OS could still overwrite them...??

 

[WibblyW]

I wonder if there's a similar variable to tweak at what temperature the phone considers the battery is too hot and stops charging?

 

[lackalil]

With credit to VR-25 from Github:

If you edit these files and put you own values in then your phone will start charging when it drops below 75% and stop when it gets to 80%. (put your own values in, etc.)

I have only tested it briefly but it seems to work for AC and USB charging for me so far. No other apps or tweaks needed.

/sys/devices/platform/google,charger/charge_start_level:75
/sys/devices/platform/google,charger/charge_stop_level:80

Did a bit of testing and it works fine. A few things I noticed:

1. Doesn't survive reboot. Now that I've set up MiX with pinned folders, I can make the change in seconds. Need to sit down and read through the acc documentation because AccA doesn't work. Would love to have an automatic solution. Miss my old Battery Charge Limit.

2. charge_start doesn't seem to matter. After all, if charge_start is set to 75 and the phone is at 70%, it shouldn't charge. But it does. I've kept mine at 0.

3. Point #2 is kinda beside the point, though, because charge_stop will stop at the set value and stay there. No noticeable increase in temperature from what I can see. Definitely less than when charging.

4. Still shows as charging rapidly when it hits the level. Is it rapidly cycling charging on and off? Or in a kind of micro-current state? Or this may be a true battery idle situation where all power is drawn from the adapter. Ampere and AccA just show "not charging".

Edit: With a bit of use today, it does seem to act like a normal min/max charge deal, so I set it at 75 start/76 stop. Not sure what was happening at first...maybe something to do with the adaptive charging since I still have that on. Either, way, no complaints. With my use case working from home, I have it plugged in most of the day and it'll only take me about a minute to change charge_stop to 100 when I'm planning to go out all day somewhere away from chargers. Not ideal, but still a big improvement. Changes my rating of the thing from maybe 3.5 stars to 4.5.