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Optimized Battery Charging gone wonky

Optimized Battery Charging used to work on my iPhone 11, but now it is doing crazy things and shortening the life of my battery if I use it. My alarm time is usually 6:00 AM, but OBC may set itself to reach 100% at 1:30 AM, or 3:00, or 4:30 — it’s different every night, and there seems to be no pattern or reason for it. My battery health had gone down to 89% capacity before I discovered this problem (with a feature that is supposed to help the battery last longer). Now I just unplug the phone when it reaches 80% charge, and finish charging it during my morning commute. *Why can’t this feature just simply synchronize with my wake-up alarm?* Because that would be too simple, Apple? Anybody have any ideas to get this feature working again? I have iOS 15.6.1

iPhone 11

Posted on Nov 21, 2022 1:12 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 21, 2022 1:19 PM

No matter what you do your battery maximum capacity will decrease as you use your device. Batteries are consumables; they lose a little capacity every time they are discharged, then recharged. On average this works out to about a 1% loss for every 25 “full charge cycles”. As one example, if you charge the phone overnight, every night (and that is what you should do; it is a best practice), it starts the day at 100%. If it drops to 20% by the end of the day before you charge it again overnight that counts as 0.8 full charge cycles (20% to 100%), or about 24 full charge cycles per month of use. For this example your battery capacity will lose about 1% per month. Of course, if the end-of-day level is higher than 20% the capacity loss will be a little less, and if it is lower than 20%, or you charge it during the day, the capacity loss will be higher.


Once the capacity drops below 80%, or if there is a message in Battery Health that the battery is not meeting peak performance expectations, it’s time to change the battery→iPhone Battery Replacement - Official Apple Support


The absolute best way to get maximum use on a charge, as well as slow the decline of battery capacity long term is to enable Optimized Battery Charging (Settings/Battery/Battery Health) and charge the device overnight, every night. The battery will fast charge to 80%, then pause. During the nighttime pause the phone will use mains power instead of battery power, allowing the battery to “rest”, and thus reducing the need to charge the battery quite as often. The phone will resume charging to reach 100% when you are ready to use your phone; it will “learn” your usage pattern. If you enable iCloud Backup (Settings/[your name]/iCloud - iCloud Backup) the phone will back up overnight also, assuring that you can never lose more than the current day’s updates. Here's more information→About Optimized Battery Charging on your iPhone - Apple Support

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 21, 2022 1:19 PM in response to yogaman28734

No matter what you do your battery maximum capacity will decrease as you use your device. Batteries are consumables; they lose a little capacity every time they are discharged, then recharged. On average this works out to about a 1% loss for every 25 “full charge cycles”. As one example, if you charge the phone overnight, every night (and that is what you should do; it is a best practice), it starts the day at 100%. If it drops to 20% by the end of the day before you charge it again overnight that counts as 0.8 full charge cycles (20% to 100%), or about 24 full charge cycles per month of use. For this example your battery capacity will lose about 1% per month. Of course, if the end-of-day level is higher than 20% the capacity loss will be a little less, and if it is lower than 20%, or you charge it during the day, the capacity loss will be higher.


Once the capacity drops below 80%, or if there is a message in Battery Health that the battery is not meeting peak performance expectations, it’s time to change the battery→iPhone Battery Replacement - Official Apple Support


The absolute best way to get maximum use on a charge, as well as slow the decline of battery capacity long term is to enable Optimized Battery Charging (Settings/Battery/Battery Health) and charge the device overnight, every night. The battery will fast charge to 80%, then pause. During the nighttime pause the phone will use mains power instead of battery power, allowing the battery to “rest”, and thus reducing the need to charge the battery quite as often. The phone will resume charging to reach 100% when you are ready to use your phone; it will “learn” your usage pattern. If you enable iCloud Backup (Settings/[your name]/iCloud - iCloud Backup) the phone will back up overnight also, assuring that you can never lose more than the current day’s updates. Here's more information→About Optimized Battery Charging on your iPhone - Apple Support

Nov 21, 2022 2:02 PM in response to yogaman28734

It will reach 100% based on the earliest you have unlocked the phone, and it will adjust it over time. But your practice of taking it off charge at 80% is actually accelerating your maximum capacity decline, because that means the power use after you take it off comes from the battery. If you left it plugged in then line power would provide the energy. Charging to 100% in itself is not bad. Leaving it at 100% for long periods of time is what should be avoided. And a couple of hours a day is not an issue.

Optimized Battery Charging gone wonky

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