Battery Charge Limit

[Cesese]

Please allow us to set charge limits on the Steam Deck. It'd be nice if we could do it directly from SteamOS, but even just getting it on the BIOS would be a good start. The best would be, ontop of getting an option in the KDE Advanced Power Settings, to also make it into Steam's power settings menu (with FPS limiting etc.)
I plan on using my SteamDeck a lot plugged in, so I don't want to charge it to 100% when doing that.

• Here's what I want: https://i.imgur.com/rOuMRjn.png
  
• Here's what we have: https://i.imgur.com/iNgMNKw.jpeg (BIOS) / https://i.postimg.cc/LsFh2FF1/D4-E68918-1361-46-DF-A149-6-A7-EEFB50465.jpg (SteamOS)

[Boblin the Goblin]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Murasakino Rin:

the thing is, when these discussions come up. Nobody ever gives any data to say if its really saving any battery life overall.

while linking to a website all about batteries is nice, i would like to see some data points to really prove that this method is overall better.

based on the data i have access to. its only 5% saved over 5+ years.

There was another thread where someone actually posted a study with graphs(which had to include projections after a point) that showed it could be beneficial but it also outlined a good amount of other factors that could cause issue, the main one being heat. While a battery does heat up with charging, modern batteries control this with how much they allow for the charge. The big issue they pointed out was charges that allow "super charging" which a lot of batteries were not made for(when it was first coming out) and would horrible degrade them.

I'm trying to remember the year the study came out but I don't think they really used any type of software or hardware that a lot of(now modern) devices have the regulate the battery. For example, the Deck has a regulator for the battery and we don't know exactly what it does or if because of it, a charge limit isn't needed.

[☣cнCZ¡ρŋ¡ pitcho®☣]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Murasakino Rin:

the thing is, when these discussions come up. Nobody ever gives any data to say if its really saving any battery life overall.

while linking to a website all about batteries is nice, i would like to see some data points to really prove that this method is overall better.

based on the data i have access to. its only 5% saved over 5+ years.

https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries

[hogehoge61]

+1.

I have been using laptop PCs such as IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad and LG gram, which have a mode that limits charging (around 50-80%) for battery life.
In fact, I prefer this feature.


While technically replaceable, the batteries are not easily removable, so having such a mode is desirable in scenarios where you are indoors playing for long periods of time with the power connected or using dock mode.

However, I am not sure if this feature can be implemented from software for the current Steam Deck. Power control is closely related to the hardware and the behavior may be unchangeable. However, even in that case, we hope to see such a feature implemented in the next generation of Steam Deck......

[CanOfFanta7]

+1

This feature is highly desirable if left plugged in all the time. This has been common knowledge for an extremely long time that keeping a battery above 80 percent for prolonged periods is keeping the battery essentially in a high stress environment. People arguing against that can easily research the science themselves.
If you're using the device all the time while it's plugged in it will be generating heat as well as the battery hovering above 98 percent while trickle charging. There is simply no argument.
The steam decks battery would remain more healthy if you could limit the charge instead of it remaining in the high 90s for prolonged period.
This goes for any lithium batteries. Your phone, tablet and laptop are all the same story also.

SlowMango seems a little childish and arrogant. Maybe they use their steam frequently at high charge and want to believe there's no way there could be a healthier option for the battery either way SlowMango seems either biased or simply immature.

Limiting maximum charge capacity would be a fantastic feature. I hope it gets added soon in an update.

[Phr34kz]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย SlowMango:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย maxRunner:

Yeah, you clearly don't know anything about lithium ion technology.

You mean like how modern devices already do charge throttling at high percents to prolong the life of the battery?

Or that manually setting a charge limit is redundant because of the above and will maybe save and negligible amount of better life?

Funny how those statements are made invalid. I have countless devices, Samsung, Apple, PSP, Vita, drones, phones and development boards that uses lithium ion and most of them including my GPDWin2 and GPDWin3 ends up with a bloated battery stored and used in a 24/7 23 celcius air-conditioned room. Clearly some people don't even entirely understand their own devices.

[Phr34kz]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย maxRunner:

Actually I'm not sure that would work, i don't think the deck has a direct connection to the charger, i think it might go through the battery. Not certain on that though. In any case, it's easier to set it to a low charge than to open and void warranty.

Kudos. The know-it-all suddenly becomes unsure.. Hilarious..

[Born to Kill]

It's steel actual problem on steam deck. Time is going, but battery is not being younger without that safe function, VOLVO PLEASE GIVE

[Codec]

Hi, I would like to limit the battery to 70% charge when the charger is plugged in, I think this would be possible with a BIOS update possibly? If so that would be great.

[Tony]

+1. Nay, in fact +1000.

[emberfiend]

There's a reason so many other devices let us limit depth of discharge. This is pretty important! +1

[JDGBOLT]

Just to throw it out there, the newest deck Linux 6.1 kernels that are inside of the main channel which will eventually launch as 3.5 does have charge limit functionality in place. I currently have my deck setup to have a 90% charge limit, which it'll drop to 80% if it's been plugged in for a while, which seems a decent balance of increasing battery longevity while also still keeping a usable amount of battery life. You just have to do like>

echo 90 > /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon4/max_battery_charge_level

as root and it will stick around and stay that way even when the deck is off or asleep, as it directly talks to the deck's onboard microcontroller that handles the charging, so mine is always limited to 90%. They will probably put in a setting in steamos itself but just thought I would say it's possible right now to have a battery charge limit if you don't mind running the 3.5 prerelease.

[Codec]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย JDGBOLT:

Just to throw it out there, the newest deck Linux 6.1 kernels that are inside of the main channel which will eventually launch as 3.5 does have charge limit functionality in place.

Nice! I've found using the powertools plugin for deckyloader works OK while Deck is on, but in sleep or power off mode it still charges to 100% when plugged in, even when I've set it to charge to 70%

I'll wait until the stable is out before updating, am looking forward to kernel based solution

[xep]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย JDGBOLT:

They will probably put in a setting in steamos itself but just thought I would say it's possible right now to have a battery charge limit if you don't mind running the 3.5 prerelease.

Great news！

[emberfiend]

bump!

[Tony]

I am not sure what bumping will achieve. It's not like devs will say, "ooh, that thread on battery optimization which we never looked at got bumped, we better do this and publish the update tomorrow".