Software to hold battery at 50% charge level

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Solution 1

To push Sparr's comment into an answer, he's completely right. Charging circuitry is typically pretty dumb and can't be controlled via software. There may be a hardware solution that would go between the wall socket and the power adapter, but that's unlikely.

As a man who troubleshoots the power boards in old laptops for fun, I haven't seen this sort of feature (or chip to support that feature) in any brand before. There doesn't seem to be a generic solution yet. Maybe the industry will change.

Solution 2

On recent Lenovo Thinkpad laptops you can use the System Management API tools to set the charging threshold and limit, in the same way that the Sony tools do.

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Greg Jennings
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Greg Jennings

about.me/mehper Industrial Engineer M.Sc. One of the authors of Distribution Planning of Magazines: A Practical Approach. Author of Random Variate Generation If the Density Is Not Known: Basics, Methods, Implementations. Mostly dealing with the following topics: Food Logistics, Enterprise Resources Planning, Supply Chain Management, Materials Management, Healthcare Logistics, Executive Reporting, Data Analysis, System Development and Optimization. Programming Languages: VBA, SQL, R. XBox 360 fan.

Updated on September 17, 2022

Comments

  • Greg Jennings
    Greg Jennings over 1 year

    My Sony Vaio laptop has a built-in program called "Sony Battery Care" which provides a functionality to hold battery at certain levels of charge while operating. For example, I've set it to 50% and the battery is always kept at that level while on AC power. This mode prevents battery degradation and is more effective as I usually use my laptop with AC power.

    I'm looking for a similar program to use with other laptops with Windows OS; preferably a free one.

    • Naidim
      Naidim over 13 years
      I don't think there is much to be gained from keeping it as low as 50%. I have my ThinkPad's Power Options software to start recharging only under 80%, and to charge until 95%. I avoid the battery to get completely drained as well. This all results in batteries that keep their capacity very well over time.
    • sleske
      sleske over 13 years
      @paradroid: LiIon batteries age with time, even when not used. The aging process runs faster if the battery has more charge. See e.g. this page: batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/…. Thus all other things being equal, a LiIon will live longer if it is kept at a charge level below 100%.
    • Naidim
      Naidim over 13 years
      @sleske: Yes, I know. That site was part of how I researched how to keep the batteries for optimum life.
    • Goran Obradovic
      Goran Obradovic over 12 years
      i have a Compal laptop with same feature (a software which charges battery to a preset level - 50%, 75% or 100%). I keep it on 50%, and laptop has a hardware button for "full charge" when I go somewhere and know that I need a full battery. For 5 years of usage battery life degraded from 3h15min to 2h15min.
  • Greg Jennings
    Greg Jennings over 13 years
    Thanks for the info but I need a 3rd party tool applicable for all brands.
  • Sparr
    Sparr over 13 years
    There cannot be a third party tool for arbitrary laptops because the charging hardware is not controllable via software. You plug in the power, the laptop starts charging. That's why charging works when the laptop is turned off. Being able to control the charging hardware from software is a very specific feature offered by only these two specific manufacturers.
  • Peter Cordes
    Peter Cordes over 9 years
    On a normal Windows system, powercfg will control how much power the hardware draws from the battery (or wall if plugged in). Controlling the charger thresholds would require hardware support. If that exists, powercfg export/import is unlikely to be the easiest way to access it.