Rechargeable batteries last way longer if we do not charge them up to 100% or fully discharge them. This is particularly important …
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Battery Protection for Smartphones and Tablets using Home Assistant (charges only from 20-80%)
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I love your videos <3
Interesting video. I've got a few of those "USB sonoffs" laying around doing nothing, now, I can put them to a good use. It is good you don't need to pay your wife for drinking beer. That would be too much of a punishment for me.
Thank you for sharing. Merry Christmas
Do note: that some chargers if you cut off the mains supply, can cause unregulated voltages/currents on the 5V charging port which if not handled by the phone can damage it.
Nice! Had something similar in mind, but you actually did it
Simplest way to check battery level is termux and termux-battery-status. Then you can have more complex charging protocol. For example you might want more voltage on Monday mornings.
I had that Idea some time ago, but since I didn't want to install additional software on my phone, I built a microcontroller into my charging cable which would monitor the current while charging. If the current goes down below maybe 50%, it recognises this as approaching the last part of the charge curve and imediatly cut the power. That way it would not go all the way to 100% but maybe stop at 90%. Unfortunatly it wasn't that reliable and the phone sometimes ended up uncharged… your solution is definitly better
Here is what Samsung writes in their datasheets:
"4. Storage
4.1. Storage conditions
4.1.1. The cell should be stored within a range of temperatures specified
in the product specification.
4.1.2. Otherwise, it may cause loss of characteristics, leakage and/or rust.
4.2. Long-term storage
4.2.1. The cell should be used within a short period after charging because
long-term storage may cause loss of capacity by self-discharging.
4.2.2. If long-term storage is necessary, the cell should be stored at lower
voltage within a range specified in the product specification, because
storage at higher voltage may cause loss of characteristics.
5. Cycle life
5.1. Cycle life performance
5.1.1. The cell can be charged/discharged repeatedly up to times specified in
the produce specification with a certain level of capacity also specified
in the product specification.
5.1.2. Cycle life may be determined by conditions of charging, discharging,
operating temperature and/or storage."
What I miss in android phones is an actual option to get slower charging. I use a laptop brick for both my laptop and my phone, which charges quickly. But if I connect my phone in the late evening, I'd like it to charge slowly to preserve battery life. And there seems to be no such option..
it is funny to see Andreas "discovering" Home Assistant (kind of 2 years "later")
Hahaha! 100CHF off the gadget budget! Now that is going to work!
I prefer Tasmota over ESP home since I don't need to give it fixed IP and I can gift the device to someone else. However, Sonoff has local mode ("SonoffLAN"), so it doesn't need to be flashed anymore, I still flash due to privacy reasons.
Also, Andreas, if it's not too much of hassle, try to get a second-hand old device rather than buying a brand-new device consuming instead of recycling is just waste of resources.
I am also not sure why did you over complicated this problem, you could have just rooted your Android and install battery limiter and use 3-meter cable to prevent quick charge.
Overall as always very educational video!
In general, the "boosted charge" mode often presented as 100% full, adds 12% capacity to some devices at the cost of lifespan. Also, dropping into the CC or pre-conditioning zone (< 60%, not 20%) will cut the number of LiIon/LiPol charge cycles from around 8k to well below 4k (under 1k is common with rapid chargers,)
Hi Andreas, thank you and have a great Christmas. But keep your 100 francs in you pocket, if you know what i'm saying.
6:21 for anyone trying to do this in NodeRED for one reason or another, you may find that the sensor entities of your phone are not refreshed in real-time in NodeRED. To fix this, you create a helper for the sensor you're trying to analyze (like the battery percentage) and then use a Home Assistant automation to set the helper to the same value as the actual sensor. Then you can use the helper in your flow.
I don’t know. My iPhone 13 Pro has been with me since october of 2021 and I’ve been fast-charging it daily. The only battery-preserving measure I’ve enabled is the setting that waits with charging it from 80 to 100% until an hour or two before my morning alarm goes off. Almost 900 charging cycles later and the battery is still healthy at 96%. I think for a lot of us technical people we are prone to be afraid of the discomfort a worn out battery would cause us to the point where we subject ourselves to more discomfort by trying to prevent it. Of course, your scenario of a always plugged-in tablet is very different and it makes a lot of sense to do this stuff there. But that’s the exception.
But just let your phone be your phone and a battery replacement two or three years in wouldn’t be the end of the world.
With a replacement battery after three years, your phone could last you five or six years. With no replacement and careful babying the battery and refusing a new one, you could make it four years. And then the phone is old and not worth the investment anymore so you get a brand new one.
Especially if the old battery is properly recycled, doing a battery replacement is probably the most ecological solution.
Thank you for the information.
Hi Andreas,
I use a similar system in my house, but instead of using a new tablet, I repurposed an old one with a broken battery. I followed the Great Scott video titled "Solved Samsung's Swelling Battery Problem! (Batteryless Phone)" and replaced the old battery with a diode. In your case, you can remove the new, good battery and replace it with a diode. This way, you'll have a free battery, a fully functional tablet, and one less potential fire hazard (the battery) in your home.
Merry Christmas and I love your videos.
Ah batteries, can't live without them, can't live with them.
I get my phone battery level from Owntracks through MQTT. Our Sony Xperia phones have their limit set to 90% from factory and can be set to whatever we want, nothing to DiY there.
Merry Christmans to you. I hope you and your family stay safe and have a wonderful time. Look forward to seeing you on here again next year.
Battery charging was a subject for my whole masters & a year in bachelors. Even my work company I was in has a specific division for just battery charge cycles where it displays 100% change only at 80-92% of battery real charge. Won't believe how many phone from a decade ago do this, specially with Qualcomm's quick charge. Higher current directly to & from battery, or more cycles from full to 0 cause the most damage whereas high voltage charging can be balanced while general public fooled with wrong display. Even phone software nowadays just apply a stricter charging curve & display real values only when the software mode is enabled. So instead of targeting anywhere from 85-92%, it'll hard target the set value.
I did the same thing for my Android phone, but found out that triggering from app was unreliable. I ended up setting automation in Tasker, which triggers when battery goes over 80% and then calls Home Assistant script to switch of the charger.
Not related to this video but worth a shot
Anyone know of a central heating thermostat replacement for one that is a 2 wire rotary wall one
for a touch wifi one.
so just removing the wall one and fitting the new one and setting the timer control box next to the boiler to on
then using a phone app to control the heat
The ha companion app can send the tablet or iphone or android entities to ha.
Cool video. I'm watching over my weight too, but my method is somewhat cheaper… I keep the money and buy some more equipment.
Also for you and your family, the best of wishes for a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
Lithium ion cells hate being held at high voltage or low voltage!
This is a particular problem with Lithium NMC cells. Lithium iron phosphate cells are supposed to be more robust but they are less power dense — much heavier — not good for handheld/mobile devices!
At work we have a QA wall with many phones testing our SW, and they're constantly connected to power.
Finding a way to make them not die prematurely due to battery expansion turned out to be a lot harder than expected, we have a "smart" USB-hub we can turn on/off ports via an API, but this regularly fails (both phones not managing to reconnect, or the hub doing weird stuff). Even though most/many Android phones has options to limit battery level while iPhone doesn't we have yet for an iPhone to fail, while the Android tally is about 20% a year (and yes, we have many iPhones as well).
Nice setup and bit more organised than my RPi Pico with breadboard handling/securing the charge level for my solar storage batteries.
Samsungs have a "Protect Battery" function. Stops charging at 85%.
Had a rich friend of the family with some samsung s and I was trying to tell him about custom roms and cheap replacement parts from China. He just laughed and said "if the phone breaks, just buy another one".
Love the dashboard, Andreas. Only a small bit of gold .3.
80% is not a myth. Battery is electoric-and-chemistry (not sure if I translated it right eithout a dictionary). At high state of charge the chemical reaction runs on highest intensives.
OnePlus phones have a great feature. They charge up to 80% at night. Then charging stops. It will resume at a moment so it will be fully charged by alarm time. So I disconnect it from charger at 100%. So the time the battery is at 100% is reduced to minimum.
I was thinking about the same as you did in you video, great job!
Now I'm wondering if I can do something for charging a phone in the car. I don't like it's at 100% when I'm driving all day long. Disconnecting a charger will not be an option since location history will not be as accurate. It feels like I need to do some current limitation to keep the battery at about 80%. The charge level reporting is not an issue, since I'm a software developer. I can build a small app which will read it and will send it over a Bluetooth to arduino/esp device. Sounds like an interesting project!