elkay wrote:My charging process is probably a factor - charging to full then running to empty. No warnings at either end to help guide me either. The website recommends not charging to full. This would maybe explain why I have a lower charge cycle count than you, and maybe indicates that lower charge cycles aren't necessarily a good thing.
Yep, been there done that! Small top ups are better - staying away from full charges to 100% and letting it almost die. My experience with recent kit has been leaving it plugged in where possible leads to less life cycle issues than deep charging - so presumably some of it is 'smart charging' and managing optimisation to a certain degree.
elkay wrote: Interestingly, my Huawei P20 Pro, which I charge overnight, charges until 80%, then stops charging for 3 hours, before resuming, so looks like it is trying to manage battery health itself.
On my current Pixel 3a and previous Nexus 5 I ran the accu battery pro app from new which recommends charging to 80% (alerts can be set) and gives all sorts of battery health stats. I tried it out on my CB as an Android app but it doesn't work properly (needs x86 optimisation I presume as my CB CPU is an Intel N4000). Luckily these native Chrome OS options have come along.
elkay wrote:Off-topic but related - my central heating controller started playing up in the past week, requiring a reset nearly every day. I suspect it was the internal rechargeable battery playing up. Unfortunately, the battery was not replaceable, so I had to purchase a new unit. Not too bothered though, as it was over 20 years old.
I have scrounged spares over the years for my boiler from neighbours who have had heating engineers recommend theirs (same model) needs replacing (they don't...). A Lot of stuff that says 'no user serviceable parts' can be done.
I've modded the circuit board on my boiler to bypass a daft basic design flaw which fixed a hot/cold issue. Got a spare circuit board as well.
A friend recently swapped out the watch battery in a Logitech wireless keyboard that had been designed to be thrown away rather than have the battery replaced - it took pliers to get the the thing out.
Despite 'sealed battery ' warnings I swapped the battery out on my Nexus 5 in about five minutes, needed a few specialist tools - bought for the princely sum of £1.50 - from the same place as the replacement battery (which was a tenner).
In the USA they are introducing 'the right to repair' legislation for users to stop all this built in obsolescence nonsense. Hopefully we follow suit...