While researching this review I found several schools of thought on charging your mobile device’s battery. Apple says: ”iPhone has a setting that helps slow the rate of your battery’s aging by reducing the time it spends fully charged. This setting uses machine learning to understand your daily charging routine, then waits to finish charging past 80% until you need it.”

OK, you turned on “Optimized Battery Charging” So it correctly takes the charge up to 80% then sits idle. This practice will prolong the life of your battery. So says Apple. It learns your daily routine and only tops it off when it believes that you’re going to start using it soon.

But suppose you don’t have a daily routine. Maybe you’re a freelancer and your schedule is all over the map. The phone may come up with an incorrect time to top up. And if you do’t need it till a little later, then it’s parked at 100% for possibly a couple of hours and that’s not good for your battery’s longevity.

In a pinch during the day, a quick charge in the middle of the afternoon before a meeting can be necessary. In the short run, that’ll do no harm. But if you’re charging your iPhone or iPad overnight with a fast charger, it’ll most likely achieve 100% charge while you’re still sleeping and stay that way for hours until you use it. And in the long run, that WILL shorten the life of your battery.

It’s as bad as completely draining your battery. The way batteries are currently constructed, if you go to the extreme either way you’re going to shorten your battery’s lifespan.

Computer companies know this. EV companies know this. Right now, pick up your iPhone and go to Settings>Battery> Battery Health and scroll down to Optimized Battery Charging. Now, read the passage below it. See…

It won’t charge past 80% UNTIL you’re going to be using it soon. That’s to reduce unnecessary stress on your battery. Most article’s I’ve read have said the optimal charge to maintain your battery’s longevity is between 40-80%.

But if you could charge it to about 50% overnight and wait to top it off at a specific time you knew you were going to get up and use it, that would be ideal. But device manufacturers don’t afford you any such way to control your settings with such granularity.

And that did not sit well with the creator of Chargie. Chargie will let you set charging percentages, battery temperatures, and power measurements (only on Chargie A), which will add longevity to your smartphone’s or tablet’s battery.

The three causes that cause lithium ion batteries to decay are:
– heat (while charging or discharging)
– prolonged full charging
– deep discharging

Chargie currently comes in two configurations – Chargie A and Chargie C (UPDATE: Currently in the pipeline is a 100W USB-C PD Chargie hardware version. It is primarily targeted at MacBooks, but will also be compatible with newer phones and laptops using the standard.) Both come with their respective unit, a 9.5” USB-C male > USB-C male cable, and the usual paperwork.

Chargie will protect your battery from the harmful effects of prolonged full charging. Unfortunately, when it comes to discharging you have to manually keep an eye on that (though I imagine you could create a shortcut to alert that you’re running low, unless the phone is constantly connected to external power and its charging process completely handled by the Chargie app.)

It’s able to accomplish this through its “Top Up Scheduler” which has the ability to keep your phone at a charge of 50 to 70% which is prime for during the night.

But there is a singular instance when you should fully charge your phone if you know you can’t plug it again. In such instances, charge to 100% but with Chargie, because it will cut off power completely at the top and keep it from trickle charging – cutting off power completely at 100% will put most phones into deep sleep, which means the CPU won’t be generating unnecessary heat to the battery.

So, now that we know the technology, let’s review my experience. Chargie is a hit or miss proposition. I tried two different chargers (Apple and Anker) and several different cords. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not. I was less than enthusiastic when I would awake only to find Chargie had done nothing. (Oddly, I had more luck with the iPad Mini 6 than my iPhone 13 Mini.)

The idea is an excellent one. Only now, the execution has to match the promise. With it only working half or so of the time there is no way that I can depend on it or recommend it to you.

I can tell you for the past couple of years that I was able to accomplish the same objectives merely by writing Shortcuts. I wrote one to go into low power mode when it got down to 30% and to notify me when it did. As for keeping it at around 80% for the top end, I suppose I could write a Shortcut but I answer my emails and surf the web not long before I go to bed. I can manually check the charge and plug it in to take it up 80%. So far, it hasn’t cost me a dime. And I haven’t pulled any ligaments or suffered any other type of physical injury doing so.

I sincerely wish the creator the best of luck ironing out this product as it would be worth what it is currently priced at. Cheaper than replacing a battery…

©2022 Frank Petrie