Touch Should I let the battery drain before recharging?

[Ozymango]

Originally Posted by John F

And yet I have multiple Li-on devices that are >3 years. My last laptop was +5 years, and seemed fine.

Yup. I've got a Nook HD with a 4-year old battery that'll run all day solid. And I've got a Dell laptop on the counter at work that has a battery that won't hold a charge 18 months after purchase and we're going back and forth between the customer and Dell as to if this is under warranty or not, Dell says it's only guaranteed for a year, we've got several other of this exact same model with no battery issues and the customer swears she used it normally and I believe her.

I've got a 1968 Ford Thunderbird, it runs just fine. I've got a 2010 Dodge van with an automatic transmission that's had the transmission swapped twice in the past two years and the dang thing still slips on hills.

Point being: Some things work great for one person, sometimes we have problems with technology that who knows why it fails but it does, sometimes things work way longer than we expect -- nobody has all the answers. Except us wise guys on the internet, of course.

[Ozymango]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Don't worry about it. Use the device when you want to, charge it when you can.

Amen.

[the.Mtn.Man]

Originally Posted by Ozymango

Kinda along those lines, no matter how good you treat your li-ion battery, they just don't live longer than 2-3 years due to [complex chemistry/physics I don't really understand]. That is, even if you completely baby your battery, and/or if you buy a brand-new battery and leave it on the shelf untouched (well, charge it occasionally but don't really use it) for 3 years, it'll still slowly get weaker and weaker over time, it won't hold a charge. I work tech support and we had a customer who bought a couple of spare batteries for her laptop at the same time she bought her laptop, and she found out the hard way that it's a much better idea to just use one battery as long as possible, then replace it with a new and I mean NEW battery when you need to [she didn't rotate the batteries in her laptop, she just used the same one for a couple years, and thought she'd just use one of the other batteries in a couple years when the first went dead, i.e. she thought she wouldn't need to buy another battery in the next six years]

Basically she ended up with three dead batteries at the same time. And those puppies weren't cheap, so she was a bit put-off. So we try to warn people not to buy a bunch of extra batteries unless they're swapping them out concurrently and just always want to have a spare ready for today.

This isn't entirely accurate either. If a rechargeable battery refuses to hold a charge then there's likely something else going on besides simply age. I have a 10-year old iPod Classic that can still run for over a dozen-hours on a full charge, which is roughly half of what it held brand new. This is in line with what I would expect from an aging Li-ion battery and is similar to my experiences with other electronics, including older laptop computers.

And since we're talking specifically about ereaders, my 5-year old Kobo Aura does not seem to exhibit any significant reduction in battery capacity and easily lasts weeks between charges.

[Ozymango]

Originally Posted by the.Mtn.Man

This isn't entirely accurate either. If a rechargeable battery refuses to hold a charge then there's likely something else going on besides simply age.

Sigh. Look, if your battery lasts forever, great for you. I genuinely believe your batteries last a long time, and I've had a bunch of batteries that last a long time. I work on cars, I work on computers, I build all sorts of weird things powered by lead/acid, NiCad, NiMH, Li-Ion, etc batteries, whatever -- and there are *so* many things that lead to complications in how batteries behave under various conditions, depending on heat, cold, overcharging, undercharging, current flow (high drain vs low drain) ...

And you know something? In the real world it doesn't matter diddly-squat whether your theory or my theory is better at explaining why the heck your electronic device won't power up this morning ("but it was working just fine yesterday!" I get that a lot) -- you plug it in, it works or it doesn't, and if it doesn't work it really doesn't matter the reasons why it doesn't work, the point is: Get it working!

Things might be different for you because maybe you don't get paid for getting things working again but that's literally my job: I install, configure, and support computers and electronic equipment in a university environment and while it can be fun to swap stories as to why things work, or don't work, and/or why my battery lasts longer than yours or vice-versa, in the end I don't get paid if I can't keep things working. So that's my personal focus.

[the.Mtn.Man]

Originally Posted by Ozymango

Sigh. Look, if your battery lasts forever, great for you. I genuinely believe your batteries last a long time, and I've had a bunch of batteries that last a long time. I work on cars, I work on computers, I build all sorts of weird things powered by lead/acid, NiCad, NiMH, Li-Ion, etc batteries, whatever -- and there are *so* many things that lead to complications in how batteries behave under various conditions, depending on heat, cold, overcharging, undercharging, current flow (high drain vs low drain) ...

And you know something? In the real world it doesn't matter diddly-squat whether your theory or my theory is better at explaining why the heck your electronic device won't power up this morning ("but it was working just fine yesterday!" I get that a lot) -- you plug it in, it works or it doesn't, and if it doesn't work it really doesn't matter the reasons why it doesn't work, the point is: Get it working!

Things might be different for you because maybe you don't get paid for getting things working again but that's literally my job: I install, configure, and support computers and electronic equipment in a university environment and while it can be fun to swap stories as to why things work, or don't work, and/or why my battery lasts longer than yours or vice-versa, in the end I don't get paid if I can't keep things working. So that's my personal focus.

This strikes me as a rather long and circumspect way of conceding that your "Li-ion batteries are only good for 3-years" claim is not correct.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Ozymango

Yup. I've got a Nook HD with a 4-year old battery that'll run all day solid. And I've got a Dell laptop on the counter at work that has a battery that won't hold a charge 18 months after purchase and we're going back and forth between the customer and Dell as to if this is under warranty or not, Dell says it's only guaranteed for a year, we've got several other of this exact same model with no battery issues and the customer swears she used it normally and I believe her.

I've got a 1968 Ford Thunderbird, it runs just fine. I've got a 2010 Dodge van with an automatic transmission that's had the transmission swapped twice in the past two years and the dang thing still slips on hills.

Point being: Some things work great for one person, sometimes we have problems with technology that who knows why it fails but it does, sometimes things work way longer than we expect -- nobody has all the answers. Except us wise guys on the internet, of course.

I think you are missing a key point, you keep trying to use laptops as an example of poor performance of Li-on, when for ebook readers, it is an outlier example. With laptops, you are (typically) charging every day/other day; with e-readers you are (typically) charging every week/every other week. Completely different use cases that dramatically affect battery life.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Ozymango

Kinda along those lines, no matter how good you treat your li-ion battery, they just don't live longer than 2-3 years due to [complex chemistry/physics I don't really understand].

...

Originally Posted by John F

I'm going to use my Glo for my next read to see how it does.

So...

I purchased my Glo in December of 2012. It was my primary reader through June of 2015. I do turn it on every now and than, I probably turned it on once in the last year.

Thursday night I tried to turn it on. The screen was stuck on "your battery is below 10%, ..." ; when I initially tried to turn it on, nothing happened; I had to plug it in to get to the home screen. I left it plugged in overnight.

Friday morning it was 100%. I did some stuff with Calibre to take some books off and put a book on.
I read during the day for about 2.5 hours. Before I went to sleep it was at 96%.

Saturday morning it was at 96%.

To be continued...

[John F]

Day 2...

At the end of the day Saturday, it was at 93%. Read for about 2 hours.

Sunday morning, it is at 93%.

So for me, I can get at least 5.5+ years of battery life from Li-On batteries.

Originally Posted by Ozymango

Kinda along those lines, no matter how good you treat your li-ion battery, they just don't live longer than 2-3 years due to [complex chemistry/physics I don't really understand]. ...

Can I have some of what you're smoking?