TL;DW: Fast charging over 2 years only degraded the battery an extra 0.5%, even on extremely fast charging Android phones using 120W.

And with that, hopefully we can put this argument to rest.

    • amorpheus@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      If engineers were the ones in control that would mean something.

      As I see it, phone manufacturers have zero reasons to keep the battery degradation low, but many reasons to push advertised capacity and charging speed. If you were cynical, you could also assume that they’re trying to make sure the battery doesn’t last too long because they want to keep selling new phones.

    • binarytobis@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      I think we all know that if an engineer went to upper management and said “I can charge these batteries faster, but it degrades the battery life by 20% over a year.” they would have said “Do it! We won’t mention that last part.”

    • QuadratureSurfer@piefed.social
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      12 hours ago

      Granted, with all the planned obsolescence happening, you could also argue that engineers “knew” what they were doing.

      • BlackLaZoR@fedia.io
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        12 hours ago

        Planned obsolescence happens but it’s not as common as most people think it is.

        • mark@programming.dev
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          11 hours ago

          And probably not as intentional as most people think it is vs just laziness and maybe a lack of planning.

          • Ugurcan@lemmy.world
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            11 hours ago

            It’s always bulbs or Apple. Bulbs industry switched into LED like 15 years ago, which has 20x lifespan than “durable” filaments; and iPhones average life is 6 years whereas competitors usually went into bin in 3 years.

            • golli@sopuli.xyz
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              10 hours ago

              With iPhones i think it’s less about durability (and especially in the software department they were always great in terms of longevity), but more about repairability in case something does happen.

              As far as lightbulbs go the issue with potential planned obsolescence doesn’t go way just because of the swap to LEDs. First there are a type of bulb even today that use some form of filament and second the part that gets damaged is usually some kind of capacitor or other electronic part that gets run with too much voltage and too hot. Don’t have time to watch it again, but i remember finding this video from a few years ago interesting.

        • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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          11 hours ago

          its exactly as common as people think, when most people’s phones are lasting 3 years tops.

      • RightEdofer@lemmy.ca
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        11 hours ago

        I’m sure this happens but with batteries the companies really are just desperately trying to get more capacity and life out of them. The chemistry just isn’t at all where they want to be.

    • FauxPseudo @lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      Engineers have the best of intentions. The Bean counters have very different intentions and they’re the ones that corporate listens to.

    • frongt@lemmy.zip
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      9 hours ago

      Well, except for the engineers on the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. They put the battery terminals too close together, making it really easy for a short to occur.

      • BlackLaZoR@fedia.io
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        9 hours ago

        Samsung notoriously fucks up something up in their phones - from shitty interface changes, to excessive battery drain. Just buy Pixel instead

        • FreedomAdvocate
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          9 hours ago

          Literally every flagship pixel up until the 8 or so has had major issues lol. The 7 series are all having batteries start swelling, causing Google to offer refunds lol.

          You literally could not have chosen a worse brand to suggest on this topic 🤣

    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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      10 hours ago

      You say that like batteries don’t need replaced every few years or that they didn’t design the Samsung Note 8 phone that kept catching on fire.

      Engineers get told to make the phone charge as quickly as possible, while still lasting 2 years. After that, the company with those engineers pretty much wants the battery to fail, so they can sell a new device.

      The one thing I wanted to see from that video, was also just testing the batteries until they went below like 75% capacity. The initial degradation may start off similar for capacity, but that doesn’t mean it will stay that way.