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Comment by beretguy | Hacker News Reader

I bought refurbished iPhone SE 2nd gen from eBay for ~$130 in July 2023. Looks brand new. I use Chargie to extend battery life and a magnetic charging port adapter to eliminate charging port wear. When battery will wear out I’ll replace it with the one from iFixit. Let’s see for how long I can make this device last.

https://chargie.org/

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That chargie device is interesting!

The latest versions of Android and iOS have finally built in battery management that does basically the same thing (they will not rapid charge over night, and will sometimes limit charge below 100%).

I'm curious to see long term how much these changes will help.

Android, Samsung lower mid-range phone: set to maximum 85% charge thru the OS was a nice find in the menu.

The Chargie is also useful if you want to set an arbitrary charge limit. iirc on Samsung you're stuck with 85%, can't change it.

Another key thing for the Chargie is that it will cut power after reaching its requested charge, and only resume charging again if power falls to a certain level. This prevents the "trickle charge to maintain the precise percentage" thing that is a real killer for batteries.

Yep, called "Protect battery" or similar. Lots of phones have it, even quite old ones.

Latest version of LineageOS has a setting to limit charing up to a certain %, but also makes sure it hits the max when you wake up (based on your alarm).

I was so sure that my iPhone did that for me. I have setup one shortcut to send a notification when I reach 35% (to not go too below) and another one when I reach 85% (to not go too above). Since I'm in front of a computer all day, I never charge during the night anymore.

new iOS releases do.

Aren't you years behind on security updates on that model though? I guess if I'm just using text, maps, and phone calls, I wouldn't care...

I kinda like this strategy

Nope! The iPhone SE (2nd edition) is still supported by the latest iOS version (iOS 17), and even when it isn't, Apple ship critical security updates for older iOS versions. My iPhone 6S (released 2015) is still getting security updates.

I switched to wireless charging last year because I too feared wear and degradation of the charging port.

Heat generated during wireless charging degrades battery. That Chargie device also can stop charging if battery gets too hot.

As a tangent, there are android phones out there with charging contact pins still.

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