Valve is looking to add an optional battery charge limit to the SD, to preserve battery life

not quite, there is a 100% and there is a true 0%, but going above 4.2V or below 3.7V damages the battery's capacity incredibly fast, so it's better to avoid those by setting 100% to 4.2 and 0% to 3.7 (also because that's the interval where most of the energy is stored) (Talking about Li-ion here)

Yes, but this allows user to define lower limit, which further prolongs the battery life.

I want to be able to control whether it charges up to 75, 90 or 100 of the available capacity.

~~True, we can't have nice things under capitalism.~~

Actually, scratch that. If every single manufacturer would do the same, there would be no change for consumers, except better battery health. And the option to reduce health for more capacity.

Your phone only last 16 hours and that's with the screen *off*? I think you need to check your phone, because that's not normal. Your phone should be able to last a full day or two.

But on my phone i very much need to be able to charge it to 100% before travelling

Yeah, so at that point you opt-in to the "overcharge" (just to make it look scary!) method of charging 100%

Yeah, I was just trying to keep it simple for the non math folks.

120% of 80 is 96. You'd have to let them charge to 125% to get to 100

That doesn't really work with manufacturers trying to win customers on battery life, as well as hoping that customers will buy a new device rather sooner than later.

Mmm i wouldn't go that far on most devices, most of the time that would result in unsatisfying runtime.

however for devices where they can easily run days on a charge, yeah it makes sense. My xiaomi smartwatch gets 6 fucking days on 70% charge with quite a lot of power-drawing features enabled, so there's really no reason to ever charge it above 80%.

But on my phone i very much need to be able to charge it to 100% before travelling, it only gets like 16h with the screen off on a full charge.

With a battery*

My iPhone battery has survived a surprising amount of time, and I’m going to guess that’s because of Apple imposing its own researched limits on battery charging based on what it sees from my usage.

That could mean it’s sometimes lying when it says it’s at “100%”.

Yeah I don't get it either. Just make 80% the new 100%, and if someone wants to get the most capacity as a "power user" (no pun intended), they can manually switch to a capacity of 120% at the warning that this will decrease battery life time.

This way, it's opt-out instead of opt-in.

I think that's what it's already doing. That's how my wife's Samsung operates

Alternatively, they could just charge to 80% and show that it is 80% charged, like iOS and macOS do.

edit: I seemed to have misread the comment above.

It’s useful to not be lied too, in my opinion, because then you still have the option to charge to 100% when needed.

Sure, but that helps prevent degradation due to charging cycles, not charging capacity

The Steam Deck has power pass through so the battery doesn’t get worn down when plugged in: https://bloggedoff.com/2024/04/25/steam-deck-battery-lifespan-power-passthrough/

What about 2 screws and some tabs

You mean the same guy who didn't remove the stickers from the bottom of a mouse, then said the mouse was shit. Then when he got called out for it doubled down instead of admitting he fucked up and relooking at the mouse? Or the same guy who's had multiple accusations of having a hostile work environment? Then releasing a south park tier I'm sorry video?

Even if it does loosen under high heat it's still going to more or less stay in place, then when it cools down the adhesive will resolidify. When you blast a battery with a heat gun to remove it you just get the glue loose enough that you can pull it away without horribly mangling the battery. It's still pretty well held in there unless you're being violent trying to remove it.

How hot a battery should/can get is a whole topic that tends to contain the key words that trigger "UGH!! PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE!!!!" stupidity.

But understand that these devices are generally being held in hands or even against our bodies. That is why so much work is done to let them dissipate heat quickly. We will care about the heat long before the components and glue does.

A quick chat gpt says that PSAs tend to soften around 60-80C and Hot Melt Adhesives around 70-100 C.

As for the electronics themselves? They can all run a LOT hotter than people expect. Using desktop PCs (just because I DO know those off the top of my head), a general rule of thumb is to not actually care until a component throttles or the case temperature hits 100F. Individual components have different thresholds (generally anything that is mostly semiconductors is in the danger zone around 100C), but individual components are almost all attached to heat sinks which are "attached" to air which is a really good insulator. So if the air is getting close to 100F (35-ish C if I remember right), stuff is bad.

So yeah. There are definitely cases where you could see the adhesives fail. But they will generally be associated with hardware failures/damage if during use or, more likely, someone leaving their gameboy on the dashboard of a car during the summer.

Like a lot of stuff, I blame "popular science" tech youtubers like Linus Sebastien. He thought it was funny to lose his mind with a butter knife and stab at his steam deck and everyone pointed out how dangerous that was while memeing it around.

Stuff like this is why I can't watch LTT anymore. He's effectively become the PewDiePie or Logan Paul of tech and has become net negative for the industry.

Lately he did a video where he downloaded HoloISO as an analogue for a SteamOS 3.0 review (why would you review it when it's actively discouraged for download on non-Steam Deck hardware?). While he doesn't spend a ton of time on the problems (like connecting to printers), it's still negative exposure to things that will most likely be sorted out before release (if they're not already fixed within Valve).

That being said, I shouldn't expect much from the guy who did the equivalent of deleting System32 in an attempt to install Steam when all he had to do was open the app manager and click install

Not that I know these things, but don't batteries get pretty hot? If it loosens up with a heat gun, wouldn't it loosen up with heavy use?

In theory that is nice. In practice that is just as expensive to re-tool for and isn't needed. Any adhesive being used should (and, in my experience, does) soften up under a simple heat gun (or hair dryer if you are lazy). That obviously gets REAL sketchy if you are dealing with a spicy pillow but... in that case you should not be touching things unless you know how to handle those (bucket of sand). At which point dealing with a battery you probably don't want to get hot is not an issue.

Like a lot of stuff, I blame "popular science" tech youtubers like Linus Sebastien. He thought it was funny to lose his mind with a butter knife and stab at his steam deck and everyone pointed out how dangerous that was while memeing it around. When the reality is that you just get a plastic spreader/old credit card and a heat gun and stuff pops out pretty quick in these "reasonable" uses of glue/tape situations.

Apple's solution is to integrate a heating strip with the glue. Put some power into it, and the glue warms up and releases.

To be fair, non-swappable batteries are fucking bullshit and need to go away forever.

its gonna come back. at least in the eu, phones will be required to support it:)

Yeah. People underestimate the thermal and "durability" benefits of just holding that in place with some double sided tape.

Going by https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Steam+Deck+OLED+Battery+Replacement/168676 it doesn't look great but it looks "reasonable" and the replacement battery comes with new tape.

The other month I was reading up on a white paper proposing an industry standard adhesive designed to pretty much dissolve instantly when exposed to the right solvents. Whether said solvent is at all human safe or what the cost of switching to these kinds of strips were was not discussed which... kind of is an answer in and of itself.

But, in general, I come down on Right To Repair being more about making it reasonable for small repair shops to exist rather than for Joe Schmoe to fix his own iphone. And if you can be trusted to deal with ribbon cables and tracking screws, you can be trusted to use a heat gun and a plastic shim.

That's not "being fair", that's just making excuses.

To be fair, most phones don't have easily replaceable batteries anymore either. I remember in an interview that one of the steam deck leads said they really wanted an easier to replace battery, but it was a compromise they ended up making. I think they blamed it partially on inexperience with hardware production, and that they hoped to do better on future hardware.

If the Steam Deck's airflow wasn't so delicately balanced, they could probably just skip the glue and add some foam or rubber patchs on the corners to prevent rattling. Then it'd be fairly easy to replace.

Nice I didn't know power tools has this, I will configure that when I get home today. I often leave my deck plugged in and forget about it and charging the battery to 100% is no bueno

While this is nice, I do hope they consider making it easier to remove and install a new battery for the next iteration of the steam deck.

To clarify, I mean something similar to phones where the backplate can slide off or preferably a panel, secured by a screw, when removed allows direct access to the battery and allows it to be easily swapped out - similar to many kids toys.

Would definitely be really nice since we tend to leave our Steam Decks plugged in all day

this really should just be a bog standard feature on all devices with a screen

I would like this since I mostly play plugged in, but I would like easily swappable batteries even more. If they were hot-swappable, that would be even better!

Hell yeah another valve W, I always do that using power tools

That's how *all* rechargeable batteries work isn't it? If I understand correctly, there's no such thing as 100% because it would break it.

Is the change here that they're letting the user set the limit?

My Samsung phone does this and it drives me crazy. i wish they'd lie about the laat 20% they're keeping free and just show me at a full charge