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I would like to use a software for controlling the charging of my laptop's battery somehow like this: the charging would switch off after reaching a certain percentage for, example 80%. Charging ONLY switch on, if the percentage reaches a lower limit like 40%.

For Windows, but if there is something like this to Mac, that's also good.

Paid or free

Thanks!

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    Why do you want to do this? Laptop charging is not handled at software/OS level, it is the electronics in the adapter/charger and your laptop . I think mostly the charging is turned off once the battery is 100%.
    – dbza
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 22:25
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    I too searched once for this kind of application, but I was unable to find any.
    – TomJ
    Commented Aug 8, 2014 at 6:18
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    I think the first commenter is right, it is probably handled lower level, so it is different for various vendors. My samsung is only able to stop charging at 80% and this is - i guess - a configuration in the bios level (you can set this option in the bios or the samsung application bundled). So there is neither easy solution nor general API (even a low level one) to do such things in windows platform, but I still hoped there is something, when I asked this question
    – kexx
    Commented Aug 8, 2014 at 6:42
  • If any of these answers helped you, please accept it, which will help others who read this question in future.. Feel free to post & accept your own answer, if you found one elsewhere.
    – Mawg
    Commented May 16, 2019 at 7:25

6 Answers 6

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Such a software is always tailored to specific hardware so go to Support page of your laptop manufacturer and check available software drivers there. Some time ago I posted similar answer.

Please note that the software might not have ability to configure your own charging threshold.

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It is not possible because the current legacy hardware architecture does not support this function. So unless you have a lenovo or ASUS laptop with a battery firmware which supports this, software-level control of charging/discharging cannot be achieved.

However, there are two ways of doing so at hardware-level:

  1. open the laptop, cut off the battery's power control wires (e.g. the SMBC and SMBD lines in https://media.blackhat.com/bh-us-11/Miller/BH_US_11_Miller_Battery_Firmware_Public_WP.pdf), reconnect back when you want to charge them. Most laptop battery does not allow direct charging without power command. By cutting off the power control wires (not the wires that provide the actual power), motherboard cannot send charge command to the battery, your battery will always be in a not-charging status.

  2. lower the adaptor voltage using diodes. If you know some electronics, each diode's PN-junction can lower the voltage by about 0.7V, since the battery voltage can never exceed the adaptor voltage, this will lower the voltage of fully charged battery, preventing charging the battery to 100% or a too high capacity level.

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Use a wifi smart switch and turn it on or off based on a script (turn off charging when battery charging level hits 80%; turn on charging when battery level hits 40%)

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  • It's recommending hardware, not software, so it's probably off-topic - but, itsa good answer :-)
    – Mawg
    Commented Aug 1, 2018 at 17:29
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For (some??) Lenovo laptops you can use Lenovo Vantage software with Conservation mode feature: enter image description here

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This battery management software will automatically switch on/off your smart plug device (or smart wall socket) when the low and high battery levels are met. This will help reduce overcharging and overheating which will degrade the battery. This is 100% automated so you don't need to keep plugging and unplugging your power adapter. https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9p2bz0lr27p2

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I came here looking for Windows software to control charging on a Windows laptop to prolong battery life. I do use AlDente on the Mac to keep my battery around 80% and it works great. The search for Windows software for this continues.

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