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Should I enable Protect Battery to limit the maximum battery charge to 85% on Galaxy S22, S21, S20, and S10?

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enable Protect Battery to limit the maximum battery charge to 85% on Galaxy S22, S21, S20, and S10

One of the new features of Galaxy S22 is Protect Battery, which lets you limit the maximum charge to 85% to minimize the charging wear to the battery.

It is actually a new feature in Samsung’s One UI 4 (Android 12). So, you can find the Protect Battery option on Galaxy S21, S20, and S10 after you update the phone to Android 12.

This Galaxy S22 new feature guide explains how the Protect Battery work on Samsung phones, how to enable and disable it, the pros and cons of enabling Protect Battery, and whether you should enable it and limit the maximum battery charge to 85% on Galaxy S22, S21, S20, and S10.

On Protect Battery

How does Protect Battery work on Galaxy S22, S21, S20, and S10?

When charging a lithium battery, charging efficiency reduces significantly, usually after it reaches about 80-90% of its design capacity. You probably already notice that you need less than 20 minutes to charge Galaxy S22 battery from 0-50%. But you need 40 mins or more to charge it from 50% to 100%.

This is common for almost all lithium batteries.

In other words, the resistance to charging increases after 80-90%. Therefore, there will be more charging wear after this level.

For example, charging the Galaxy S22 battery from 10-20% will cause far less battery wear than charging the same battery from 90% to 100%, although the battery level increase is identical (10%).

Of course, there are no quantitative and scientific parameters to measure such differences. But the trend is real and proven.

So, limiting the battery charging to 85% will surely reduce the battery wear. But nobody can tell you “how much” reduction yet.

When you enable this option, Galaxy S22 (or S21, S20, and S10) will stop charging once the battery reaches this level, regardless of the charging method used (USB cable charging or wireless charging).

As most lithium batteries will lose about 20% of the designed capacity after about 500 full charging cycles (from 0-100%) under normal conditions, the Protect Battery may slow down the ageing process of the battery by avoiding charging the battery from 85% to 100%.

What’s the difference between the Protect Battery and Optimized Battery Charging in iOS?

Apple introduced a similar feature, Optimized Battery Charging, in iOS 13.

The differences between Protect Battery and Optimized Battery Charging in iOS are:

  • Protect Battery, if enabled, will stop the charging completely once the battery level reaches 85%. It is a hard brake for charging.
  • Optimized Battery Charging in iOS, if enabled and activated, will delay charging past 80% in certain situations. But it will try to ensure that the iPhone is still fully charged when unplugged, based on learning your daily charging routines.
  • Protect Battery, if enabled, will work all the time. No exceptions.
  • Optimized Battery Charging in iOS, if enabled, will be activated only when you are in some frequently stayed locations (e..g, home, office) and your usage habits are regular.

Anyway, the purpose of these two features is identical: to reduce the wear on the battery. But the Protect Battery achieves this by avoiding charging the battery above 85%. Optimized Battery Charging tries to reduce the time the iPhone spends fully charged.

Pros and cons of enabling Protect Battery

Once enabled, you effectively get a “smaller” battery.

For example, the Galaxy S22 Ultra battery has a design capacity of 5000mAh. The Protect Battery makes the usable capacity to 4250mAh.

So, you need to consider:

  • Does it affect your usage? You bought Galaxy S22 because you expected it to increase your productivity or enjoyment. Prolonging battery lifespan should be secondary.
  • Will you often drain the battery below 20%?

When the battery level is lower than 20-30%, the discharging wear increases, you may hit this range more often if you do not fully charge the battery.

So, the advantage of limiting the maximum charging capacity to 85% is reduced charging wear.

But it may increase the discharging wear if you often drain the battery below 20% because of the reduced charging capacity.

How to enable or disable Protect Battery on Galaxy S22, S21, S20, and S10?

By default, the Protect Battery feature is NOT enabled on Galaxy S22, S21, S20, and S10. You need to manually enable it to limit the maximum battery charging to 85%.

As shown in the screenshot below, in Galaxy S22 Settings, you can tap the Battery and device care.

Galaxy S21 Settings
Galaxy S22 device care

On the Device care page, you can:

  • One tap to optimize battery and storage.
  • Check battery usage and manage battery settings.
  • Check storage usage and mange storge (e.g., USB thumb drive)
  • Check memory usage and free up memory.
  • Enable antivirus and spyware scan (it is not necessary for most Galaxy S22 owners).

To manage battery settings, tap the Battery field, as shown in the screenshot above.

Now, you can enable some battery options on the battery settings page, as shown in the screenshot below.

Tap More battery settings to proceed.

Galaxy S22 battery settings: protect battery
Galaxy S22 protect battery

On the More battery settings page, you can tweak some related to battery charging.

Tap the switch next to Protect Battery, as shown above, to enable this feature to limit the maximum charging level to 85%.

Once this feature is enabled, the phone will stop charging immediately once the battery level reaches 85%.

You will see the following notification on the lock screen once the battery level reaches 85%, as shown below.

Protect battery notification on the lock screen

Update: now there is a quick setting button for Protect Battery. You can use it to quickly enable or disable Protect Battery from the quick settings panel, as shown in the screenshot below.

You may check this guide on how to manage the buttons in the quick settings panel.

Protect Battery quick settings button on Galaxy S22, S21, S20, and S10

Should I enable the Protect Battery on Galaxy S22, S21, S20, and S10?

As mentioned earlier, the Protect Battery effectively reduce the usable battery capacity by 15%. This may lead to more discharging wear if you often drain the battery below 20% because of the reduced usable capacity.

Therefore, our recommendation is:

  1. If you are a light user, you may enable this option to minimize the charging wear. Remember, you should also try to minimize the period of draining the battery below 15%.
  2. If you are a heavy user and already complain about the battery life (e.g., short screen-on time), it does not make sense to enable this option. Just prepare to replace the battery after one or two years.

So, it depends on the usage. If you can keep the battery level above 20% most of the time after enabling the Protect Battery, then this feature may considerably extend the life span of the battery on Galaxy S10, S20, S21, and S22.

If you want to extend the screen-on time for Galaxy S22, S21, S20 or S10, you may try to re-enable Suspend Execution for Cached Apps.

Do you have any questions on the Protect Battery to limit the maximum battery charge to 85% on Galaxy S22, S21, S20, and S10?

If you have any questions about using this feature to extend the lifespan of the battery on Galaxy S10, S20, S21, and S22, please let us know in the comment box below.

The community will help you solve the issues.

You may check other Galaxy S22 guides:

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. In the past we had to charge to 100% and drain it completely, or at least that’s what everybody told you to do. What has changed that now is better not to charge it over 85 and not drain it below 20? Thanks a lot!

    Reply

  4. Every time I turn the toggle off to stop the battery charging at 85%, it turns the battery protection back on automatically. We have heavy loadshedding, I need to be able to charge to 100%, is there perhaps another setting I have to change as well?

    Reply

  5. Hello. I leave my phone whole night for charging while I’m sleeping. This feature of reducing battery charge to 85% should help the battery to not to die by charging whole night frequently, am I right?

    Reply

  9. How do we force smartphone manufacturers such as Samsung to start installing replaceable batteries inside their phones again?

    Reply

  10. Is it advisable that when the protect battery feature is on, I should plug in my charger the moment the phone reaches 15%?

    Reply

  11. Li-ion batteries are most stable at 50%. That is why when you open your new phone, you will find that the charge is exactly at 50%. Battery wear, expressed in resistance, is proportional to the square of the percentage of overcharge (or discharge) from 50%. That is why, your battery will wear more prematurely if you charge it beyond 80% or if you exhaust it below 20%. It is better to charge it frequently when it is exhausted at 40% and keep it charged until 70%.

    But you do not really need to stress yourself over this because batteries usually lose half of their full capacity after about 4 years, which is the time when your phone is exhibiting performance issues because of obsolete or old hardware.

    Reply

  14. I trade in for a new phone every 2 years. I usually don’t let my phone go below 30% but always charge to 100. Should I even bother doing this? I haven’t had any issues with my last 3 phones.

    Reply

  15. Using a Chargie device on your phone will definitely prolong its battery lifespan. Chargie limits and delays full charging overnight, and makes the entire charging process much safer, without relying on phone hardware or software.

    Reply

  16. When Protect Battery is on and i have 85% of charge reached, Can i play my games or watch my movies without unplug it from charger? Will my phone gradually discharge or will it be powered by the charger in this case without drawing on the battery (a bit like on laptop) ?

    Reply

  17. A couple of questions above answer my question, but nonetheless I ask due to a slight change in my observation on using protect battery.

    In above responses it’s mentioned that once phone reaches 85%, phone will drain slightly below 85% and primarily the power will be drawn directly from charger. However in my use, there is no dip below 85% at all. Wondering if the phone is actually micro charging cycles are happening from 84-85% ? Appreciate if you respond please. Can’t seem to find this answer anywhere else

    Reply

  18. Thanks for the detailed response Simon! Much helpful. A follow on question please, given primarily power is drawn from the charger, it would be okay to keep the phone plugged in through the day even after it’s reached 85% and, using the phone in the plugged in the state as well?

    Reply

  19. Thanks for the detailed response Simon, very helpful! Just a follow on question please,

    Is it okay to keep the phone plugged in through the day post hitting 85% and use it in such plugged in state? I understand since the power is primarily through the charger it should be okay, but still double checking. Thanks once again

    Reply

  20. “85%” who hard-codes such things? It should be a dropdown with choices of 95, 90, 85 at a minimum.

    Reply

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