Laptop battery life is a crucial aspect of productivity, and mastering the art of extending it is essential. This article is not just about squeezing more hours out of a single charge, but about adopting practices and tweaks that ensure your laptop’s battery remains robust and reliable for years to come. We will discuss Linux… continue reading.
The article is really useful. I have been trying to find a means of controlling my laptop’s battery charge levels while keeping it plugged in, i.e. the oft-quoted 20% and 80% in order to manage and extend the battery’s lifespan. I have tried TLP and some of the related options. However none seem to work. After a fair amount of research and discussion with various folk, it appears that the ‘problem’ I have is dependent on the hardware of my Clevo laptop; The BIOS doesn’t offer any advanced battery management options. A comment that came out of my search is that Lithium Ion batteries generally have a battery management system (BMS) built in which achieves a similar end and ensures no over or under charging. Any comments on this would be useful.
@GOMpt Thanks for the feedback! Welcome to our Linux community!
I’m glad you found the article helpful. Regarding your Clevo laptop, you’re absolutely right that battery charge limiting depends on hardware support.
Many manufacturers offer built-in battery management settings either in the BIOS/UEFI or via vendor-specific tools (e.g. tlp for Lenovo ThinkPads, asusctl for ASUS laptops). Clevo machines probably lack these.
Here’s how you can check:
Check Vendor-Specific Support
Some Clevo models do allow charge limit settings via their EC (Embedded Controller) firmware, but this varies. First, can check if there’s a update available for your BIOS/firmware that might enable charge thresholds.
Kernel Level Battery Management
After installing TLP, run this command:
sudo tlp-stat -b
…look for charge thresholds in the output. If they are N/A, it means your hardware doesn’t expose or support charge limit control.
Regarding built-in Battery Management System (BMS):
Lithium-ion batteries have a built-in Battery Management System (BMS) that prevents overcharging, but this doesn’t mean they enforce the 20-80% range for longevity.
The BMS ensures safety but doesn’t optimize long-term wear like software-based charge limits would.
Manually managing charge levels with a smart plug like this one or monitoring battery levels manually might be your only options with that laptop model. With the smart plug you may be able to fab something using IFTTT.
That’s a well written article, and as a recent owner of a Lenovo Thinkpad I totally agree that TLP is a terrific tool for managing battery life.
Like you, I only require long battery life very occasionally, so I use TLP to maintain the battery charge level at between 70 - 80 %, dramatically reducing full charge cycles, thus improving battery longevity - time will tell how effectively this translates into “number of years before replacement is required”.
The one issue that bothered me about managing battery life with TLP is having to remember (or look up) the command to fully charge the battery on the odd occasions when I need maximum charge. I found a solution - or rather I made a solution in the form of a small and simple GUI wrapper which I named TLP Battery Boost.
TLP Battery Boost is free and open source software, made with Python and Tkinter (no other dependencies other than TLP itself). I have recently released version 1.2.0 of this app on PYPI. I’m not allowed to post links, but if anyone wants to try it, just search for “TLP Battery Boost” and enjoy the benefits of TLP with the convenience of a simple GUI for those occasions when you need to fully charge your laptop.
Interesting timing . I just bought a Lenovo IdeaPad 5 and dug deep in understanding it’s power conservation mode. While the ThinkPad and IdeaPad both support this, they act on the START_CHARGE_THRESH_BAT0 and STOP_CHARGE_THRESH_BAT0 values in /etc/tlp.conf differently.
As you noted, the ThinkPad accepts a range (e.g., a low value to start charging and a high value when to stop charging) but the controller in the IdeaPad – being a less expensive option than a ThinkPad – has a simple on/off; it ignores the “start” value and treats the “stop” value as a binary flag where 1 enables conservation and 0 disables it.
When enabled, this mode allows the IdeaPad battery to charge to 60% and then stops charging and the laptop works directly on AC power. So, for working in an office (or whenever regularly plugged in) using the conservation mode is a good idea. When working remotely and running predominantly off the battery, disable the conservation mode so the battery gets full charge. Not as capable as the controller in the ThinkPad but still a help in extending battery life.
While tlp includes commands to alter this state temporarily, the setting in /etc/tlp.conf is what will be set at boot.
. I just bought a Lenovo IdeaPad 5 and dug deep in understanding it’s power conservation mode. While the ThinkPad and IdeaPad both support this, they act on the