I believe it can take a few weeks to learn, but I gave it two months on my M1 MBA running Big Sur at the time, and it never worked for me with the Mac plugged in nearly all the time.
Yes, I have read a few times in various places people complain that the
Optimized Battery Charging never starts to work properly. Others though say it eventually started to work for them. It is a shame that yet more Apple software is buggy and does not get fixed. :-(
So I switched to AlDente and never looked back. I have put AlDente straight on to three new macs I have had since then because of the extra control and certainty about what was actually happening. It may be that in Ventura it works but I would still go with AlDente.
I have sold my original two M1 MBAs at 25 months and 18 months of being plugged in nearly all the time. One had 100% battery condition and the other 98%.
Thank you for the info and personal experience. I think I will wait until my MBP is 2-3 weeks old and see if the
Optimized Battery Charging kicks in and starts working. If it doesn't then I will probably get AlDente. I read through the FAQ:
https://apphousekitchen.com/faq/
I pulled out a few interesting bits:
Unlike the common belief, it is actually way more unhealthy for a battery to always get cycled between a reasonable range (for example between 30% and 70%) than to just stay at a healthy percentage (for example 80%). This is due to even reasonable charge cycling adding a lot of charge cycles which results in more and faster battery degradation over time than just using the MacBook plugged in at a healthy percentage. However, this does not mean that you should not use your MacBook remotely. MacBooks are portable devices but if you use your MacBook in your office plugged in, it is better to just limit charging to a healthy percentage than to cycle between a certain range.
Keeping your battery at a lower percentage, such as under 80%, over weeks without doing full cycles (100%-0%-100%) can result in a disturbed battery calibration. When this happens, your Macbook might turn off with 40-50% left or it will stay at 100% for hours, and your battery capacity can drop significantly. However, this is only due to a disturbed battery calibration and not because of a faulty or degraded battery. To avoid this issue, we recommend doing at least one full cycle (0%-100%) every two weeks. Even if your battery calibration gets disturbed, doing 4-5 full cycles will recalibrate your battery and the capacity will go up again. AlDente Pro has a feature called Calibration Mode (https://apphousekitchen.com/feature-explanation-calibration-mode-2/), which will automatically do a full cycle when started.
AlDente Free can not control the charging behavior of your MacBook while it is in sleep or shut down. Therefore, it will continue to charge to 100% when you close the lid or shut it down. AlDente Pro has features called “Stop charging when sleeping” and “Stop charging when powered off” to counteract this behavior.
AlDente Free can not control the charging behavior of your MacBook while it is in sleep or shut down. Therefore, it will continue to charge to 100% when you close the lid or shut it down. AlDente Pro has features called “Stop charging when sleeping” and “Stop charging when powered off” to counteract this behavior.
AlDente has a free version, $14/year subscription version, and a $29 lifetime license version (it does not say if you get free updates for life or if you have the rebuy it each time). From what I can see there is nothing in the paid version I care about
except that it can work while the computer is in sleep mode or shutdown. That is a big thing, I think. It sort of seems that without that ability the free version is sort of meaningless. Well, unless one never shuts down or go to sleep while plugged in. I generally dislike adding utility software to my computer that duplicates what Apple already provides, but if Apple does not come through and work properly then I will probably buy this one.
