iOS 14 adds new AirPods optimized charging feature to reduce battery aging

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Apple continues to expand its optimized battery charging capability. With iOS 14, Apple says that AirPods will now learn from your charging routine and wait to charge past 80% until you need to use them.

The optimized battery charging feature is designed to reduce battery aging and extend the overall lifespan of your AirPods’ battery. Here’s how Apple explains the feature in a new push notification in iOS 14:

Optimized Battery Charging Enabled: To reduce battery aging, AirPods learn from your daily charging routine so they can wait to finish charging past 80% until you need to use them.

What this means is that iOS 14 will learn how and when you charge your AirPods and wait until it thinks you’re about to take them off the charger to charge all of the way to 100% capacity.

Apple has rolled out several different battery management features to its different platforms over the last several years. On the iPhone, Apple allows users to manage their Battery Health and capacity, and disable performance throttling caused by reduced battery capacity. iOS 13 also quietly added a new optimized battery charging feature, which aims to extend the lifespan of your iPhone’s battery to reduce how often the battery stays at 100% charge.

On the Mac, Apple added a new Battery Health Management feature with the release of macOS Catalina 10.15.5 last month. This feature aims to improve the long-term battery health of a MacBook, particularly for those who use their MacBook plugged in most of the time. In this situation, the Battery Health Management feature will kick-in to stop your MacBook from charging to full capacity and sitting at 100% charge.