Take care of the battery life of our laptop It is and should be one of the highest priorities when we have one of these devices, as it tends to be one that over time reduces more utility and comfort.
Although in Windows we have several options and power plans that allow us to save battery depending on how we use it, and the system also notifies us when it is low or critical, there is no something that tells us the opposite: when the load is at maximum.
Is it bad to leave the laptop connected to the power all the time?
The technology in most modern notebooks has come a long way in recent years, and typically when the charge reaches 100%, the energy coming from the external source is used directly to power the notebook rather than going through the battery first. , thus avoiding that you end up overloading it.
However, there are two details that can affect the life of your battery when it is connected all the time: temperature and voltage. If the temperature of your computer gets too high, the damage that occurs in the battery will be greater if it is charged to 100% than if it is less than half, for instance.
If your laptop tends to mishandle the temperature, it’s probably best to unplug it when it reaches 100% or is close to 100%. And the other detail is that when we charge the battery all the time to the maximum voltage per cell, we will have the minimum of recharge cycles.
Reducing this at least a little can greatly extend battery life, hence some manufacturers even include software that sets a battery charge threshold so that it never charges to 100%, especially if you use it almost like a desktop computer: connected to the power all the time.
Battery Notification
So if we know that ideally we shouldn’t charge the laptop 100% all the time, ideally have something to alert us when it’s ready. But just as we leave the cell phone charging and forget about it, more happens with a computer that does not go with us until the bathroom.
The good thing is that in Windows 10 and 11 we can use a simple but very useful application like Battery Notification so that notify us when the laptop reaches a specific load percentage.
It is a free application that you can download from the Microsoft Store. All you have to do is allow it to run in the background (as it needs to measure the battery charge all the time) and select the load percentage at which you want to receive your notification.
By default, Battery Notification alerts you when you have reached 90% charge and does so with quite scandalous music that can give you more than a scare. But, both can be customized.
The application come with multiple sounds to choose from, or you can even use whatever Mp3 files you have, that is to say that if you wish, you can record a simple voice message so that the laptop sings to you when it is loaded.
From there, every time your battery reaches the indicated percentage, you will see a notification message indicating that you disconnect the charger, which also shows the percentage of your battery and the estimated time remaining for charging. Next to the notification you will hear the sound you have chosen, and it won’t stop until you discard it.
Battery Notification it also allows you to set notifications of the same style when the load level is very low, and as with the full load, you can decide the percentage and customize the sound.