Motion Boom battery management for longevity?

#1

Hi,

I’m thinking of buying a Motion Boom, and wondering how much it helps you to manage its battery in a way that maximizes longevity.

As some of you probably know, most Lithium batteries are happiest spending their time between about 1/4 and 3/4 full. The “Lithium battery comfort zone”.

That’s why iOS has ‘Optimized Battery Charging’ and Android has ‘Adaptive Charging’, for people who charge their devices overnight. The device battery is charged up to about 80% initially, and held there for most of the night, before charging resumes at a time that’s supposed to get it up to 100% just prior to when it predicts you’re going to unplug & start using it.

I’ve looked at the Motion Boom user manual and it doesn’t seem promising, in terms of the available physical controls and lights. (I hope in future products they add a switch near the charge port for battery “comfort zone” versus “heavy usage”.)

So I tried installing the Soundcore app. But I don’t (yet) have any Soundcore speaker for it to connect to, so I wasn’t able to get any idea of the interface / features it offers.

So, can anyone here tell me? Are there any clever features to help the user with this kind of thing? (Any upcoming app changes that introduce such a feature?)

If not, is there any way for the me to at least get an idea what the current state of charge is? The user manual only mentions states of “low battery” and “full charged”, which wouldn’t be good enough for me. I would often want to keep an eye on the charging progress, and stop it at around 75 - 85%.

Thanks,
Peter

#2

I think you are overthinking this. I just charge my 2 Booms to full once they get to around 50%. I’ve had mine for more than a year and no appreciable battery degradation as far as I can tell.

Eventual battery degradation is inevitable in a buttery powered device. Usually by the time that happens something new and improved has come out. I don’t sweat the small stuff too much.

All that being said, if it really bothers you, you can stop charging and check to see what he charge is in the App.

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#3

So the app does provide more info than just “low battery” and “fully charged”?

I found this conversation, where one of the replies says:

But they weren’t talking about any particular device. Does the app show the state of charge in the same way for all devices? So if I bought a Motion Boom, would I be able to see “4 levels of charge” in the app? If so, that would be better than nothing! I’d probably go ahead with the purchase.

Do you have to stop charging before you can check?

Thanks for replying!

#4

It shows a battery bar. It’s under the M.

PS As I mentioned, I have 2 of them and really like them. Hooked up in TWS is awesome.

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#5

Here’s a review I wrote up on them in case you’re interested:

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#6

I just noticed you asked this question. Since I usually just plug in it and charge it/them until fully charged, I didn’t know, so I checked. As you can see it was already almost fully charged but the charging light lit up and I see it shows in the App.

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#7

Thanks for checking for me and giving screenshots! You’ve won me over; you should be on commission!

I hope this isn’t a stupid question, but if I just buy 1, that’s still stereo because of the 2 actual speaker units within a single boom device. Right?

So having 2 booms in TWS is just better stereo, taking advantage of the greater separation and twice as much capacity?

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#8

Absolutely you can use One in Stereo Each speaker in the unit (Left and Right) is a separate Channel.

If you have Two Booms - One Boom is your Right Channel and the other is your Left Channel. You can just get better stereo separation and twice the power. Just something to think about in the future.

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#9

I agree with the comment you’re thinking too much, chances are you will outgrow your wish for this speaker before it’s battery is the issue.

However, if you did want to maximize battery life there’s a few tricks.

The notion you should keep battery around 70% is only true for stored unused contexts. It’s thus become “fake news” to the notion of run battery down to a little below 70% to then recharge to a little above 70%. Don’t do that.

What ages your battery is:

  • non-use, keeping it idle. If you intend to not use then stored 50%-70%.
  • recharging. The battery has around 300 recharge cycles or 600 half or 1200 quarter recharge. So the notion of discharge a little to recharge a little wears the cell. Best to plug into power, keep it charged and not use the battery.
  • heat. Sunshine, next to heating, age dramatically.

So best to keep it connected to power until you need to run on battery, then run on battery the shortest time. Use it often, enjoy it. If you anticipate a period of not using it then store room temperature half charged.

#10

I agree in just enjoying it.

I have a Zune from 2007, I think when bought, and it is still running still pretty decent for over 15 years now and I have an ipod touch that is like 3 to 4 years old and it keeps a battery life for like 20 min if that.

#11

Thanks for replying.

I agree that having some exact percentage in mind and constantly targeting that, is unnecessary. That’s why I think of things more in terms of a “Lithium battery comfort zone”. The rough percentage range I normally think of is around 30 - 80%.

But I don’t think this issue is only relevant for “stored unused contexts”. If so, why would (recent versions of) iOS and Android have the feature that holds charging at 80% for, typically, just a few hours every night, before resuming and bringing the level up to 100% at the last minute?

And why would most Tesla cars have a ‘Daily’ charge limit setting (often 85%), for everyday use (commuting)? And I think they also have the ability to let you notify the car in advance when you’re going on a longer trip, and have it charge to 100% just in time for your departure.

But the manual says “Disconnect this speaker from the charger when fully charged. Do not charge for extended periods.”

If you are saying it would be good to power the speaker components directly from the mains, without involving the battery at all, whenever possible, that seems correct to me. But is that how it works in practice in devices like the Motion Boom?

I agree with your other points.

I’m certainly not an expert. One webpage I looked at recently was this one on Battery University, but I didn’t even try to read the whole thing, let alone understand it! I was quite interested in this graph from it.

#12

Heat. One of the many causes of cell life erosion is heat, the heat of using a phone, when overlapping the heat of recharging a phone, erodes the cell life. The reason to delay the phone’s full recharge until just before dawn is because the room is colder then, and the user is not using the phone.

That is because the heating effect of recharge is more of an issue when there are many cells together.

Is not applicable to one tiny cell in a Soundcore product.

That is because there is always a small chance of a power spike in the mains power, the longer you are connected, the more chance.

I’ll not quote the chemistry aspect, unless you ask.

#13

That’s not so simple, the degradation raises sharply on high charge levels. Actually keeping the Li-ion battery plugged in all the time is the worst advise for its longevity.
Lithium battery wear occurs mostly due to lithium residues buildup on the anode. It grows exponentially after around 3.9V which is roughly equal to 60% of the charge. Keeping the battery charged significantly over 60% for the extensive time is killing it. What is even worse, many devices would disconnect charge at 4.4V and then resume charging after voltage drops to 4.2V which is a nominal one for a100% charge (if you unplug and not use the battery it will drop to 4.2V while still keeping 100%). Topping up in the 4.2-4.4V range causes the battery to be charged in the worst conditions for its longevity and a very fast degradation. Not sure what is the battery management program for this particular device, might be more protecting, for example like most laptops: charging only if the remaining capacity drops below 95% reduces the number of charges for a plugged in battery to one in a couple of days but still - keeping close to 100% charge causes excessive wear. The general rule would be still to “dribble” close to 50-60% or for the convenience compromise just avoid charging over 80%. If the current charge level is not known, I would just charge for 1 hour from empty for most times and top it up fully only in case I plan longer use e.g. taking the speaker on a trip. Unfortunately, most devices which tend to be used plugged in still lack the battery charge management options, but business laptops do - for example my Lenovo has a battery charge preset for the use in the docking station (which is most of its life) and if I remember correctly it stops charging at 60% and starts after it drops to 55%.
I also hate the advice that you will outgrow your speaker as soon as a new model arrives to the market. I’ve used mine already for 5 years and I like it a lot! Why should I replace it if it’s still great? Including the battery life and in spite of a daily use! I also keep my smartphone for almost 3 years and the battery wear is just 7% despite haevy use of 6.5h average daily SOT.

#14

I “eat my own dog food”, I have a 7 year old battery devices working nearly as good as new following exactly what I wrote.

The words you are using are applicable at least 10 years older technology when passive charging moved to active charging came around. Passive was when the voltage was constantly applied, as oxidation occured the internal cell resistance increased so heat was caused in an accelerated manner. Active charging remembers the voltage when current drops and removes the voltage.

#15

I also remember old Nokias doing strong after a decade of use, but they were charged once per week. For a daily battery capacity use I would still argue that some battery management would make a difference. It also depends on the voltage cutoff, I once killed the battery in LG G8 in 1 year just by charging it overnight to 100%. The reason was the voltage cutoff was set higher in that phone to squeeze more capacity out of a smaller battery. The replacement battery is fine after putting 37k% of charge to it as I still use it as a second phone. However, I charge it only during the day, to 70-80%. On the opposite side I gave a spare BT speaker to my mom, it was all good not used too much. She’s been using it plugged-in for 2 years now. The battery dies after 5 minutes when unplugged. She hasn’t even used it on battery as she only amplifies her laptop and it’s always connected to the USB port. So my experience is: a little care can help a lot.