Minibook X N100 How to limit charging?

Laptops Minibook X N100/N150/5100
1

I use my laptop to travel and it work flawlessly (except that sometimes the tablet mode suddenly appears).

But I also use it to stay on my desk, bed, office, so I wanna know how to limit the charging to 60-70% so I can leave it connected withouth damaging the battery.

2

We dont have an app for that. You should try on windows, or another customer may be able to help

3

Hello,
battery care by limiting its charge level or, in other words, by imposing a charge threshold, requires vendor support in the device firmware. Sadly, that’s not the case for Chuwi: actually this is, IMHO, the biggest flaw of the Minibook X which, otherwise, is a good device (I’m writing from an N150). The lack of battery care is, probably, the main reason of the battery limited lifespan that many users complain.
While waiting for Chuwi to implement proper battery charge limiting in the UEFI firmware, there is a workaround: use an external smart plug capable of exposing REST api, such as the Shelly Plug S, and pilot it using a script monitoring the notebook battery charge level.

Here is what I’m using on (arch) linux

[me@MinibookX battery-care-ext-plug]$ cat src/main.py

import time
import requests
import psutil
import notify2

MAX_THRESHOLD = 60  # percentuale di carica oltre cui spegnere lo smart plug
MIN_THRESHOLD = 50  # percentuale di carica sotto cui accendere lo smart plug

def main():
    notify2.init("GNOME Battery Notifier")
    notified_max = False
    notified_min = False

    while True:
        battery = psutil.sensors_battery()
        if battery is None:
            print("Nessuna batteria rilevata.")
            break

        percent = battery.percent

        if percent >= MAX_THRESHOLD and not notified_max:
            n = notify2.Notification(
                "Batteria quasi carica",
                f"La batteria è al {percent:.0f}%. Spengo lo smart plug",
                "dialog-information"
            )
            response = requests.get("http://192.168.1.50/relay/0?turn=off")
            if response.status_code == 200:
                 print("Risposta ricevuta:", response.text)
            else:
                 print("Errore nella richiesta:", response.status_code)

            n.set_urgency(notify2.URGENCY_NORMAL)
            n.show()
            notified_max = True
            notified_min = False  # resetta l'altro flag
        elif percent < MAX_THRESHOLD:
            notified_max = False

        if percent <= MIN_THRESHOLD and not notified_min:
            n = notify2.Notification(
                "Batteria quasi scarica",
                f"La batteria è al {percent:.0f}%. Accendo lo smart plug",
                "dialog-information"
            )
            response = requests.get("http://192.168.1.50/relay/0?turn=on")
            if response.status_code == 200:
                 print("Risposta ricevuta:", response.text)
            else:
                 print("Errore nella richiesta:", response.status_code)

            n.set_urgency(notify2.URGENCY_NORMAL)
            n.show()
            notified_min = True
            notified_max = False  # resetta l'altro flag
        elif percent > MIN_THRESHOLD:
            notified_min = False


        time.sleep(180)  # controlla ogni tre minuti

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()
4

I’m a Windows user :frowning:
But I believe that Chuwi is sleeping on that. It’s such a low hanging fruit to improve an excellent machine.

5

I would really like to see this feature added. I think many people are waiting for her.