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bityard | on: Why get an expensive Pi when I have an old phone?
Why the concern?

I feel like The Internet has this urban myth that says keeping a charged battery plugged in all the time will eventually cause it to explode and burn your house down, guaranteed.

I get that keeping a battery at 100% charge is not great for it in terms of longevity (ability to hold a charge). And it's obvious that heating the battery up by running the laptop at full tilt inside a backpack or something will turn it into a spicy pillow.

But I struggle to imagine the failure mode that reliably shows up when keeping the laptop powered on 24x7 that is never a problem for 8-16 hours of continuous use while plugged in (a very typical work day for my laptops).

xp84 | parent | next
I used a MacBook Pro as a server for years. It was fine for its purpose, however the battery did swell and need replacing. It may have damaged the trackpad, and like the other comment mentioned, idk what would have happened if I had left it swelling for a couple more years. Probably not a battery fire? But the $230 or so that a massively more powerful HP USFF that I replaced it with was worth it, even versus a 0.1% chance it would burn my house down and possibly kill my whole family in the process.

I ended up repairing the Mac, replacing the battery, and installing Chrome OS on it. (chrome sucks though, someday I’ll get it back out and switch to real Linux)

babuskov | parent | next
> I feel like The Internet has this urban myth that says keeping a charged battery plugged in all the time will eventually cause it to explode and burn your house down, guaranteed.

I had a MacBook Pro where the laptop worked but the battery became swollen so much that it distorted the case. If I wasn't there to notice it, it would probably burst at some point and Lithium is very flammable.

It's probably rare and overblown, but it can happen.

lesuorac | parent
You work around your laptop so you'll notice an issue. A laptop in a closet is not observed.
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