Why 80%. A lithium-ion cell ages fastest at the two ends of its range: held near 100% the voltage is at its highest and the chemistry inside degrades quicker, and drained to nearly empty it is stressed in a different way. Keeping the charge between roughly 20% and 80% for everyday use, and going to 100% only when you need the full run time, is the single most effective habit. Laptop makers know this, which is why many offer a "battery health" or "charge threshold" setting in their own software that stops charging at 80%; if yours has one, use it, and use this page's alert for the days you want a different limit or for a device without such a setting.
What a cycle is. One cycle is a full 100% of discharge, in any number of pieces: 50% today and 50% tomorrow is one cycle, not two. Most laptop and phone batteries are rated to keep about 80% of their original capacity after 300 to 500 full cycles, and keep working with less capacity after that; the Assistant's lifespan range of 500 to 1,000 cycles is the wider band in which a battery is usually replaced, nudged up when you keep the limit low and the average level moderate. The cycles this page counts are only the ones it sees while open; the lifetime figure is in the operating system's report.
Heat is the other enemy. A battery that sits at 100% on a charger in a warm laptop, or a phone charging under a pillow, ages faster than one cycled gently at room temperature. Charge on a hard surface, keep the vents clear, avoid charging in direct sun or a hot car, and do not game or render heavy video while plugged in at full charge if you can help it. Night mode exists for the same reason: it keeps the overnight limit at 80% so the battery does not spend seven hours full and warm.
Slow is fine, fast is fine, full is the problem. Fast charging adds a little heat but modern devices manage it well; the wear comes from the time spent near full, not from the speed of getting there. Storing a device for weeks is best done at about 50%, powered off. And a battery that has sat empty for months can refuse to charge at all, so an old laptop in a drawer is better topped up a few times a year.
Reading the time estimates. The browser's time remaining is the operating system's own guess from the current draw, and it swings with what you are doing: it will drop while a video exports and climb again when the machine idles. This page holds a value for a minute and only replaces it when the new one differs by more than a fifth, so the figure does not flicker; when the operating system gives none it falls back to the rate it measured itself. Treat it as a trend, not a countdown.
Using the alert in practice. Leave the tab open in its own window while you work on the charger; when the limit is reached, unplug and the beep stops on its own. The Keep the screen awake switch stops the device sleeping, which would also stop the monitoring. In a background or minimized tab the page takes a fresh reading every five seconds (browsers stop refreshing a hidden page's own battery object, so the page asks a fresh one), the level in the tab title stays current, and the notification and flashing title reach you; the sound needs one click anywhere on the page earlier in the visit, because browsers block audio a page starts on its own.