Custom thresholds.Your numbers, your dismiss times.

The three escalation tiers

Sensei’s alert system has three levels, each with its own percent and its own dismiss time. The defaults are useful starting points, not rules:

• Info — a quiet card, auto-dismisses on a short timer (default 5–6 seconds). The first nudge that you’re heading toward a lower state of charge.
• Warning — a more visible card with a longer dismiss timer (default 10–12 seconds), or in some presets a red overlay. The "okay, find a charger now" moment.
• Alert — persistent until you acknowledge it. Reserved for when battery is genuinely low (5% or below by default). On the Senpai preset, the alert is a full-screen flasher.

With custom thresholds, you set three percentages and three dismiss times. The defaults of the built-in presets become starting points you can edit, not the only options.

Why one global warning fails

macOS gives you a single low-battery warning at 10%. The 10% number was chosen as a reasonable average — and it’s wrong for almost everyone. On a flight, 10% arrives 20 minutes before the laptop dies, which is enough time to save your work but not enough time to find a power source. In back-to-back meetings, 10% is way too late; you wanted to know at 25% so you could plug in between calls.

Per-tier thresholds let the warning match the stakes. Set a 25% Info card with a 4-second dismiss to be reminded politely, a 12% Warning with a longer dismiss for the "do something" moment, and a 4% Alert that won’t go away. The shape of the day decides the numbers, not Apple’s designers.

Setting the thresholds

Open Sensei → Settings → Alerts → Custom. Each tier has two sliders — the trigger percent and the dismiss duration — plus a live preview that fires the actual notification at your current settings so you can sanity-check it before saving. Changes apply immediately; no relaunch needed.

Travel days are the obvious exception, and Travel Mode handles that by swapping in a stricter preset for the duration of the trip and restoring your custom thresholds the next morning at 9 AM.

Pairing with Low Power Mode

macOS’s Low Power Mode changes how the Mac uses power; custom thresholds change when Sensei tells you about it. The two compose: longer runtime from LPM plus earlier warnings means fewer surprise shutdowns and more time to plug in. A common configuration is LPM enabled on battery, alongside a custom 30 / 12 / 4% threshold set — runtime stretched, warnings still on time.

Custom thresholds is a Premium feature. It’s included in the 5-day free trial and unlocks as part of the Lifetime license (one-time purchase, three Macs per license). The three built-in presets — Zen, Regular, Senpai — remain free, and most users find one of them works without modification. Custom thresholds is for the cases the presets don’t cover.