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Hi!
I'm looking for an application, that quickly kills my battery if it's low, so I can do a full charge to improve battery life.
Something, that I launch, I put my phone on the desk, have a tea meanwhile, and it's drained! Something, that turns on wifi, do some downloading, browsing, video playing, or whatever, and does it automatically without supervision. Does such app exists?
I'll second this, it'd be nice to have an app do this for me and maybe even give us some interesting stats from it?
Sent from my mind using telepathy
why would you want an application to destroy your battery?
Adevem said:
why would you want an application to destroy your battery?
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Apparently if you do a full discharge the battery life will be longer.
Soniboy84 said:
Apparently if you do a full discharge the battery life will be longer.
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not really, you should avoid deep discharges...
Byr0x said:
not really, you should avoid deep discharges...
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+1 If you had been reading around...you would know Lithium Ion batteries are designed to 'maximize' their efficiency within about two weeks of 'top up' charging. Cycle-charging is generally considered a less efficient method of charging. You will need to 'TopUp charge' this means charging as much and as often as possible. If your battery is at 89% for instance and you find yourself near a socket, plug your adapter in and charge it up to 100%. After a few days of doing this you will notice an improvement in the life of your battery when you are not able to charge.
Actually,,,
It is not matter of running your battery down to 0%.
It is ok to run it down till phone does to power on itself.
As you know battery is a single cell Li-Ion @ 3.7v
when it is fully charged it's peak voltage is 4.2v
By the time battery mah is drained down (galaxy s has 1500mah)
battery voltage should be around 3.2~3.4v range. this will depend on condition of the battery.
Battery should never go below 3.2v personally, 3.4v is my cut off.
If your battery voltage goes below 3.2v... it's time for a new battery as this kind of voltage will damage your battery, either it will leak or puff (battery will actually get bloated.
Phone has a voltage cut off so it will not over charge over 4.2v but if it does, it will likely start to smoke and catch fire.
I am sure anyone who is into electric Radio control knows all about these batteries.
Oh btw,,, long time storage voltage should be 3.8v
You'll be asking how do I know what voltage my battery is... I personallly don't know of any apps but GPS Status actually shows the temperature & voltage of your battery.
Soniboy84 said:
I'm looking for an application, that quickly kills my battery if it's low, so I can do a full charge to improve battery life.
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First, take into consideration the comments above regarding deep discharge of your battery...but, to answer your question, there's an app in the market place called 'Battery Refresh' which attempts to drain your battery quicker.
Well if it's all true above than its a good sign, and thanks for the info! I'm not an expert but in the old times I remember batteries had to discharged completely, maybe even if it's just a few times. Now somebody can also tell me why my battery is discharging when it's plugged in the socket with original charger? All I do is using the internet, and has. nimbuzz and a live wallpaper on. :S
You could probably enable the GPS/BT/WIFI ( connected to a router ) and run the interactive mode on Neocore benchmark.. that should enable most of the hardware components on the phone and stress the GPU/CPU.. probably would see a 25% battery drain for every 35-40mins.
I don't know what has changed with the batteries but as far as I know...
it is good to discharge new batteries 3~4 times down until phone does not power on.
Like I have said... it's about the voltage of the battery, not whether battery has any juice left in it or not.
These batteries have a protective circuitry so that it will not charge over 4.2v,
also as for discharge it is usually down to 3v but usually with a charger/discharger units that can control mah/volts/amps. With typical usage from the phone, it'll likely be discharged down to about 3.2`3.4v. Which is very safe.
You can do whatever you feel but I personally do this to every batteries I have for phone and every batteries I use with my radio controled cars.
For my RC cars, I have about 6 batteries ranging from 1cell to 3cell LiPo packs.
Each cell is 3.7volts.
But you don't have to force discharge and hurry the process.
Just use the phone normally and let it run down to nothing... than recharge to full peak.
Than again, choice is yours.
I'm looking for the same kind of applications. It's very useful for recalibrating your battery. Wipe the battery history then do a full cycle.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
The old saying in RC Helicopters was that the difference between discharging 50% and 100% was the difference between getting 500 uses and 5 uses.
You should certainly avoid ever fully dischaging any lithium based battery.
Older nickel batteries (Ni-cd, Ni-MH) required full dischage cycles to get rid of memory the the metals pertained, lithium-ion and lithium-ion-polymer not only do not require this; but doing so will damage them.
And yes, the older ipods came with Nimh cells and they did reccomended full discharge cycles.
Im pretty sure the idea was to try not to let the voltage get below 3.5v/cell and never below 3.3. Dead flat is 3 or 2.85 which is when the battery simply cant produce any real current. The phone should have circuitry though to not let the voltage get above 4.25 or below ~3.5.. If the low battery warning comes on, set the brightness to dim, and stop any activities (unless its a phone call, its not THAT important but if youre playing games or watching a movie...) until yo can get to a charger.
By the way this being my first post (i meant to ages ago) Ill just mention that my galaxy S came with recovery mode and download mode Enabled, i got it just last month, Virgin network, Australia.
draining the battery fully was for the older battery types, new age batteries are not recommended to be drained fully
Thanks!
One more question:
I'm using my phone as a desktop replacement, because I don't have Internet at the moment. I'm using xda, dolphin browser and listening music. It's plugged into the mains and it's not charging. It says 49%, and stuck there. Is it possible I'm using too much battery?
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Ok, this will be my last reply.
Fully draining or not is not the issue.
In RC, most modern electronic speed controllers have a built-in battery cut-off which will cut off power once it reaches certain voltage. Because OVER-draining battery without cut off can damage/kill/ or make it unable to hold voltage.
Also, once the battery voltage reach certain point (still within safe range) you will notice the motor being powered slow down. This would also be a recommended time to stop.
Cellular phones have built in safe cut off aswell. As I have said I have measured my battery after being full drained, voltage was around 3.55v or so. Which is very normal considering voltage of the battery is 3.7v only with peak charged voltage of 4.2.
Now, Someone mentioned that fully draining your battery repeatedly will dramatically reduce battery life.
Reducing life of the battery has more to do with the amount of AMP used to charge the battery. Faster charging is usually reduce battery life dramatically.
And without hobby grade chargers, you won't be able to control this charge rate.
Slow charge is better but charging at 1C rating is the normal. But charging at 1C means regardless of batteries mah rating, battery can be charged in about 60 minutes. As we all know, our phone batteries doesn't charge from zero to full in 60minutes, right? just like most of the portable devices it takes nearly 3~4hours to fully recharge. Last 20% usually takes longer because Amp provided to charge slowly lowers. That is why.
For example, if Galaxy S battery is 1500mah, than 1C charge rate is @ 1.5amp.
If battery is 3000Mah, 1C is 3.0Amps and so on.
So like I have said over and over before, drain your battery away if you have to by choice or not. Just use it up, I will bet you your battery will last longer than you keep your phone.
U should avoid draining ur battery to 0% (witch is not possible with ur phone. When it shows 0% the charge of the battery is at 10-15%). Li-ion batteries dont have a memory effect, so it would be usless discharching it completely anyhow. Best for sgs battery is charging it before it goes under 50% that will improve the lifetime of ur battery (not how long it lasts before u have to charge but how long it lasts before u have to go and buy a new one)
How do i know? Simply cause i had to learn that a few weeks ago for the job im learning.
@xxgg: yes ur right, it wont really damage the battery if u runn it till thr phone shows its empty. But using an app to drain battery as quick as possible will, since the app forces the battery to give out more Ampere than its built to give out
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
I've brought my Desire Z back for reparation (Mainboard died and replaced by an official repair center).
I've bringed it with my stock Battery fully loaded (I took it from the charger and 30 minutes later it died). When i picked it up, the battery was totally empty. Nothing in it. The Phone didn't even turned on!
It taked a while on the charger, but finally it turned on and was charged to 100% in normal time.
Since that, I experience a huge battery drain. When I release my phone from the charger on 7.30AM, it is dead on 4.30PM with no use! No SMS, phonecall, nothing. Only Gmail sync.
I've tried different ROM's (With- and without sense) and did restore my phone to stock. It doesn't solve my problem, the drain still stays huge, even with no apps installed!!!
I've tried another battery > same problem!
What can this be? Normally, my Desire Z last about 1,5 days oder 2 days when nothing happens. Why it's draining so fast, even if it's not used?
What can I do to resolve this ??
JassyNL said:
I've brought my Desire Z back for reparation (Mainboard died and replaced by an official repair center).
I've bringed it with my stock Battery fully loaded (I took it from the charger and 30 minutes later it died). When i picked it up, the battery was totally empty. Nothing in it. The Phone didn't even turned on!
It taked a while on the charger, but finally it turned on and was charged to 100% in normal time.
Since that, I experience a huge battery drain. When I release my phone from the charger on 7.30AM, it is dead on 4.30PM with no use! No SMS, phonecall, nothing. Only Gmail sync.
I've tried different ROM's (With- and without sense) and did restore my phone to stock. It doesn't solve my problem, the drain still stays huge, even with no apps installed!!!
I've tried another battery > same problem!
What can this be? Normally, my Desire Z last about 1,5 days oder 2 days when nothing happens. Why it's draining so fast, even if it's not used?
What can I do to resolve this ??
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try a new battery? Reset battery stats and give it a few days to actually get accurate readings? 8 hours isn't unheard of especially if your battery is giving up the ghost. give those thigns a try and maybe turn off sync and/or data to see if that makes a differance.
killj0y said:
try a new battery? Reset battery stats and give it a few days to actually get accurate readings? 8 hours isn't unheard of especially if your battery is giving up the ghost. give those thigns a try and maybe turn off sync and/or data to see if that makes a differance.
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Thanks! I've already tried a new battery, but that makes no sense.
I'm now draining it to zero, i.e. when it's fully dead, and then charge it to 100% for 8 hours. When it's charged, i'll wipe battery stats. Let's see.
When anybody has more tips, i'm pleased to hear them!
Here's a tip: don't drain your battery to zero. This is a great way to shorten the life of the battery, or completely ruin it.
For purposes of battery meter calibration, draining to 10-20% is plenty sufficient.
There should be no problem draining a battery to zero as shown by software. There is a myth/misunderstanding that this is a bad thing because people confuse it with the fact that Lithium Ion batteries can be permanently damaged if they are drained too low.
BUT any device using such batteries will have its circuitry setup to have 0% set to a point above this damaging threshold.
So the "too low" point in hardware is likely to be below the zero point that the phone's firmware and software will let you go to.
Sent from my Desire Z running CM7.
redpoint73 said:
Here's a tip: don't drain your battery to zero. This is a great way to shorten the life of the battery, or completely ruin it.
For purposes of battery meter calibration, draining to 10-20% is plenty sufficient.
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x2 I concur with this. No need to fully discharge the battery, one it probably doesn't even fully discharge because I'm pretty sure the software is saving you from yourself, plus when the battery stats are uncalibrated I'm fairly certain it reads as discharged but in fact is only partially thus the calibration is off. Lastly I'm if the opinion that throwing different charge levels works better because it more closely resembles real life charging situations. Also letting it charge for that long does nothing because the phone charges only a trickle when full in order to not ruin the battery, similar to a laptop. Overcharge protection....
Thanks again!
Now I did charge it to full and wiped Battery stats.
After 1hour 30 minutes, it lost 10%. Did only send 2 short mails with Gmail.
Here is the usage chart:
- Screen 54% (Time active 4m 51s), Brightness ~20%
- Mobile Stand-By 20% (Time active 1u 26m 13s)
- Phone inactive 18% (Time Active 1u 21m 21s)
- Gmail 5% (CPU Total 31s, CPU Foreground 25s, enabled 51s)
- Android OS 3% (CPU Total 21s)
CPU is on idle ~10%, as always. I don't see any apps that are burning my battery.
s there something abnormal here?
just compared it with my statistics (running virtuous affinity)...
Mobile Stand-By seems to be very high... i have 4% (time active 2 h 30 m)
maybe radio related?
hoffmas said:
just compared it with my statistics (running virtuous affinity)...
Mobile Stand-By seems to be very high... i have 4% (time active 2 h 30 m)
maybe radio related?
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This stats come from Virtuous Affinity also. I'd had never had any problems with such a drain with my 'old phone'. As soon as I got it back from the repair center, the battery drain is huge.
I've reflashed the latest radio for my phone, made a Superwipe and made a fresh install of Viruous Affinity. Let's see.
I think that 'Cell Standby' is killing my battery. It is at the top of the usage list with 38% and it's all time active. My phone was left it's charger at 7.15AM, now at 9.00AM it lost 20% of it's battery on idle use only. On 9.00AM, I've turned my phone on airplane mode. Let's see if that works.
I will recover the phone to stock tonight. If this isn't working, I'll return the phone to the store.
Even with the phone on airplane mode the battery is heavily draining. My last escape is to remove the SD Card. If the draining continues, then I will bring my phone back.
Does the battery came hot? Like more than normal?
With temp+cpu app you can monitor your temperature.
Because if on idle the temperature's around 25-28 C, you should be alright.
And then you can consider what steviewevie said; lithium battery can be damaged if you go on a too low voltage. Even if the phone as his ''protection'' to not get the battery to a critical level, the battery can loose power even if its not used.
Lithium ion, its cool but not perfect.
Try a OEM brand new battery.
steviewevie said:
There should be no problem draining a battery to zero as shown by software. There is a myth/misunderstanding that this is a bad thing because people confuse it with the fact that Lithium Ion batteries can be permanently damaged if they are drained too low.
BUT any device using such batteries will have its circuitry setup to have 0% set to a point above this damaging threshold.
So the "too low" point in hardware is likely to be below the zero point that the phone's firmware and software will let you go to.
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I've seen plenty of people on XDA with this phone and others that have rendered their battery unable to charge by letting it discharge to zero. Yes, there are failsafes meant to prevent over-discharge, but they apparently do not always work. The damage is not "permanent" in that its just the protection circuit of the battery kicking in. But the only way to bring the battery back from "sleeping" is with a special battery meter with boost function, which most people do not have access to. So for all practical purposes, its cheaper to just buy a new battery.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/low_voltage_cut_off
Yes, over-discharge will not LIKELY kill your battery in this way. But there is no point in taking the risk. The battery meter is far from accurate in the best of conditions. So there is zero benefit to letting the battery drain to zero, as opposed to 10 or 20 %, just for the benefit of calibrating the battery meter.
Also, even if over-discharge does not instantly "kill" the battery, running full cycles at the least will shorten the overall life of the battery. Its best to avoid full cycles and charge often.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/do_and_dont_battery_table
Now this is just my experience from reading the experiences of others on XDA. I know there are hardware techs that can give much more first hand experience with batteries and may disagree. But as I figure, better safe than sorry. Especially when you consider there is no real benefit to letting it drain to zero on purpose.
oVeRdOsE. said:
Does the battery came hot? Like more than normal?
With temp+cpu app you can monitor your temperature.
Because if on idle the temperature's around 25-28 C, you should be alright.
And then you can consider what steviewevie said; lithium battery can be damaged if you go on a too low voltage. Even if the phone as his ''protection'' to not get the battery to a critical level, the battery can loose power even if its not used.
Lithium ion, its cool but not perfect.
Try a OEM brand new battery.
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The temp of the battery don't exceed 28 degrees, I test this with Battery Indicator Pro. When discharged, the Voltage is around 3,6 (Which is normal behaviour). When charged, it,s 4,2V which is normal also.
I have already tried a new battery, and it doesn't make sense. Same behaviour.
I'm really clueless, because it drains the battery always. Airplane mode an removal of the SD card makes no difference.
I will return to stock tonight, charge again, and see if it behaves the same. When yes, then I will return the phone as I don't accept such behaviour (Normally, my Battery last 30+ Hours on idle).
Thanks for your tips and help for so far! I will report.
Hey all, so I have a different theory on the GNex battery issue but I'm not sure how to test it. It also might explain why there has been such a discrepancy in people's battery stats.
My theory is that there is something wrong with the way ICS/GNex is charging/reading/identifying battery information. Here are a few of the reasons why I think this is the case.
1 - My phone will occasionally charge absurdly fast, like 20 percent in 10 minutes... but then it will die equally as quick. My first thought was that the phone just charges and discharges quickly... BUT
2 - After charging for, say an hour, when I do a battery pull and let it sit for a minute or two before putting it back all of a sudden my super quick battery charge to 62% is now only at 37% (actual numbers that happened to me tonight). So why did I do a battery pull...?
3 - Because I noticed that after 10 minutes my phone had gone from 62% to 56% and I thought that was absurd. Once I did the pull and was back to my (as I like to call it) normalized battery percentage I have only dropped 15% in 2 hours and that includes heavy data usage on maps, navigation and texting. And another strange thing
4 - I have actually seen it go the other way! I once was around 30%, rebooted the phone and it jumped to 50%. Now that I'm thinking about it I often see weird fluctuations in my battery reading. One minute it will be 28%, then I turn it off and turn it back on and it will be 29%. Oh... and for those of you wondering
5 - This has happened both on a stock rom, rooted stock (although not like that would make a diff) and a custom rom ARHD. But still there is one last question...
6 - Why is there so much disparity on the issue? My theory is because this battery madness is so unpredictable you, you don't know when you get a normalized charge or an inflated charge. And lastly...
7 - I think it's gotta be a SW issue, why else would Nexus S owners be seeing the issue as well? (So that's good news... hopefully).
Soooo, that's my little rant. I think part of the problem is people are getting distracted by all these other theories with kernel drivers and etc because of the absurdly high Android OS issue (although in all fairness my theory could be more misdirection).
So why post? Well if people could try their luck validating/disproving my theory I would really appreciate it!
Here's what I'd like (and what I am going to do).
Charge your battery for an hour, if it charges really fast note the percentage.
Optional: Play with the phone for a while and see if it discharges quickly.
Do a battery pull, let it sit for a sec and put it back in and note the percentage.
If the percentage is significantly lower (10+%) start using the phone now and note the time to discharge.
Thanks!
EDIT: Also a good thing to mention, I am not disagreeing about the Android OS bug - I think that's also very real and something I have experienced as well. BUT if you look at the other battery thread you'll see a lot of people posting battery success images with high Android OS utilization. I think it could be an indication of multiple issues contributing to a negative experience.
Oh and I submitted a bug report to Google.
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=23311
I've also noticed crazy battery drop after reboots or pulling battery. Easily drops 10%+ at times. Reminds me of my great blackberries back in the day
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
all good here. i'm very pleased with the battery life.
while there may be issues with the stats, the wake times are real for some users - as well as the heat generated (indicating the cpu is working) when the phone should be sleeping.
There is no question there are either bugs in ICS that cause wake locks to get stuck, or badly written apps that keep it awake that didn't keep awake froyo/gingerbread.
Agreed on the wake lock. In fact I really should have quantified that in my original post - I too have that ridiculous Android OS utilization.
I updated my post - you make a good point.
Charged to about 21%. Pulled battery and rebooted and reported about 31%. Running ARHD.
EDIT: Pulled battery again and rebooted and reports 20%.
I realized mine was charging extremely slow so I decided to turn it off and let it charge faster. It was only at 48% when I turned it off but as soon as the battery indicator showed up with the phone off it appeared to be well over halfway charged, I would've guessed close to 75% but I didn't think to turn it back on and see..
edit: I did charge it fully with the phone off then wiped battery stats in cwm before rebooting into the OS after this. Since then it seems to be charging normally and reporting the correct battery level
To prove this theory, I think you should check the reported voltage of the battery and compare that to the percentage meter. Most battery apps/widgets use the old Android "battery info" screen to report this data. There very well may be a problem with the GN/ICS meter, but to be sure there has to be some constant to go back to.
These batteries drop like a rock from full charge to something like 87-88%, and again from around 37-38% to zero. It's just the battery technology, perhaps exacerbated by not having enough battery stats to adjust the % meter.
As far as I know, an app/widget that reports battery voltage will do so from the information being provided by the battery circuitry itself, so it's not subjective or adjusted in any way like a meter will be, making it a far better correlation point for the discussion.
djp952 said:
To prove this theory, I think you should check the reported voltage of the battery and compare that to the percentage meter. Most battery apps/widgets use the old Android "battery info" screen to report this data. There very well may be a problem with the GN/ICS meter, but to be sure there has to be some constant to go back to.
These batteries drop like a rock from full charge to something like 87-88%, and again from around 37-38% to zero. It's just the battery technology, perhaps exacerbated by not having enough battery stats to adjust the % meter.
As far as I know, an app/widget that reports battery voltage will do so from the information being provided by the battery circuitry itself, so it's not subjective or adjusted in any way like a meter will be, making it a far better correlation point for the discussion.
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I use current widget to tell me my voltage, as I don't pay attention to the meter. On a stock LTE battery, you should cap out at 4.203V
Voltage meter sounds like a reasonable way to approach the problem. I'm definitely not an expert on battery stats though - what should the voltages read? I know it caps at 4200mv, but what is the min?
Also how does mv relate to mah?
m0sim said:
Voltage meter sounds like a reasonable way to approach the problem. I'm definitely not an expert on battery stats though - what should the voltages read? I know it caps at 4200mv, but what is the min?
Also how does mv relate to mah?
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mv stands for millivolt which is a measurement of voltage. Examples you may have heard before are 9v battery, 110 volt wall outlet.
1mv = 1/1000 volt OR 1v = 1000mv, so you can see a mv is very small compared to a volt.
mAh stands for milliampere-hour and, in layman's terms, is a measurement of battery capacity, specifically how many hours a battery will last if the device it is connected to pulls a known amperage.
So, if a device pulls 500mA and the battery is rated 2000mAh, then generally the battery will last 4 hours (2000mAh/500mA). There are numerous other factors in the equation such as temperature, age of battery, etc. that can affect the battery life.
I have been noticing something strange. I have gotten in the habit of draining my battery down to single digits before charging in an attempt to keep my battery life up. I usually use netflix on 4g to do this as it does a pretty good job of sucking the juice down quickly.
A few times I have noticed that after I shutdown netflix and let the phone sit a little while that the percentage actually goes back up. For example, I kill netflix at 4% battery left. I set the phone down for a bit and when I pick it back up the battery is at 10%. I have seen this multiple times.
Just curious if anyone else has noticed this and anyone has an explanation for why this happens.
I believe it has to do with the battery meter displaying how much battery you have left based on what you are doing? So when you stopped being resource intensive it adjusted itself.
That's one explanation I have heard.. there is also one that has to do with the amount of current going to the battery.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
trevoryour said:
I have been noticing something strange. I have gotten in the habit of draining my battery down to single digits before charging in an attempt to keep my battery life up.
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I can't answer your question directly as there could be multiple reasons. (Battery capacity estimation is tricky business, and I don't know what algorithm they're using.)
But I can tell you that the common belief that one ought to discharge batteries before recharging them is not applicable to modern lithium batteries.
I was (to some extent) true for old-fashioned NiCd cells, but modern Li-ion cells shouldn't be excessively discharged. If you want to prolong battery life it's more important to keep the battery cool. (Lithium cells degrade much faster at elevated temperatures.)
(To contradict myself I have to add that the battery capacity calculation can be improved by discharging the battery completely from time to time - but again, this depends on the battery capacity calculation algorithm they're using.)
I understand the way current battery tech works. The discharge is not for the battery itself. Its for the Android OS. I have noticed that whenever I plug my phone in in the middle of the day, the next day my battery doesn't last as long. In fact the poor battery life will remain an issue for about a week until it levels itself back out. I have noticed this behavior on multiple phones by multiple manufacturers.
You end up going in a circle. You use heavy data one day and as a result you have to plug in in the middle of the day. The next day your battery doesn't last as long so you plug in again. Unless you allow your phone enough time to level back out then it will always appear that your battery life is aweful. Since i've been discharging my battery I am able to unplug my phone at 7:30 am, use it moderately all day with GPS, Bluetooth, 4G on/wifi off with a live wallpaper running. At 11:30pm when its time for bed I still have around 60-70% battery remaining. I find myself having to watch a few hours of netflix on 4g in order to drain the battery so I can plug it in.
I'm not sure if this behavior is a result of an issue with the battery stats file or what but I do know that when I flash a new ROM it appears my battery life is reset to how it was before I had shortened it by plugging in the middle of the day.
many of us have seen the percent rise slightly, its normal. when under heavy load watching videos or something and then you are finished, the voltage gets relaxed and pops up some. since this phone uses some type of voltage calculation to determine percent, it will jump up once in a rare while, typically right after you placed it under heavy load then went to idle.
it's normal..
Ever since the March update, my Pixel 3 XL's battery indicator in the status bar has been horrendously inaccurate. This is really annoying, as it always shows as having 10-12% less battery than the actual physical battery charge. If it ever reaches 0% and shuts down, if I were to, say, boot into TWRP, I'd see I still have about 11% battery remaining. Across all the phones I've owned over the years, I've never seen such a severe battery level mismatch before. I've never seen greater than a 2% difference in any phone I've owned.
I use the Advanced Charging Controller Magisk module to regulate how much my battery charges. Charging your phone too much is proven to damage your battery over time, so I like to set ACC up so that my phone never charges past 41%.
I first noticed this problem when my battery would stop charging past 31%. After digging deeper, I found that the battery level produced by "dumpsys battery" (used by the status bar indicator) does not match the actual battery level, which can be read from a kernel control file at "/sys/class/power_supply/capacity."
As a side note, is your battery indicator also incorrect? Try checking it running these commands as root, and compare the values. Maybe this affects you too:
cat /sys/class/power_supply/battery/capacity
dumpsys battery
(The number you're looking for in the "dumpsys" command is the number next to "level." If it doesn't match, and it's less than what's written to the capacity file, then you also suffer from this issue).
I've asked the ACC developer what can be done about this, and apparently not much, besides having ACC "pretend" the battery is offset by a user specified battery level. But in my case, I would just be charging my actual battery to 51%, even though it would display as 41%, and I don't want to do that. I tried fixing it by clearing my battery stats, charging to 100%, and etc, and it actually made matters worse for me - the status bar indicator now remains at 12% less than the actual battery level. No matter what, this value appears to be linear - it doesn't seem to be any more or less correct depending on how charged the battery is. It's always 12% less, unless you get beyond 88%. Then the statusbar pretends to charge, even though a voltage monitor will show that it is not charging.
I can "force" the statusbar to read as the most accurate battery level by running this command in the background in a root shell:
while sleep 15; do dumpsys battery set level $(cat /sys/class/power_supply/battery/capacity); done
This manually sets the battery level via dumpsys according to what the actual battery level is. But this has some limitations.
I'm using a while loop because setting a value like this is permanent - if I don't either continually set it or unset it, my phone will think my battery level hasn't dropped below the last set value.
However, more importantly, setting a value via dumpsys disables monitoring of other battery stats, such as voltage, temperature, current, whether or not the battery is charging, the charge counter, and etc. Just running a script like that isn't a good solution.
So since I have nowhere else to ask, is there any kind of root mod or something that can be made to force the phone to use the correct battery level? I don't know why this started happening since the March update, but it is extremely annoying, and I'd like to put an end to it as soon as possible.
Any insights to mods or tweaks that can be done to fix this would be greatly appreciated.
so im at 5%, but in /sys/class/power_supply/capacity it says 0 .... not sure what's real anymore
I'm gonna charge up to 100% and see for myself what "full capacity" is like
and now i'm at 91% in status bar but 93% in that capacity file lol
If I remember correctly Lithium batteries actually last longer if kept above the 60% range and taken off the charger when they're completely full or maybe a few percent before. It's the lower end of the battery percentage that actually damages the battery if it's kept there for too long. The lower the voltage the higher the resistance in the battery, this is going to cause heat in the battery, so the way you're charging your battery is most likely damaging. I might be wrong but battery tech has changed over the years, and some old misconceptions still exist.
My guess about the amount of difference in the battery display vs percentage is to protect people from this reason. To keep them off of the lower end of the battery because it's damaging to the battery and under the wrong circumstances it could cause the battery to overheat.
Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk
superchilpil said:
My guess about the amount of difference in the battery display vs percentage is to protect people from this reason. To keep them off of the lower end of the battery because it's damaging to the battery and under the wrong circumstances it could cause the battery to overheat.
Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
While I can see that , i'm currently @ 100% in status bar, but 98% in the capacity file. and it won't go above that currently.
This kind of makes sense given how the battery jumps erratically from 100% to 98-06% too when discharging
masri1987 said:
While I can see that , i'm currently @ 100% in status bar, but 98% in the capacity file. and it won't go above that currently.
This kind of makes sense given how the battery jumps erratically from 100% to 98-06% too when discharging
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What are you calling the capacity file? Battery in settings?
Tulsadiver said:
What are you calling the capacity file? Battery in settings?
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this file > sys/class/power_supply/battery/capacity
So, just FYI, this is probably why i found charging it in TWRP to be the most accurate...
When i charge my phone up to 100% in twrp, i boot up phone, look at the capacity file and it reflects spot on what the status bar says, and it continues to do that throughout entire discharge.
superchilpil said:
If I remember correctly Lithium batteries actually last longer if kept above the 60% range and taken off the charger when they're completely full or maybe a few percent before. It's the lower end of the battery percentage that actually damages the battery if it's kept there for too long. The lower the voltage the higher the resistance in the battery, this is going to cause heat in the battery, so the way you're charging your battery is most likely damaging. I might be wrong but battery tech has changed over the years, and some old misconceptions still exist.
My guess about the amount of difference in the battery display vs percentage is to protect people from this reason. To keep them off of the lower end of the battery because it's damaging to the battery and under the wrong circumstances it could cause the battery to overheat.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The OP of the ACC discussion thread has some good links to studies done on Li-Ion batteries. It's a long read, but the summary is that you'll want to keep your temperatures as low as possible, and the battery itself between 30% to 80%. There are also some factors related to voltage that I don't really understand, but I do know that ACC manages the charging voltage to reduce strain while charging. The recommendation by the ACC developer for longevity is ~41%. That is within the 30% to 80% range, and I trust his judgement.
As for the other concerns in this thread, I don't think the difference in numbers serves any functional purpose other than to be annoying. It turns out that the one shutdown I had previously must have been a fluke, because now the battery in the statusbar will just sit there at 1% while the actual battery capacity ticks down, before forcefully shutting off at around 2% actual capacity. I don't even get the graceful "battery is empty, shutting down" message anymore.
Because the battery level reported by the capacity file is closer to zero than the statusbar one (simply because it shut down when that number was closest to zero), I'm inclined to believe it's the more accurate measurement. It's totally unrealistic to believe that the last 1% of the battery lasts as long as the previous 10%.
I can understand Google making the battery report a lesser number in order to protect the battery from the user, but that argument doesn't work if the phone just sits at 1% forever until it shuts down, which it has been doing for me. And the difference in numbers is just insane. Just today, the statusbar reported 2%, when the system reported 17%. A fifteen percent difference is absolutely absurd. I can understand a modest 3-5%, but this is just ridiculous.
I'm hoping there is a clever solution for this soon, or that the April update addresses it, because it's driving me crazy.
I tried this and the results from both commands were identical. I'm running the March update, rooted, and Kirisakura kernel.
Face_Plant said:
I tried this and the results from both commands were identical. I'm running the March update, rooted, and Kirisakura kernel.
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Thanks for letting me know.
This is so weird. Maybe my battery is just horribly uncalibrated?
ubergeek77 said:
Thanks for letting me know.
This is so weird. Maybe my battery is just horribly uncalibrated?
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Maybe it's time to start fresh with a full wipe/format and reinstall the March update? Maybe ACC is causing the issue? Have you tried Battery Charge Limit? That's what I use.
Why would you only charge your battery to 40%? I understand to prolong the life of the battery, but to what extent is going to do that.
You are shortening the amount of time needed between chargin. How much time does the battery last before you need to charge it again when you only charge it 40%?
If I am misunderstanding this, I think it would make more sense to keep the charge between 40%-80%.... Even if this is the case, how long does a charge last when you only use about 40% of it's capacity?
ubergeek77 said:
The OP of the ACC discussion thread has some good links to studies done on Li-Ion batteries. It's a long read, but the summary is that you'll want to keep your temperatures as low as possible, and the battery itself between 30% to 80%. There are also some factors related to voltage that I don't really understand, but I do know that ACC manages the charging voltage to reduce strain while charging. The recommendation by the ACC developer for longevity is ~41%. That is within the 30% to 80% range, and I trust his judgement.
As for the other concerns in this thread, I don't think the difference in numbers serves any functional purpose other than to be annoying. It turns out that the one shutdown I had previously must have been a fluke, because now the battery in the statusbar will just sit there at 1% while the actual battery capacity ticks down, before forcefully shutting off at around 2% actual capacity. I don't even get the graceful "battery is empty, shutting down" message anymore.
Because the battery level reported by the capacity file is closer to zero than the statusbar one (simply because it shut down when that number was closest to zero), I'm inclined to believe it's the more accurate measurement. It's totally unrealistic to believe that the last 1% of the battery lasts as long as the previous 10%.
I can understand Google making the battery report a lesser number in order to protect the battery from the user, but that argument doesn't work if the phone just sits at 1% forever until it shuts down, which it has been doing for me. And the difference in numbers is just insane. Just today, the statusbar reported 2%, when the system reported 17%. A fifteen percent difference is absolutely absurd. I can understand a modest 3-5%, but this is just ridiculous.
I'm hoping there is a clever solution for this soon, or that the April update addresses it, because it's driving me crazy.
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Click to collapse
While I agree it's absurd if it in fact is showing a 15% difference, but where is the proof that such a thing is occuring?
I've read a few articles that talk in depth about lithium ion and the takeaway is to charge your device TO 75-80% and remove it at 30. Charging to 40% and completely discharging it is in fact damaging the OP's device and that's what I was trying to say.
Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk
superchilpil said:
While I agree it's absurd if it in fact is showing a 15% difference, but where is the proof that such a thing is occuring?
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I've already given proof. The proof is that the battery value produced by running "dumpsys battery" does not match the actual battery value, as read by the kernel, under "/sys/class/power_supply/battery/capacity." For clarification, the statusbar uses the value output by "dumpsys battery," which has been the incorrect value for me for almost a month now. SO's Pixel 3 XL is doing the exact same thing.
Further proof is that this offset doesn't serve any functional purpose. You would think that this kind of offset would be a way to protect the battery from the user, but that argument only works if the phone shuts itself down before the actual capacity reaches zero. That doesn't happen.
Instead, once the statusbar reaches 1%, it will just stay there indefinitely until the phone doesn't have enough voltage to keep itself on.
For example, let's say I'm monitoring the battery level in a terminal. When my statusbar says 2%, the kernel reads the battery as being 16%. It takes 10 minutes for the statusbar to reach 1%, and at the same time, the kernel battery reading will show 15%.
However, in a further 10 minutes, the phone does not shut off. Instead, the kernel battery reading will continue to tick down - 14%, 13%, ... 8%, 7%, etc - until the phone shuts off due to low voltage. During this time, the statusbar will continue to display 1%, despite the fact that the actual battery level is depleting.
No graceful shutdown, and the statusbar never reaches 0%. As such, I no longer see the "Battery Empty, shutting off" message where the phone shuts itself down gracefully.
I've kept my Pixel 3 XL updated with the latest updates and Kirisakura kernel. ACC (default settings) and my battery was doing fine until around the March update when I started a difference in reported battery level between the status bar and system that worsened and grew to 15% or more (I don't exactly remember). Also the status bar battery level would hang at 1% for a ridiculously long time. After uninstalling ACC and a several of charging cycles it got better (and the April update). Now my difference is 3%.
what happens if we delete that battery file? does it regenerate on it's own?
Got the same error with a Pixel 3, /sys/class/power_supply/battery/capacity is about 10% higher than dumpsys.
Is this why my phone shuts down at 14% battery level? I'll get a notification my battery is dying, check it, it'll be between 12-15% battery left, shut down 30 seconds later, and I can't reboot bc battery is dead. When I plug it in, then boot back up, it only says it is at 2 or 3%. I'm locked down bl because I thought maybe some root apps were messing with it, and I've even tried on q beta, but still early shutdown issue. Not really bothersome as I get 7 hrs or better screen on time, but it is curious....
Bryanx86 said:
Is this why my phone shuts down at 14% battery level? I'll get a notification my battery is dying, check it, it'll be between 12-15% battery left, shut down 30 seconds later, and I can't reboot bc battery is dead. When I plug it in, then boot back up, it only says it is at 2 or 3%. I'm locked down bl because I thought maybe some root apps were messing with it, and I've even tried on q beta, but still early shutdown issue. Not really bothersome as I get 7 hrs or better screen on time, but it is curious....
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I have a similar situation. It starts with 20-25%.
I think this started for me with q.
I wiped my device and flashed factory image to a/b slot. About 3 times .
How is your device going?
RMA is on the way....