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Curious Question For Those Using "Battery Left"

Steven58

Former Heavyweight Champion of AF-Early Bird Club
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Feb 19, 2010
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How much time does Battery Left say your stock batteries get when fully charged?

Mine says 10:43. I'm curious if it is different for different people. (I've drained my battery a couple of times, so the widget says it's "accurate.")
 
Mine says 8:28 with "moderate" accuracy. I know it will go longer than this, however I also know I can kill it in a couple hours if I play a game or use an app that can drain the battery quickly. Bottom line for heavy use your battery will die pretty quickly. Of course one can stretch the battery by light usage very easily. I don't use battery left for their estimate of time left before dead.
 
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How much time does Battery Left say your stock batteries get when fully charged?

Mine says 10:43. I'm curious if it is different for different people. (I've drained my battery a couple of times, so the widget says it's "accurate.")

My Accuracy: Moderate --- My Full battery life: 8:10

How are you getting 10 hours?!

I stopped using Task Killer a few days ago - still looking to save life.
 
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The trouble with Battery Left is just that there's no good way to predict time remaining. I guess my usage patterns were too unpredictable for it so neither the time remaining, nor the percentage (since they are both calculated using your usage patterns) were ever close enough to make 'em useful.

That said, it's a great widget for displaying your system percentage - nice looking and configurable, and the little additional displays like temperature etc. are great. Plus, the dev was super responsive and helpful when I was trying to figure out why my estimated % was always 20-40% less than my system %. I sent him a donation for just helping me out.
 
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Mine never got past a moderate level of accuracy, after about three weeks of calibrating. I eventually removed it when I got the extended battery since it is not so much of a concern any longer.

The "accuracy" is based solely on having had the app running during every single part of the battery's drain/charge cycle. So, you can turn it from "rough" to "accurate" in one usage if you start with a full battery, and don't plug it in until it goes dead.
 
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The trouble with Battery Left is just that there's no good way to predict time remaining. I guess my usage patterns were too unpredictable for it so neither the time remaining, nor the percentage (since they are both calculated using your usage patterns) were ever close enough to make 'em useful.

That said, it's a great widget for displaying your system percentage - nice looking and configurable, and the little additional displays like temperature etc. are great. Plus, the dev was super responsive and helpful when I was trying to figure out why my estimated % was always 20-40% less than my system %. I sent him a donation for just helping me out.

Care to give us more info what was the cause, I have the same issue even tho app says accurate and I went thru bunch of charge and discharge cycles
 
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Care to give us more info what was the cause, I have the same issue even tho app says accurate and I went thru bunch of charge and discharge cycles

The cause is simply variation in usage patterns.

An app like Battery Left monitors the battery and monitors your average discharge rate and attempts to make a calculation of how long it thinks you'll take to use up the rest of the battery.

That can work pretty well for people who use their phone the same way every day, which, I'm sure, is a lot of people. Unfortunately, my usage varies quite a lot since I use my phone for a myriad of tasks which vary on a daily basis. Consequently, I may go to bed with 45% battery left, or I may go to bed with 10% left. Since Battery Left can't get a consistent hold on my usage, it can't make accurate predictions - averages are really no use to me. I don't care that, when I get home, I average 30% left. I care what I've got on that particular day.

App developer was great and I wholeheartedly support this app for people who have consistent usage patterns or who just like an attractive, customizable battery widget.
 
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Yeah I completely agree with Binary here... this is only an average life time left, not a true up to date monitor. For me on most days I have similar usages, but on the days where I dont use it much I'll go to bed with over 50% left. on days where I use the crap out of it, I've had it close down on me before I go to bed. only makes sense to me lol
 
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The estimated percentage is a function of the time left. It is not a direct read from the battery. It is attempting to use its calculations to figure the percentage of the total time left.

You have the option of using it strictly as a battery widget that will display the system percentage. And, in that function, it's a very nice battery widget - highly customizable with what fields are displayed, nice color modifications including changing the alpha transparency of each color... I really like the widget. It's just one part of the widget (the estimated %/time left) that didn't work for me.
 
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after a few days using battery left it became fairly accurate (about 17 hours), though it still says moderate accuracy since I hadn't run the battery all the way down to dead. to get it to show "accurate", I played game nonstop until battery died. afterward it shows "accurate" but it's actually less accurate now. it's way over pessimistic. I think it's because it factors in the unusual heavy use case when I tried to kill the battery. I had to restart calibration yesterday.

lesson learned: just use the phone as you would normally use it and don't worry about the accuracy report. it's actually pretty accurate if your usage pattern is consistent.
 
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Mine had 22 hours and some minutes at "Accurate" from a full charge on the stock battery. But, I found Battery Left to be LESS accurate than the built-in battery readout. It estimates time based on usage. If you have light usage on a day that you calibrate it, it will overestimate time left on a normal usage day, and if you have heavy usage on a day that you calibrate it, it will underestimate time left on a normal usage day.

I had Battery Left showing the phone was at 40% when the actual charge read 60%, and thats after getting it to Accurate (100/100). I ended up uninstalling it because of how inaccurate it was.
 
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