Accessories Calibrating extended battery

[twcowdery]

Read through several threads regarding extended batteries, and calibrating the battery meter. One in particular mentioned a battery calibration app in the market.

All of them talk about charging to 100% while off - then turning the phone on running the battery down and charging again.

My question is should I run the battery ALL of the way down???? I've always been told never to run a lithium battery all the way down.

Using a Motorola Droid X.

 

[B360155]

I use the app called Battery Left Pro and it allows you to calibrate two different batteries which I wanted because I use both the BH5X and BH6X batteries. You don't want to run the batteries dead consistently, but just doing it once or twice during initial battery calibration isn't a problem at all.

 

[twcowdery]

I use the app called Battery Left Pro and it allows you to calibrate two different batteries which I wanted because I use both the BH5X and BH6X batteries. You don't want to run the batteries dead consistently, but just doing it once or twice during initial battery calibration isn't a problem at all.

Thanks for the info. Will this work with an unrooted phone? I just got the phone and haven't looked into rooting yet.

 

[B360155]

Yes, my Droid X is unrooted.

 

[mruno]

if/when you root, you can try this: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nema.batterycalibration&feature=search_result

 

[Deleted User]

Okay, a couple things:

- First of all, ignore the people who tell you never to run a lithium battery down. It's true you shouldn't discharge lithium batteries all the way down but there isn't a piece of consumer electronics around that doesn't shut off BEFORE that point is reached. When your phone shuts off because of a lack of battery power, there is still juice in your lithium battery. Just not much.

- Second of all, calibrating with Battery Left will not help. What you need is to calibrate your system. Battery Left has its own calibration but it will not help your phone. Yes, you should charge your phone all the way up and use it until it shuts off, which will re-generate your battery stats.

 

[twcowdery]

if/when you root, you can try this: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nema.batterycalibration&feature=search_result

I may have to look into rooting so I can do this since Battery Left Pro doesn't seem to be doing the job.

I'm generally tech-savvy - but very new to Android and I didn't want to get into rooting until I was more familiar with this OS. Looks like I may not have a choice.

 

[twcowdery]

Okay, a couple things:

- First of all, ignore the people who tell you never to run a lithium battery down. It's true you shouldn't discharge lithium batteries all the way down but there isn't a piece of consumer electronics around that doesn't shut off BEFORE that point is reached. When your phone shuts off because of a lack of battery power, there is still juice in your lithium battery. Just not much.

- Second of all, calibrating with Battery Left will not help. What you need is to calibrate your system. Battery Left has its own calibration but it will not help your phone. Yes, you should charge your phone all the way up and use it until it shuts off, which will re-generate your battery stats.

I've run it until it shut off once - should I need to do it more often? Once didn't seem to do the job as the battery widget (and BL Pro) still think I have far less battery life than I really do.

 

[Deleted User]

I've run it until it shut off once - should I need to do it more often? Once didn't seem to do the job as the battery widget (and BL Pro) still think I have far less battery life than I really do.

Battery Left uses a very subjective metric based on past usage. It will improve with time but it's not actually displaying the amount of battery you have left - it's displaying approximately the percentage of overall time it thinks you have left. It constantly calibrates itself.

So, if you typically get 12 hours of usage out of a battery, it's going to display 50% at the 6 hour mark - give or take a little for adjustments on its part. That may be accurate, but it may not be. If you played a bunch of games in the first two hours, you might have killed half the battery, but BL isn't going to say that.

 

[twcowdery]

Battery Left uses a very subjective metric based on past usage. It will improve with time but it's not actually displaying the amount of battery you have left - it's displaying approximately the percentage of overall time it thinks you have left. It constantly calibrates itself.

So, if you typically get 12 hours of usage out of a battery, it's going to display 50% at the 6 hour mark - give or take a little for adjustments on its part. That may be accurate, but it may not be. If you played a bunch of games in the first two hours, you might have killed half the battery, but BL isn't going to say that.

That makes sense.

Running the phone until it shut off that one time seems to have helped the stock widget calibrate too. It's reading are now more in line with the actual usage I seem to be getting.

The day I ran it all the way down, the stock widget hit 5% about 4:30 pm, but the phone didn't shut off until after 11 pm. What made that even more amazing was that I was using the phone almost the entire time after 4:30 trying to run it to empty. I was using it so much that I doubt the screen shut off for more than 30 minutes from 4:30 to when it died. The last hour, I actually set the screen to stay on because I got tired of playing with the phone.

I'm thinking that letting it run to empty under a more typical load might let the stock widget calibrate itself even better. Would you agree?

 

[Deleted User]

I'm thinking that letting it run to empty under a more typical load might let the stock widget calibrate itself even better. Would you agree?

Probably not. That would help Battery Left calibrate, but the stock battery meter takes voltage measurement samples to calibrate itself, which don't care about "typical" or "abnormal" usage.

The voltage at 50% is going to be the same whether you left the screen on and a movie playing to get there, or whether you did occasional web browsing for a while day.

 

[twcowdery]

Probably not. That would help Battery Left calibrate, but the stock battery meter takes voltage measurement samples to calibrate itself, which don't care about "typical" or "abnormal" usage.

The voltage at 50% is going to be the same whether you left the screen on and a movie playing to get there, or whether you did occasional web browsing for a while day.

That makes sense.

Can you explain why the phone doesn't recognize when I put a fresh battery in?

The other day, my extended battery was showing 5%. That isn't always meaningful since I've had the phone go for 7 hours at 5%. But I was getting ready to leave the house and didn't know how long it had been at 5%. I didn't have time to leave it on the charger so I took the extended battery out and put the OEM battery back in. The OEM battery had been fully charged in a stand-alone charger.

But the phone continued to show 5%. It is possible the OEM wasn't at 100% since it had been off of the charger for a day, but it certainly wasn't at 5% either.

My old phones always recognized when a new battery was put on, but not the X. Any ideas? Could this be related to the highly inaccurate readings I'm getting?

 

[Deleted User]

That's kinda weird. Mine always recognizes a new battery appropriately.

Maybe you've got some whacked out battery stats. Might be worth rooting just so you can clear your battery stats and start fresh.

 

[twcowdery]

That's kinda weird. Mine always recognizes a new battery appropriately.

Maybe you've got some whacked out battery stats. Might be worth rooting just so you can clear your battery stats and start fresh.

I wasn't quite ready to tackle rooting, but it looks like I may have to learn. I'll probably wait to see what the Gingerbread update does first though. Of course, that assumes that I get it. Since I'm not on Verizon, I may not.

 

[Deleted User]

I wasn't quite ready to tackle rooting, but it looks like I may have to learn. I'll probably wait to see what the Gingerbread update does first though. Of course, that assumes that I get it. Since I'm not on Verizon, I may not.

Not much to learn, I promise.

Go here:

[APP] z4root - xda-developers

Download the app to your SD card (on the phone is fine, or on your computer and just copy it over), open your "Files" app in your app drawer and navigate to the file you downloaded, then launch it. It'll ask you if you want to install, hit yes.

Reboot your phone, then launch the app in your app drawer, and select "permanent root." Once it's done rooting (it could take several minutes, don't panic), it'll reboot your phone. Boom, done.

 

[twcowdery]

Not much to learn, I promise.

Go here:

[APP] z4root - xda-developers

Download the app to your SD card (on the phone is fine, or on your computer and just copy it over), open your "Files" app in your app drawer and navigate to the file you downloaded, then launch it. It'll ask you if you want to install, hit yes.

Reboot your phone, then launch the app in your app drawer, and select "permanent root." Once it's done rooting (it could take several minutes, don't panic), it'll reboot your phone. Boom, done.

That's it??? I was expecting something more akin to installing Linux on a desktop - which I've done.

Other than maybe fixing my battery calibration issue, what are the other benefits of rooting?

 

[Deleted User]

There's a whole lot. Hang out in the Root section for a while.

You can flash custom ROMs, people have created customized/optimized versions of Android that you can use.

You can remove the apps that are installed by default, like Blockbuster or Amazon MP3, or Madden, or whatever.

You can theme your phone - modify fonts, colors, menus, icons, etc.

Some useful apps like Titanium Backup, where you can make backups of your apps and their data to your SD card. There are a fair number of root applications. A small list can be found here but there are lots of others.

Overclock or undervolt your phone, for increased performance or better battery life.

Lots of stuff.

 

[twcowdery]

There's a whole lot. Hang out in the Root section for a while.

I had planned on camping out there eventually ... just not a month after getting the phone. But, I also assumed that the process would be far more involved than what you described.

Thanks for the info...