strange battery performance?

[error404]

Today after I got back from lunch I noticed that my phone's usual green light was now red, and the phone had a message that popped up reading that the battery was almost flat, so I clicked the usage monitor and it read out that most of the usage being idle (I believe it was 70% idle usage, and the rest was messaging and whatever else I had been doing, like usual). So, I turned it off until I could get to my backpack with a charger in it, so that I could at least turn the phone on real quick to make a quick call if I needed to.

Well, I completely forgot about the charger until I got back home from work, so when I got back home I turned the phone on and it read 80% battery capacity left. Taken aback, and curious, I decide to leave it on and NOT charge it, just out of curiosity to see how long it would take for the phone to remind me that the battery was almost flat. Well, it's been over 4 hours now, and it just only an hour ago dropped down to 70% battery usage. It's been idle, checking email and chatting a bit on g-talk during those 4 hours. Normal usage, no bluetooth, wi-fi, or GPS.



So my question is, what the heck happened? clearly the battery was not about to go completely flat earlier today, because it's still got plenty of charge! There was no severe change in temperature, and no abnormal usage of the phone by myself (used it just like I always do) Now, I've seen batteries that seem to get a little extra "boost" when they are shut off and turned back on again, but it's been 4 hours now since I turned it back on, and it's still got alot of capacity left.

I'm suspecting that somehow the phone somehow miss calculated the battery capacity and put up the dialog for me to quick turn the phone off or re-charge it.

Yall got any ideas as to what happened? Anyone had this happen before? Is the battery level meter really accurate? this is the first time this has happened. I usually put it on charge every night.

 

[snowblind]

Same thing has happened to me on my droid. It's happened twice since december when I got my phone. I would imagine it's a software glitch.

 

[Trapper31]

I've had this happen to me once so far. In my case, I had just taken the phone off of the charger first thing in the morning then hopped in the shower. When I got back I had the red light with the "charge now" message. I thought that I had just not seated the charger plug correctly the night before, but as soon as I plugged the phone back in it jumped to 100% and was good to go.

I also think it is a software glitch.

 

[yasuro]

i had the same problem. sometimes the light would even come on while on the charger. i did a battery pull and it fixed the problem, for now at least.

 

[Droidophile]

Same thing happened to me yesterday so I powered off in a panic in case I needed to make an emergency call. Came home, powered back on, battery happy at 90%. Glitch for sure.

 

[allanlaw]

+1

 

[error404]

ok, seems this has happened to a few folks. Probably just a hickup and nothing major, just restart the phone and keep on going.

 

[kai327]

I actually restarted my phone when it happened to me and it was still < 5%.

I think it actually died when I tried to take it off the charger too!

 

[Trapper31]

I actually restarted my phone when it happened to me and it was still < 5%.

I think it actually died when I tried to take it off the charger too!

Hmm... Well, the one time it happened to me I didn't restart, but I plugged it in and after about 5 seconds it went from red (5% or so?) to 100% battery, and was good. Rather than rebooting, maybe try plugging in for a few seconds?

 

[Mixmaster300]

My red charging light went on last night. I knew the battery should be fine, had not used the phone in hours. Plugged in the charger, unplugged it, the red light went out and the battery was at 60%. No new apps added in weeks, no abnormal usage yesterday. Have had the phone since release and this is the first time this has happened. I did a battery pull, had not done one since the first week I had the phone. Interesting that this has started happening to others now. Today seems fine so far.

 

[cercb]

I've had this happen to my Droid several times with no apparent pattern except it always happens when the phone is idle (not actively being used; screen off). The red light blinks and the message says only 5% battery left, but as soon as I plug it in, it jumps to 60% charged. Today, when it happened, I plugged it in and immediately unplugged it, and it stayed at 60%. I used it (for quite a while) until it dropped to 50%. Didn't plug it in again. Just checked it now, and it says 90% charged!

I installed a battery monitor widget after the second time this happened, but the widget must get its info from the internal monitor, because the percentages always match. The next thing is to try using it continuously when it says 5% . . .

 

[FrayAdjacent]

This appears to be fairly common. I haven't encountered it yet.

The best thing to do is if you see this, shut off the phone, reseat the battery (may not be necessary) and power it back up. It should report correct status.

Likely the phone's calibration got off somehow from what the battery is showing.

 

[cercb]

Thought I'd give an update on my experience with this problem. After re-seating the battery and replacing the battery widget with a much more useful "battery graph" app, I didn't have the problem for about 3 weeks. Then, the other night, phone was 60% charged, and I plugged it into the standard wall charger, but found the red light on in the morning while it was still plugged in. Unplugged it / plugged it back in again and it immediately showed 100%.

The battery graph records % every 5 minutes, so I could see that it did charge normally from 60% to 100%. The indicator stayed at 100% for 2.5 hours and dropped all at once to 5% and stayed there until I unplugged/plugged it. All the while it was sitting untouched, so there couldn't have been a shifting of the battery itself. The only thing different that night was that the phone was at 60%, whereas usually it's at 15-30% when I plug it in at night. I still think this is a software problem.