Battery levels falsely displayed

[Guest feelmychi]

Okay, so I noticed a few nights ago that when my pulse tells me I've run out of battery and turns off, if I put the charger in and look at the charge remaining it says 20% :S Does anyone know how I can access that extra 20% battery life?

feelmychi

[Guest darkdevil1]

I've actually noticed this as well. Battery life in general isn't being displayed well, it'll hop between 40% and 60% for no reason, then back down to 20 and up to 30

[Guest gusthy]

It is a very interesting question.

When the Pulse hardware reports this percentages, it is the result of a curious algorithm that deals with battery voltage, temperature, actual current, average current etc.

So if this circumstances change, the value changes as well.

Pulse algorithm is not too good it seems.

[Guest BigBearMDC]

I think this has nothing really to do with the actual battery percentage.

If that battery is under heavy load, its voltage drops, so the Pulse recognizes as an example 25 %. If the voltage drops under a certain threshold (I guess between 5 and 3%) the phone will shut down (that's called a brown - out). So now that the phone is shut off and the battery load decreases, the voltage itself increases again. The same thing happens when you plug in the charger, the battery load decreases and thus showing a higher voltage than before, meaning that the battery percentage will go up.

You surely noticed before that the battery percentage drops very fast if you play any games etc., but increases again if you switch to the lockscreen and let it lying on the desk for a few minutes.

I don't think the Pulse shuts down when the battery is still 20% loaded.

Best regards,

BB

[Guest Speckles]

BB speaks the truth, you can easily see if you use a CPU heavy program that you can see say 30% battery left and then after leaving it on the home screen for a while, it'll change to 40% or so.

At 20% it requests you to connect the charger, I've never had it turn off at this level. The kind of battery in the Pulse doesn't like to be low for long periods of time, hence the request.

[Guest darkdevil1]

The kind of battery in the Pulse doesn't like to be low for long periods of time, hence the request.

So are you saying it's best to have it fully charged at all times, or at least charge it when it prompts for it? I always let mine drain completely before I charge it

[Guest BigBearMDC]

So are you saying it's best to have it fully charged at all times, or at least charge it when it prompts for it? I always let mine drain completely before I charge it

I'd say letting it nearly drain completely is usually the best you can do. Otherwise you'll reach the estimated 1000 charging circles pretty fast.

You should also not just unplug the phone from charging when its not fully charged.

Best regards,

BB

[Guest johninho]

I'd say letting it nearly drain completely is usually the best you can do. Otherwise you'll reach the estimated 1000 charging circles pretty fast.

You should also not just unplug the phone from charging when its not fully charged.

Best regards,

BB

:D I plug mine into the charger every night.

Mind you, that would mean it would last nearly 3 years and I can't see many of us still using the Pulse then (when everyone else is on Android v57.6 and we are officially still on v1.5 :) )

[Guest BigBearMDC]

:D I plug mine into the charger every night.

Mind you, that would mean it would last nearly 3 years and I can't see many of us still using the Pulse then (when everyone else is on Android v57.6 and we are officially still on v1.5 :D )

Yap I'd say 3 years are pretty much it. But as you already mentioned, who will still have his Pulse then :)

Best regards,

BB

[Guest Daz555]

So are you saying it's best to have it fully charged at all times, or at least charge it when it prompts for it? I always let mine drain completely before I charge it

Letting a battery fully discharge was the way with older tech like Ni-Cd which suffered from 'memory effect'.

However modern Li-ion and Li-Poly batteries like those found in the Pulse do not suffer from memory effect. In fact completely discharging a Lithium cell is actually bad for it - it is not a good idea to leave a flat lithium battery in a drawer for a couple of years for example if you still want it to work.

Lithium batteries can and should be charged at any time - topping them up regularly is the best way to care for them as a partial discharge is less wearing for lithium batteries than full discharge.

[Guest BigBearMDC]

Letting a battery fully discharge was the way with older tech like Ni-Cd which suffered from 'memory effect'.

However modern Li-ion and Li-Poly batteries like those found in the Pulse do not suffer from memory effect. In fact completely discharging a Lithium cell is actually bad for it - it is not a good idea to leave a flat lithium battery in a drawer for a couple of years for example if you still want it to work.

Lithium batteries can and should be charged at any time - topping them up regularly is the best way to care for them as a partial discharge is less wearing for lithium batteries than full discharge.

Yap letting them lying fully discharged is bad for the battery, but charging the battery more often means a lower battery life.

So you have to find the right balance.

I usually let the battery drain until it shows the last red bar, and plug it into the charger afterwards.

Best regards,

BB

[Guest psionandy]

Yap letting them lying fully discharged is bad for the battery, but charging the battery more often means a lower battery life.

So you have to find the right balance.

I usually let the battery drain until it shows the last red bar, and plug it into the charger afterwards.

Best regards,

BB

However when they are neatly full they don't do a full charge (and hence use a charging cycle) Instead they should trickle charge, which keeps them nicely full and doesn't lower the battery life.

[Guest Daz555]

Li batteries don't actually trickle charge in the old sense (continous charging) - they stop charging when full. However the term can also be applied to decribe the slow down in charge rate that is applied to a nearly full battery - which is what happens with Li batteries which I guess is what you were referring to.

Back to BBs point though - the reason that regular charging does not cause extra wear is that a charge a cycle from say 100% to 80% and back up to 100% is not as wearing for the battery as doing the same thing down to say 20%. This is because a fuller battery has a slower, shorter, and therefore less stressful charge applied to it. Also long charges tend to produce more heat and it is heat which plays a big part in reducing the life of batteries.

Edited August 3, 2010 by Daz555

[Guest Speckles]

This is what I normally do each night: If the battery is 50% charged or less, I stick it on the charger. If it's more than 50% charged, then I just turn it off until the next day. However, if I'm considering using the phone heavily or going somewhere where there will be a lack or power, I ensure it's at least 90%.