Battery performance predictor
Is there a good utility out there to predict the remaining
running/charging time of my battery?
For the "remaining runtime" most of the utilities out there seem to just
divide the remaining capacity by the current power usage, which doesn't
account for the fact that the current power usage may not be
representative of the longer-term average (e.g. my power usage may
switch regularly between 6W while editing a file (i.e. mostly idle) and
15W while processing the result, neither of which is representative of
the longer term average which may be something like 10W).
So a good utility would need to monitor/learn your "typical" average usage,
and remember it in some kind of file.
For the "remaining charge time" the problem is fundamentally similar,
tho details are quite different:
- the charging rate changes over time (as the battery gets full, it
charges more slowly). So dividing the missing charge by the current
rate is not a good predictor (as is often done).
- the charging rate may also depend on the computer's own power usage
(e.g. the sum of the power's own use and the battery's charging use
may be bound by the power adapter's max power output).
- sometimes reaching 100% of charge takes a long time, but reaching
(say) 90% is much faster.
So for the "remaining charge time" I might like to have a more detailed
info, telling me (for example):
- how much time remains before I get to 90% while I keep using the machine
- how much time remains before I get to 90% if I put it to sleep
- how much time remains before I get to 100% while I keep using the machine
- how much time remains before I get to 100% if I put it to sleep
And again, this info usually can't be just computed from current data,
it instead needs to be learned by monitoring the system's behavior
over time.
Stefan
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