Battery tracker/charge manager

[orev]

Utility to allow monitoring battery, but more importantly ability to control the charge level of the battery (allow setting thresholds for battery charging and discharging). E.g. Charge battery until 85%, then stop charging until it drops to 50%. Avoiding 100% charge on a battery can prolong its life, and there is currently nothing that can do this.

[zbrozek]

I'd also like to have some analysis of why my battery is being drained. Something to guide the finger of blame - is it a particular website doing something wasteful inside of my browser, a terminal cursor blinking inefficiently, etc.

[aster94]

@orev what you are asking is an hardware request, this can't be accomplished, AFAIK, on software. Some laptops, like asus gm504 (i am sure) and lenovo tinkpad (i think) can do it

Anyway the tracker is completely feasible and i would like to have it 😁

[lenardg]

It would be also great if the tracker could track the maximum charge level, and how it changes over time. So you could see how fast or slow your battery is degrading (maximum charge / designed charge == battery weay). You already have a similar kind of report using powercfg /batteryreport, but that is more a point in time report, and is bad at tracking trends (unless you save the previous reports).

[MikeWilliams-UK]

Stopping the charge at a percentage is a going to be a great thing to have.
I have only ever seen it before on an IBM / Lenovo Thinkpad, so assumed it was specific to their hardware.
In the mean time you can use the excellent (IMHO) BatteryBar which also shows the wear on your battery.
See http://batterybarpro.com/

[BrianCatlin]

I would like to be able to see and manage the battery level in all devices, such as wireless keyboards and mice

[BNTFryingPan]

not all wireless devices share their battery level, some do, but not every percentage (for example, a device may only report at 25% intervals or so), some do but windows doesnt know where, and the few that do work windows will automatically alert you at 5% and 1%. Now if by managing the battery level you mean stopping charge before 100%, thats literally impossible unless the hardware and software allow it in your wireless device.

[BrianCatlin]

Microsoft devices certainly report their power levels. Combining all the power level info into one place just makes sense

[Jay-o-Way]

Microsoft devices certainly report their power levels. Combining all the power level info into one place just makes sense

You mean, besides the Devices page in Settings?

[Jay-o-Way]

Now if by managing the battery level you mean stopping charge before 100%, thats literally impossible unless the hardware and software allow it in your wireless device.

I think that sums it up.

Even more: I often shut down my tablet pc while it's still connected. How can any software possibly have any influence at all when shut down? (it can't)

[framctr]

I think that battery control is an hw feature. If the elctronic parts do not support stopping the charge at a percentage, the battery is charged until its maximum.

I found that Microsoft Surface users can set up a limit of 50%. See more here.

[vertigo220]

What I'd really like is a customizable (size, colors at different thresholds, etc) and compact icon like MemInfo provides for memory usage and, especially, a tracker that shows each charge and discharge session, like Accubattery on Android, so you can see that it took x amount of time to charge/discharge from one % to another. Technically, this could probably already be done with the info provided by powercfg /batteryreport /output “C:battery-report.html” but using that method would take a long time each time you wanted to see it, and I'm not sure how long the data is retained, whereas a tracker would just show it all at a glance as far back as the last time the data was cleared (manually or by a setting, e.g. "older than x days"). If anybody knows of such a program that already exists, please let me know.

[vertigo220]

As for the issue of maintaining a charge between a certain level, if it's truly not possible via software--though at this point it really should be, and if it's not that's something that the CPU and/or motherboard manufacturers need to address--then there is another way. At the very least, the software could alert the user in various ways (pop-up, sound, text, email, flashing Hue lights, etc) once a certain charge/discharge level is reached. To take it a step further, it could be used to trigger a "smart" outlet, which could be placed between the outlet and the computer charger, so the software could turn it on/off, which would then start/stop charging of the laptop.

[MikeWilliams-UK]

@vertigo220 I think you are missing the point of a hardware solution like that on Lenovo ThinkPad laptops.

At the battery charge threshold it stop charging the battery, but the laptop it still running of the charger thus NOT discharging the battery.

If you unplug the charger you are starting to discharge the battery which may cause more battery wear.

[vertigo220]

@MikeWilliams-UK Yes, it will cause wear, and won't be as good as simply running off AC while maintaining the battery's charge level, but it still might be better than charging the battery to 100%, which is also a big cause of battery wear. But while it's definitely worse to charge to 100% then discharge to 10% versus charging to 70 then discharging to 25 twice (90% total use in each case), I'm not sure which is worse: charging to 100% and holding it there or repeatedly cycling between say 75 and 25%.

And is that really what Lenovo is doing, bypassing the battery and running off the charger, or are they just running off the battery and limiting charging to the rate of discharge, so the battery level stays the same but is actually constantly being discharged and charged simultaneously?

[Jay-o-Way]

If you unplug the charger you are starting to discharge the battery which may cause more battery wear.

I thought it was the opposite. Not using the battery would make it lazy?

[Jay-o-Way]

I found that Microsoft Surface users can set up a limit of 50%. See more here.

Interesting :)
Note:

This setting is recommended in cases in which the device is continuously connected to power, for example when devices are integrated into kiosk solutions.

[heynando]

yeah we need a battery percentage in the taskbar that's very important.

right now I'm using this program, which is free https://www.microsoft.com/store/productId/9N3HDTNCF6Z8

but it would be nice if PowerToys had it built in.

[crutkas]

neat idea but I don't think PowerToys would build this out. /feedbackhub

[microsoft-github-policy-service]

Hi! We've identified this issue that best is suited for Windows Feedback Hub. To do this on Windows, WinKey+F will bring it up!