When purchasing a device with a lithium-ion battery, you get an expected usage time estimation that is rarely ever met, what is going on?
Episode #12-17 released on December 17, 2021
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The majority of battery usage estimates are inaccurate because it is not always based on real world usage. A great number of people do not use devices in the same way the manufacture tests them. For that reason, the odds you get the expected duration for a task like watching a movie are pretty low. It does not mean that you will get a lot less usage time, it just means that you can expect the device to have a shorter usable duration.
The amount of time a battery lasts, especially lithium-ion, also, goes down with time. If you lose one percent per 3 months over 3 years of the battery's life, but the end of 3 years, you will have a usable eighty-eight percent left of the battery's expected usable duration. If the task was calculated to drain the battery from full to empty on a new battery in 100 minutes, after years you can expect it to be more like 88 minutes, or even less.
Multi-tasking is, also, a big reason why we do not get the amount usable battery duration than the product indicates. If you are busy watching a movie, and doing anything else, even on a brand-new battery, then the battery will not last as long as the tests say it should have. Meaning, that for the most part, the way that is tested, is typically wrong or not in accordance with the end user, which is you.
But what about built-in sensors that estimate the amount of time left in the Lithium-ion battery, why are those often wrong?
Purely, without looking at anything else, measuring energy changes how much energy is left, especially when we take battery power into account. That, and the conditions and math used to calculate the estimated about of time left is constantly changing because our use of computers and other device is not consistent. If anything, because of the way processors and other hardware work, we cannot reliably calculate the remaining battery duration because hardware is meant to both perform and be as energy efficient as possible, even in the face of multi-tasking.
Because of technological advancements, we can do more with our devices, therefore we do. Because of battery advancements, we have better batteries but they still age. And because end-users do not operate our devices like those in tests, the estimated battery duration of manufactures are always going to be inaccurate and because of hardware advancements and how we measure energy, we are always inputting information in the battery duration equation that simply does not reflect reality.
This is why, 12-hour estimations can be wildly off.
Host : Steve Smith | Music : | Editor : Steve Smith | Producer : Zed Axis Dot Net