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Report proper battery life estimates on laptops
Authored by: JoeGrind on Apr 02, '03 11:07:53AM

This hint makes it sound as if when my powerbook "calculates" remaining battery time, whatever it comes up with, is how long it runs for. Is that the case? Did you actually time your running time to be certain this helped?

I was under the impression that the remaining battery time is just an estimation based on how much battery capacity you have left and the rate at which you are currently using the battery. It then runs for as long as you have charge left in the battery, no matter what it originally "calculated" it to be.

This clearly has a great deal of bearing on this hint. Logically, I'd go with the second option, but anyone know for certain?



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Report proper battery life estimates on laptops
Authored by: MattHaffner on Apr 02, '03 12:07:38PM

Well, from my experience last night, after surfing around for a few hours doing low CPU & disk tasks and then installing the QT 6.1.1 update with <15 minutes reported left, I'm pretty confident that the estimate updated in real time. The 'minutes' clicked down much faster than real time.

Anecdotally, I could swear that I've seen the estimate start very low and then ramp up and add an hour after a minute or two of doing nothing.

I really can't imagine that this is based on a single snapshot when you bring it out of sleep. It does need a baseline to give you any estimate at all though, so that's why the 'Calculating...' appears--it has no history to draw from yet.



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Report proper battery life estimates on laptops
Authored by: JamieD on Apr 02, '03 01:43:03PM

I believe the initial calculation is an important parameter in the continual calculation the meter does. It is as if there is an integrator in the algorithm. The idea is that you start off on the best possible value to begin with that way you maximize the amount of time that is reported.

With this method I get at least an extra 45 minutes (actual time) out of my iBook before it tells me it needs to go to sleep.



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