How to check battery capacity/life

[mintd]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering what is the best way (within Linux Mint Cinnamon) to check the battery capacity (life/mWh) of my laptop? From what I understand folks might use Windows Battery Report for this (in Windows) and would like to know what is the best way/software to do this in Linux?

Thank you! D

[mikeflan]

Open Applets and look for these:
.

.
Or maybe inxi -B is good enough for you?

Or Ibam in the repositories.

[mintd]

Open Applets and look for these:
.
bat.png
.
Or maybe inxi -B is good enough for you?

Or Ibam in the repositories.

Thank you mikeflan!
That command worked nicely. It said:
'charge: 21.9 Wh condition: 21.9/42.1 Wh (52%)'
so does that mean my battery capacity is half depleted (i.e. not good)? Technically, what is the difference with the terms 'charge' and 'condition' when talking about laptop batteries? When I look in the bottom-right of my screen and see the battery % remaining, what is that (charge?)?

[revmacian]

Open Applets and look for these:
.
bat.png
.
Or maybe inxi -B is good enough for you?

Or Ibam in the repositories.

Thank you mikeflan!
That command worked nicely. It said:
'charge: 21.9 Wh condition: 21.9/42.1 Wh (52%)'
so does that mean my battery capacity is half depleted (i.e. not good)? Technically, what is the difference with the terms 'charge' and 'condition' when talking about laptop batteries? When I look in the bottom-right of my screen and see the battery % remaining, what is that (charge?)?

I think that shows much charge your battery has left before a recharge is needed.

If you're looking for the overall battery life capacity remaining (after which the battery can no longer hold a charge), try this command:

Code: Select all

upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0 | grep energy-full

If that command doesn't work you can use this command to list all the power sources available:

Code: Select all

upower -e

Then use the "upower -i" command with a different power source.

[mintd]

Open Applets and look for these:
.
bat.png
.
Or maybe inxi -B is good enough for you?

Or Ibam in the repositories.

Thank you mikeflan!
That command worked nicely. It said:
'charge: 21.9 Wh condition: 21.9/42.1 Wh (52%)'
so does that mean my battery capacity is half depleted (i.e. not good)? Technically, what is the difference with the terms 'charge' and 'condition' when talking about laptop batteries? When I look in the bottom-right of my screen and see the battery % remaining, what is that (charge?)?

I think that shows much charge your battery has left before a recharge is needed.

If you're looking for the overall battery life capacity remaining (after which the battery can no longer hold a charge), try this command:

Code: Select all

upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0 | grep energy-full

If that command doesn't work you can use this command to list all the power sources available:

Code: Select all

upower -e

Then use the "upower -i" command with a different power source.

Thank you revmacian

Here was the output from upower:

battery
present: yes
rechargeable: yes
state: fully-charged
warning-level: none
energy: 21.922 Wh
energy-empty: 0 Wh
energy-full: 21.922 Wh
energy-full-design: 42.067 Wh
energy-rate: 0 W
voltage: 11.85 V
percentage: 100%
capacity: 52.1121%
technology: lithium-ion
icon-name: 'battery-full-charged-symbolic'

Could you please help me understand what the above means? Does it say that the battery has already lost almost half of its capacity/life (52.1121%)?
Thank you

[revmacian]

Thank you mikeflan!
That command worked nicely. It said:
'charge: 21.9 Wh condition: 21.9/42.1 Wh (52%)'
so does that mean my battery capacity is half depleted (i.e. not good)? Technically, what is the difference with the terms 'charge' and 'condition' when talking about laptop batteries? When I look in the bottom-right of my screen and see the battery % remaining, what is that (charge?)?

I think that shows much charge your battery has left before a recharge is needed.

If you're looking for the overall battery life capacity remaining (after which the battery can no longer hold a charge), try this command:

Code: Select all

upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0 | grep energy-full

If that command doesn't work you can use this command to list all the power sources available:

Code: Select all

upower -e

Then use the "upower -i" command with a different power source.

Thank you revmacian

Here was the output from upower:

battery
present: yes
rechargeable: yes
state: fully-charged
warning-level: none
energy: 21.922 Wh
energy-empty: 0 Wh
energy-full: 21.922 Wh
energy-full-design: 42.067 Wh
energy-rate: 0 W
voltage: 11.85 V
percentage: 100%
capacity: 52.1121%
technology: lithium-ion
icon-name: 'battery-full-charged-symbolic'

Could you please help me understand what the above means? Does it say that the battery has already lost almost half of its capacity/life (52.1121%)?
Thank you

It is my understanding that these two readings are of most importance when attempting to understand battery capacity:

Code: Select all

energy-full:         21.922 Wh
energy-full-design:  42.067 Wh

I believe you can get this same information using this inxi command:

Code: Select all

inxi -B | grep condition

energy-full is the current Watt hour capacity of the battery after charged to 100%
energy-full-design was the Watt hour capacity of the battery when the battery was brand new
I'm guessing that either your laptop is more than a few years old or it has a high number of charge/discharge cycles.. or both.

The day you pulled your laptop out of its original box both of these readings were 42.067 Wh, or very close. However, after a number of charge/discharge cycles, the energy-full reading will diminish - this is a peculiarity of all Lithium-based batteries. Lithium in the battery will begin to crystalize during charge/discharge cycles. The crystalized portion of the Lithium particles will no longer be able to hold a charge, which is why the battery capacity will diminish over time. Your battery charges to 100%, but that is 100% of the usable Lithium rather than 100% of the total battery.

There is no way to stop this from happening but you can slow it down by reducing the number of charge/discharge cycles, thus lengthening the time needed before a new battery is required. One way I do this is to keep the laptop plugged in when I'm at my desk. These two readings on my hp laptop (manufactured in 2018) are very close because the previous owner kept the laptop plugged in most of the time so there were fewer charge/discharge cycles.

[mintybarrels]

So, you reckon it's better to have it plugged in all the time beaming at 100% (or, limited at 80-90%?),

vs.

Charging up to 80-90%, then plugging in when it hits 20-40%?


Thanks,

MB