Laptop batteries are tricky bits of hardware. You have to plug them in to charge them up, but you can’t leave them plugged in too long or they’ll be damaged. You can’t always let them run out of charge completely and if you so much as look at them askance they’ll give up on life just before you’ve saved your work. You know, they can just be generally painful items when it comes down to it.
Anyway, if you’re not the sort of person who cares to memorise all the rules on how to care for your Mac battery – if perhaps you’re the sort of person who wants the battery to “just work” like the rest of your Mac does – there is at least one program out there which will try to look after your battery for you. Watts is one such program and it’s well worth a look.
Introducing Watts
Mac 101: Battery not charging? Recalibration may be the answer. Which will run the 'system_profiler' tool at the. Battery calibration is a topic which lends itself to vigorous debate. This is the perfect battery monitor for your phone or tablet. It is simple, beautiful and can be calibrated specially for your device. Instantly know how many hours you have left for: - Listening to music - Watching video - Talking on the phone - Internet Browsing ( WiFi / Edge / 3G / 4G ) - Standby - Time left to recharge - Time to use LED Flashlight - 2D and 3D Games - Reading books - GPS. Battery calibration free download - Battery Calibration, Battery Calibration Pro 2018, Battery Calibration Pro 2018, and many more programs. Best Video Software for the Mac How To Run MacOS.
Watts is a specialised program for Mac 10.5+ to remind you how to look after your Mac battery. It has a free trial for 30 days, then can be purchased for $6.95 for a lifetime license.
Watts can remind you via Growl when your laptop has been plugged into the power source for too long, schedule regular calibration for the battery, adjust calibration needs according to your usage and give you a history of your battery use, charge cycles and other tools to improve the battery lifespan.
Basically, it will remind you to do all the right things for your battery so that you don’t need to think about it. Perfect, right?
Battery Calibration
Doing an initial battery calibration when you get a new battery, then re-calibrating it on occasion, will improve the life of your battery. Once installed, Watts takes you through the steps to complete a battery calibration. It then automatically schedules subsequent calibration reminders for every 5 weeks.
The calibration process itself involves:
- Fully charging the battery.
- Keeping it fully charged for two hours.
- Running the computer only on battery power until it is low on power.
- Letting your laptop go to sleep for at least five hours before recharging.
You can continue to work up until the laptop goes to sleep and Watts will prompt you via Growl to remind you to move on to the next step, save your work and prepare for the sleep step. The help details in Watts explain to you what is occurring in each step of the calibration, why it is necessary and reassure you that it can be postponed.
Notifications To Look After Your Battery
Watts is able to notify you via Growl when it is time to unplug your laptop, when the charge is low and when the cord is plugged in or unplugged. You are in charge of when those notifications occur and can adjust them as you see fit. If you wish to use Watts to override your current Mac energy saver preferences, this is also possible.
Menu Bar
Watts runs in the menu bar, showing an overview of battery charge and health, and where you can also click the battery icon to access the Watts menu. The Watts battery icon can replace the Mac battery icon if you wish to save space in the menu bar, provided you choose to run Watts at start-up.
More Information
Mac Tools Battery Tester
Watts will also show you how well your battery is performing for its life cycle. Precisely, it shows how many charge cycles your battery has been through, compared with how many cycles this battery is expected to complete in its lifetime and at what percentage of its capacity remains. These details will make it clear how close you are to needing a new battery.
More Battery Tools
There are a number of tools available to monitor and improve your Mac’s battery life, such as Battery Health Monitor and Slim Battery MonitorTwo Cool Tools To Monitor Your MacBook's Battery [Mac]Two Cool Tools To Monitor Your MacBook's Battery [Mac]Read More, browser based battery protecters like PeaceKeeperUsing Peacekeeper To Benchmark Performance & Battery Life On Any DeviceUsing Peacekeeper To Benchmark Performance & Battery Life On Any DeviceI own a Windows desktop PC, a MacBook and an Android smartphone. Because of the differences between these devices, investigating their performance relative to each other is difficult. It’s not impossible, however, thanks to Peacekeeper....Read More, tools like SafeSleepMake Your Mac Sleep More Efficiently with SafeSleepMake Your Mac Sleep More Efficiently with SafeSleepRead More to ensure your Mac sleeps properly, and things like BashflashHow To Maximize Battery Life when Browsing on Mac with BashFlashHow To Maximize Battery Life when Browsing on Mac with BashFlashRead More to ensure you get the most time possible out of your charged battery.
So, do tools like Watts suit your laptop battery protection style? Why or why not?
The laptop battery is an essential piece of hardware, yet we’re often less informed about its health. Your Windows laptop will not give you enough information either. On the surface, it displays just a tiny battery indicator with the remaining time and percentage.
Over time, you’ll notice a few battery errors creep in. The battery stops holding its charge. The charge level indicator shows fluctuating readings. A flawed discharge estimation is also common. But there are workarounds and solutions.
Let’s guide you through some third-party battery diagnostic tools that allow you to check battery health in Windows.
Why You Should Monitor Battery Health
A battery is a portable chemical device with limited resources. Because of its nature, it has a complicated voltage response to the load, temperature, and its own age. The health of the battery affects both device performance and run time. You should monitor the battery health for these reasons:
- Get a starting point for a power management workflow under different workloads and environment.
- The maximum capacity of a battery changes over time. As a result, the charging indicator might show you inconsistent readings. When this happens, you’ll know when to calibrate the battery.
- Incorrect use of the battery can cut short its lifespan. Monitoring battery health enables you to take corrective steps to increase longevity.
1. Powercfg Battery Report
The powercfg command is a hidden tool on Windows. You can use it to generate a precise report of your battery history.
It includes information about your battery performance and lets you observe the decline in battery capacity that inevitably occurs over time.
To generate a battery report, open Command Prompt and type in powercfg /batteryreport. This command saves a battery report in HTML format to
C:UsersYour_Usernamebattery-report.html
Double-click the file to open it in your browser. Check out the following details:
- The difference between Design Capacity and Full Charge Capacity. You’ll expect a reduced full charge capacity. As batteries wear over time, the full charge capacity will be less than the design capacity.
- See how much battery capacity has drained over the last few days in different power states. Also, check out the battery usage graph.
- Observe how Full Charge Capacity gradually decreases in comparison with Design Capacity. Notice any discrepancies.
- Compare the battery life at Full Charge versus Design Capacity from the time when you purchased the laptop.
- Check the battery’s usage and duration. And the time your computer ran on battery or plugged into the power outlet.
With this kind of laptop battery life test, you can identify problems that affect your battery life. If the report shows drastic differences, you may want to get a new battery.
2. BatteryInfoView
BatteryInfoView is a free app that is filled with information about your laptop’s battery. The tool has two primary components.
The first screen gives you complete battery information on Designed Capacity, Full Charged Capacity, Battery Health, Number of charge/discharge cycles, and more.
The second screen provides you with detailed log analysis of power state, event time, charge/discharge values, and more. A new log line gets added whenever you suspend or resume the computer.
In this way, you can find out the rate at which the battery gets discharged. You can also export the battery information to a TXT or CSV file for reference.
Pros
- View detailed battery information in a single place.
- You can check the log to observe changes in the battery capacity.
- It lets you put the window on top over other apps to monitor the battery.
Cons
- It cannot filter the battery log with a date range.
- It does not show you any graph to predict the battery wear level over time.
Download:BatteryInfoView (Free)
3. BatteryMon
BatteryMon is an easy to use app that monitor’s laptop battery charge level by presenting a graph of its findings in real time.
The vertical Y-axis displays the percentage charge level (0-100%) and sampling time on the horizontal X-axis. You can change the sampling time interval in the configuration screen.
The black line shows the current charge level. The blue line shows the trend line based on the extrapolated samples of data.
And the red line shows you a comparison against its life span. For a short duration comparison, the red line will deviate more than the normal. You also get minute details on the discharging rate.
As you keep using the app, the discharge rate will become more accurate, and you’ll understand how battery health is deteriorating with different workloads.
Pros
- It analyzes the battery health with a real-time graph.
- You can set notifications for battery level, voltage, and temperature.
- Data on charging/discharging rate, time remaining on the battery, total time, and more.
- Log the battery’s performance for later reference.
- Compare and measure the current capacity with data collected in the past.
Cons
- The app is complicated for newbies.
- The graph can be overwhelming (Tweak the sample time in the configuration screen to make it simpler).
Download:BatteryMon (Free)
4. BatteryCat
BatteryCat is a simple utility to check battery charge, capacity, and charge cycles. The main window has three sections—the present charge state in relation to the current capacity, information about the power state, charge cycles, and full charge capacity versus the original design capacity.
When you click on the File menu, the History window opens next to the main window. You can save the recent capacity values along with the date. The history data lives in
C:UserYour_Usernamebatterycatbatterycat.csv
With this log of data, copy the data to a spreadsheet app and monitor the battery’s health. By default, BatteryCat reads data from battery every 10 seconds. You can change this interval in the Options screen.
Pros
- The app gives you all battery information in a single place.
- It’s simple to use and extrapolates data without any knowledge.
Cons
- There is no filter option to segregate data in different time range or workloads.
- The app uses GTK runtime on Windows. As a result, you might experience tiny and blurry fonts.
Download:BatteryCat (Free)
5. Smarter Battery
Smarter Battery is the only app that offers you a complete suite of tools to monitor battery health, perform calibration operations, and save the battery performance data for reference.
It shows you the history of battery capacity during the charge/discharge cycles, computes wear level and discharge cycle count.
The Battery Information page gives you the information on Full Battery Capacity vis-a-vis the Design Capacity, discharging time, cycle count, wear level, and power state during battery or AC power mode.
The Capacity page helps you understand the evolution of battery capacity. The Y-axis displays the capacity percentage and X-axis shows the data drawn at that time interval.
The Calibration page displays the complete picture of your battery life such as wear level, usage time, discharge cycles and more.
The app also offers you to save the battery data depending on the page you’ve opened. You can save battery information, capacity, calibration data, and more.
Pros
- At a time, you can monitor up to four batteries including battery packs.
- You can zoom in/out to modify the time interval and use arrow buttons to move forth/back in time.
- It can simulate the discharge mechanism to speed up the calibration process.
- There’s a green mode function to save battery power when in need.
- You can set alarms for low/critical battery and force standby/hibernate when battery power gets low.
Cons
- It has too many options scattered everywhere on the page.
- Can get confusing at times and can clash with the built-in power management settings.
Download:Smarter Battery (Free trial, $14)
6. BatteryCare
BatteryCare is a simple tool to optimize the performance and usage of your laptop battery. With its built-in algorithm, you can track the charge/discharge cycles.
Lenovo Battery Calibration Tool
When your battery completes a definite number of discharge cycles, it recommends you calibrate the battery.
And when you complete the process, it remembers the last calibration date, number of calibration operations you did, and more.
The main window of the app shows all the detailed battery information like Designed Capacity, Full Charge Capacity, Tension, Wear Level, and Total Discharge Cycles.
It also monitors your CPU, hard drive temperature, and alerts you when it reaches a specific temperature.
Pros
- Low and Critical battery notification.
- It can switch to a power plan depending upon the state of your power.
- The power plan perfectly synchronizes with the power events of Windows.
Cons
- It only shows a summary of battery information and optimizes the usage of your battery.
- There is no other information—event data, logs, a record of charge/discharge cycles, and more.
- The installer is bundled with junk apps.
Download:BatteryCare (Free)
How to Prolong Your Battery’s Lifespan
Monitoring the battery health of your device is not a simple task. There are too many variables and factors to consider. With these tools, you can at least monitor its health and take corrective measures to prolong battery life.
At the same time, you must also expand your knowledge by understanding the technology that goes into a battery. To know more, read this piece on how the battery works and steps you can take to prolong their lifespanHow a Battery Works and 3 Ways You Can Ruin ItHow a Battery Works and 3 Ways You Can Ruin ItThe modern battery is featured in so many of our favourite technologies that you could almost be forgiven for not spending time learning about their workings.Read More.
Explore more about: Battery Life, Computer Maintenance.
I know a simple way which worked for me :
1. ctr+alt+delet
2. open task manager
3. process
4. tick show all process in bottom left
5. find which program takes CPU
6. find its location(for me a exe file was hidden in windows folder in drive c)
7. restart your system try to start by safe mood
8. go in its location delete it(before that I went folder option and tick view hidden file)end
problem solved
best
You don't need a tool anymore, windows itself has one included:
powercfg /batteryreport /output 'C:battery_report.html'
Thanks :)
I just tried Battery Care and didn't even run it.
Why?
Because it also installed some antivirus crap, chromium, and then also changed my default search engine. Plus some other app I don't even remember the name of.
If that's the quality of product being recommended by this author, I recommend nobody actually install anything else on the list. I know I won't.
For all I know, that was also installing malware or a virus.
You have to be careful while installing it. After agreeing to the setup's license it asks the user whether he'd like to install bytefence, chromium and toolbars. you just have to click where it says 'Customize installation' and a checkbox pops out. Uncheck all of them and continue with the installation that will install BatteryCare only.
Unchecky will solve that promo crap
I just want some science behind this. I have a hard time believing in any battery calibration apps. I think it's all just marketing to those that don't know better. I wish to research lion batteries more. It just seems like once they discharge and recharge overtime they die out. It's just a fact of life. I don't think you can reverse that trend. I just don't see how that can be a thing.
thanks man!! I was looking for an app like batterybar and I found it here.
wow, according to BatterySaver's Battery Usage, display accounts for 80% of the battery usage, I knew it draws a lot of power but did not expect this much
I'm using 'Battey Care' since jan 2014 & its interface is simple & clear. solves your problem in knowing the status of your battery.
For Mac OS' the must have is Coconut Battery monitor
Thank you so much for this detailed write-up.
Sumit Singh
I have been using BatteryCare for a number of years, since my first laptop.
I love BatteryCare, but their install files on some locations & now even their upgrades are infected with malware. Sadly, had to remove it.
Would have been helpful if you had mentioned alternative programs for other operating systems.
Like, specifically, Linux. 'Battery Charge Graph' doesn't work on my Mint 17.1.
Ditto
It is ANNOYING this publication consistently ignores linux & Mac for such articles
I quite like batexpert from KC Softwares but watch out for the bundled crapware and untick as necessary.