1. adadadad's Avatar
    There's some room for debate about whether going to 0% is a good idea. It is well above the point where any serious damage to the batteries would occur. There certainly are instances, however, of people who've let it shut down at 0% and then had some difficulty getting it restarted. Having done that dozens of times on multiple units, I have no concerns about it personally. If you're somewhat nervous about it, and certainly if you're a technical "noob", it would be best if you recharged earlier. That said, if you hit 0% and it shuts down, and you put it on the charger and it restarts just fine, then have no fear that you've done anything wrong or damaged the device, because you have not.

    As for continuing to use it below the 9% (or 8%, or whenever you get it) warning, absolutely feel free to do that. If you're almost done your movie, or want to keep playing that game for another half hour, or whatever... go right ahead and do it. The warning is merely to remind you that you might not have too much time left, but it's in no way a warning of impending damage or anything bad like that.
    today, 'battery guru' kept showing the battery voltage above 4.15V. (it should not exceed 4.20V. The device was 30% charged when I plugged it in. I hope, everything is fine.
    11-08-12 04:42 AM
  2. adadadad's Avatar
    There's some room for debate about whether going to 0% is a good idea. It is well above the point where any serious damage to the batteries would occur. There certainly are instances, however, of people who've let it shut down at 0% and then had some difficulty getting it restarted. Having done that dozens of times on multiple units, I have no concerns about it personally. If you're somewhat nervous about it, and certainly if you're a technical "noob", it would be best if you recharged earlier. That said, if you hit 0% and it shuts down, and you put it on the charger and it restarts just fine, then have no fear that you've done anything wrong or damaged the device, because you have not.

    As for continuing to use it below the 9% (or 8%, or whenever you get it) warning, absolutely feel free to do that. If you're almost done your movie, or want to keep playing that game for another half hour, or whatever... go right ahead and do it. The warning is merely to remind you that you might not have too much time left, but it's in no way a warning of impending damage or anything bad like that.
    today, 'battery guru' kept showing the battery voltage above 4.15V. (it should not exceed 4.20V). The device was 30% charged when I plugged it in. I hope, everything is fine.
    Attached Thumbnails Battery guru app???-uploadfromtaptalk1352371475439.jpg  
    11-08-12 04:44 AM
  3. FF22's Avatar
    Mine's on the Rapid charger right now at 100% and shows a Voltage of 4.17v. I guess I've never looked at that value so don't know what's normal!
    adadadad likes this.
    11-08-12 08:52 AM
  4. PedroBorgas's Avatar
    My batt life is back to 86%.

    Guess i've been naughty ^^

    Sent from my BlackBerry 9800 using Tapatalk
    11-09-12 03:28 AM
  5. peter9477's Avatar
    A voltage of 4.17V is below 4.20V so it's certainly not a problem. Anyway, you can generally consider the 4.2V limit to be something the hardware and OS take care of, and not worry about it. If you ever saw 4.3V, it's either a software glitch (not in Battery Guru of course! :-) ) or, if it were real, you'd have bigger problems to worry about since the battery may well catch on fire at that point... There are numerous protection mechanisms built into the system and battery and software to prevent such a thing, so I never pay it any attention. I included the voltage reading as supplementary information and to assist with troubleshooting low battery and charging problems, not so we could second-guess the safety mechanisms in place to prevent over-voltage. :-)

    Lastly, all measurements are approximate. It's the nature of such technology (the hardware, that is)... if you wanted something really accurate and precise, you'd have to pay thousands of dollars more for it. Consider just about everything you see to be +/-5% or worse and you're probably about right.
    11-14-12 07:55 AM
  6. 312Lorden's Avatar
    In addition to what F2 said, another reason to avoid deep discharges is it is detrimental to Li-ion battery life. All manufacturers of Li-ion batteries advise against the practice of repeated battery depletion unless necessary. The preferred method for long battery life is frequent top offs, avoiding regular discharging below 40% or less. I know that may not be practical for some but just a heads up. FWIW, we have effectively increased the average battery life of our tools and instruments at work that use Li-ion batteries by around 25% by frequent topping when not in use. I myself don't worry about it, especially after experiencing how simple it was to change out the battery in the PB.
    _____

    Somewhere I read (not in this forum) that battery discharge should go down to around 20% before re-charging. Cann you comment on that?
    Also why is it that I do not see a graph like that shown on another post to this thread?

    Does your website explain what the difference between Battery voltage and Power ( in Watts) mean?
    01-31-13 10:22 PM
  7. xamdam's Avatar
    this is a double ;post so i edited.......
    01-31-13 11:01 PM
  8. xamdam's Avatar
    i just bought this app now and my battery life is at 90% i bought my PB just after christmas 2012 LTE version and voltage is at 3,78 while plugged into USB port on laptop and it not charging cause this port not enough power, but my recharge count is 13 so far and power is at 1.63w and down to 0.55w just sitting there i think this means how much the pb is using in power, not sure if all this info is good or bad, but so far no issues.
    01-31-13 11:03 PM
  9. xamdam's Avatar
    _____

    Somewhere I read (not in this forum) that battery discharge should go down to around 20% before re-charging. Cann you comment on that?
    Also why is it that I do not see a graph like that shown on another post to this thread?

    Does your website explain what the difference between Battery voltage and Power ( in Watts) mean?


    Yes 20% is the limit many go to before charging, but i like 50% lol not so long to charge then.

    Also i see the graph your talking about, not sure what the power volts mean on it for mine.
    01-31-13 11:05 PM
  10. CBCListener's Avatar
    Rip off UK - $1.99 for USA; �2 for UK!!!!

    It's for the shipping costs, don't you know....

    Sent from my BlackBerry� Curve 3G using Tapatalk
    02-01-13 04:02 PM
  11. peter9477's Avatar
    Note that the price in the UK will probably seem more fair now, since BlackBerry just updated the pricing tiers for the UK (and some others?), lowering the ratio.

    Looks like it should be �1.50 for UK now.

    Even at �2 Battery Guru's no rip-off, though. ;-)

    312Lorden: if you don't see a graph, it's probably because you missed the part in the description where it notes the app has to remain running all the time if you want to collect the data. It gets readings only every two minutes from the OS, so to get a graph like the ones you've seen, the user left it running for hours. Some of us have it running all the time so we can keep an eye out for unusual activity and possible changes in the battery, though the PlayBook's has proven quite stable for most so far.

    As for Power versus Voltage and such, no, I don't think I've written a tutorial on that. I'd suggest Wikipedia or other online resources. You could think of Voltage as being the real value which the "%" comes from, indirectly, as it ranges between 3.4V and 4.2V (on the PlayBook). Power is a measure of how much energy is going into or out of the battery, so with higher power consumption you'll get less use out of the device before you have to recharge. If a comparison to water in a pipe would help, voltage is the water pressure, while power is related to the amount of water flowing past a given point in a period of time (crudely speaking).
    02-01-13 09:06 PM
  12. 312Lorden's Avatar
    Good analogy of water pipe. I don't see the need to keep the app running constantly in the background as it would drain the battery more, however slowly..
    02-02-13 12:18 AM
  13. CBCListener's Avatar
    Good analogy of water pipe. I don't see the need to keep the app running constantly in the background as it would drain the battery more, however slowly..
    Eh, not so much. The developer states that this utility has a very small footprint...you'll see, if you run it for a long period that, once the PB goes to sleep, power consumption is very near zero (wake it up and look at the displayed data before a refresh and it's miniscule). If you can leave your PB alone for a long period, with Battery Guru running and not, I'd be willing to bet that you'll see virtually no difference in the status (once you re-launch Battery Guru at the end of your non-running test).
    peter9477 likes this.
    02-03-13 11:34 AM
  14. adadadad's Avatar
    Hey guyz,
    i was wondering, one is supposed to leave this 'battery guru' app running all the time on the playbook?? I mean, is is safe to leave it running when the playbook is not in use? Won't it use up battery? Thanks in advance.
    03-16-13 08:18 AM
  15. Chaddface's Avatar
    Hey guyz,
    i was wondering, one is supposed to leave this 'battery guru' app running all the time on the playbook?? I mean, is is safe to leave it running when the playbook is not in use? Won't it use up battery? Thanks in advance.
    You have to leave the app running if you want it to collect and display data.
    See the post above yours.
    I always have the app running. If I restart for some reason the first thing I do is open Guru.
    peter9477 likes this.
    03-16-13 08:32 AM
  16. FF22's Avatar
    Peter has indicated that Battery Guru uses very little power when it is running and doing its work. I, too, try to remember to immediately run it if I reboot. I even purchased a separate copy for my older 32gig, the only app that I've purchased twice.
    Chaddface and adadadad like this.
    03-16-13 10:22 AM
  17. adadadad's Avatar
    Thanks a lot for the quick responses. You guys are so nice...
    03-16-13 10:55 AM
  18. garlee's Avatar
    My playbook i got in nov. 2011 has been recharged 223 times and battery health is 98%.
    03-16-13 12:47 PM
  19. adadadad's Avatar
    maybe, a silly question.. what information does this graph convey....???
    Attached Thumbnails Battery guru app???-uploadfromtaptalk1363603399495.jpg  
    03-18-13 05:43 AM
  20. eninrebmun's Avatar
    Where is the recharge count information stored? After reading this thread, I bought a copy yesterday and had a look.

    I've had one PB since they launched, and it shows only 88 recharges and 89% health; I use it daily, and top it off all the time. It's only gone flat once, because I left some sound generator app running one morning when i went to work. Aside from that, I just plug it in when I am done using it. Usually 40-90% full. Now that I am looking, it still shows 88 charges, and I had it on the charger all night.
    03-19-13 10:54 AM
  21. Chaddface's Avatar
    I believe one recharge is 0-100%. So if you charged it from 50-100% twice that would be 1 on the recharge count.The recharge count is stored on the batteries or PB and the app is just reporting the values.
    Peter could give a more in depth explaination but that's the gist of it.
    eninrebmun and peter9477 like this.
    03-19-13 12:12 PM
  22. Chaddface's Avatar
    maybe, a silly question.. what information does this graph convey....???
    It's showing you how much power was used(black line) and your battery level(white line) over the last 10 hours.
    peter9477 likes this.
    03-19-13 12:16 PM
  23. kfroese's Avatar
    A quick question before I purchase this app: does its "stay awake" feature work as advertised? That is, as long as it is running (in showcase mode), can I have another app active on the screen (like a browser providing text updates on a soccer match) without it going to sleep?

    TIA
    05-01-13 02:20 PM
  24. Chaddface's Avatar
    A quick question before I purchase this app: does its "stay awake" feature work as advertised? That is, as long as it is running (in showcase mode), can I have another app active on the screen (like a browser providing text updates on a soccer match) without it going to sleep?

    TIA
    The only way it would work with Guru is to have some part of the app visible on the screen. You would have to have the browser and Battery guru on the screen at the same time.Battery guru app???-img_00000098.jpg
    Attached Thumbnails Battery guru app???-img_00000098.jpg  
    peter9477 likes this.
    05-01-13 03:06 PM
  25. FF22's Avatar
    A quick question before I purchase this app: does its "stay awake" feature work as advertised? That is, as long as it is running (in showcase mode), can I have another app active on the screen (like a browser providing text updates on a soccer match) without it going to sleep?

    TIA
    I think the answer is NO or a partial NO. I **THINK** it has to, at least, be showing. So that while you probably could run the browser, you would have to have it in reduced size and not taking up the entire screen. Again, I THINK that is the way it works.
    05-01-13 03:17 PM
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