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Detailed battery usage?

asked 2013-12-24 21:36:19 +0300

Kondou gravatar image

updated 2013-12-24 21:37:20 +0300

Detailed battery usage – sort of like android has it – would be pretty nice. The battery usage screen is pretty empty right now :)

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Wouldn't this be more of an app and not a Sailfish feature? Perhaps a port of the Meego Battery Usage app

Jarno ( 2013-12-24 21:43:07 +0300 )edit

IMHO this is pretty important, and shouldn't be factored out into its own app.

Kondou ( 2013-12-24 21:46:35 +0300 )edit

An app needs access to counters/ statistics from the system like consumption history and consuming component. Otherwise, providing this information through a battery app would be finfe IMHO.

Nirkus ( 2013-12-26 01:04:00 +0300 )edit

Yes, it should indicate at least an extimated remaining time, last time from recharging and include a "power saving" mode (with no Sync, reduced brightness etc....)

Andrea Grandi ( 2013-12-27 01:18:10 +0300 )edit

@Jarno Vincit "battery usage" app provides absolutely useless (incorrect) information about power hogs and frequently actively consumes power itself (but does not show it)

dez ( 2013-12-28 23:18:58 +0300 )edit

7 Answers

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answered 2013-12-24 21:58:52 +0300

Penguin gravatar image

Own app so everybody doesn't need to install it and it does not consume battery it not needed by a phone user.

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At the moment I'm starting the development of a (simple) resource monitoring app: network, cpu, battery. Basically all battery info is readable without need for root permission, so looks reasonably simple.

Winfried ( 2013-12-25 16:21:00 +0300 )edit

Looking forward to it :D

pepst ( 2014-01-02 16:23:50 +0300 )edit

Me too. Has this been released?

hannakala ( 2014-08-17 19:47:23 +0300 )edit

answered 2013-12-28 22:00:31 +0300

otto gravatar image

If you enable developer mode, then you can in the terminal run

pkcon install powertop

Powertop will show details of power usage at a given time. It can also be run to generate CSV or HTML reports.

Nevertheless, it would be good to have battery usage statistics collected by default, shown to user in UI and maybe even sent to some Jolla server for research and development of better power saving optimizations.

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Even better, no need to use devel-su, pkcon works without root privileges.

pnuu ( 2013-12-28 22:04:47 +0300 )edit

That is right, but eventually you need to run devel-su to run powertop, as it needs root priviledges.

otto ( 2013-12-28 22:08:23 +0300 )edit

Developer mode is only a temporary solution (and I've already installed powertop a while ago).

Kondou ( 2013-12-29 12:15:53 +0300 )edit

where can i find "powertop" package????

michdeskunk ( 2014-01-02 15:28:58 +0300 )edit

It requires you to enable developer mode, then open a terminal (either on the device or via SSH) then:

ssu ar mer-tools
ssu ur
pkcon refresh
pkcon install powertop

steph ( 2014-01-02 15:46:44 +0300 )edit

answered 2014-01-15 20:48:11 +0300

Winfried gravatar image

My basic monitoring app is work in progress. One problem is that with the current Android-like static power management, the phone goes into a deep sleep soon after the display turns off. At that moment processes are not scheduled and timers don't trigger anymore. So basically any battery app can only show info as long as phone is not suspended (except by preventing the phone suspend altogether, but that will drain your battery).

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It could still work well enough, even with the deep sleep limitation. As long as you know how much the battery dropped while the phone was sleeping, it can still be a good indication. That detail could be logged and shown as "Sleep time consumption" or something like that. Looking forward to it!

Drekkarian ( 2014-01-22 23:30:02 +0300 )edit

Yep this will be great. Look forward to this feature!

billtux ( 2015-01-16 15:15:55 +0300 )edit

answered 2014-09-23 15:35:19 +0300

r0kk3rz gravatar image
upower -d

this gives a lot of battery stats and is already on every JPhone. This information could be put on the battery GUI

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not worked :(

[nemo@Sailfish ~]$upower -d -bash: гзupower: command not found

Ogust Biller ( 2018-10-28 09:18:42 +0300 )edit

answered 2014-09-23 16:14:37 +0300

drcouzelis gravatar image

There is detailed battery usage information in the "System Monitor" application by Basil Semuonov. It is a native Sailfish application. It records system information even when the application isn't running and the screen is off.

I'm sorry, I don't know what "sort of like Android has" means (I only use Sailfish) ;) but this application has all of the information that I need. I'm using it right now to view my battery usage over the past week. I love it. :)

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answered 2015-02-02 14:27:50 +0300

Philippe De Swert gravatar image

What information are you actually looking for?

Possible relatively accurate info:

  • current voltage
  • current remaining charge

Not too unaccurate info:

  • averaged current charging current
  • averaged discharging current
  • remaining charging time

Entering the realm of a shot in the dark style info:

  • remaining battery life

So why are some of those listed as inaccurate or wildly inaccurate? This has to do with the way the device works. In the past on old style phones the power usage was a bit more predictable as only usage and cell tower recption changes etc fluctuated much. Other fluctuations where less. These days a smartphone has so many difference power points (settings for voltage, speed for power management) and switches so often between them in an attempt to save the maximum amount of power the approximation of power draw starts to be really hard. Also current drawn from the battery changes several times a second when in use. So if you factor in that you might also be moving, and your usage is hard to predict a remaining battery life prediction would only be relatively accurate if you kept doing the exact same thing, in the exact same place, in the exact same conditions. Which we all know will not happen. A rough estimation is definitely possible, but if it can be an hour or two off is it useful information?

Battery statistics etc over a longer period belong rather to an additional app due their potential impact on battery life. No need to log and store weeks of battery data and process it for the use of some. I think we want better battery life for all and decreasing it by collecting stats should be a choice.

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What information? The OP said it clearly, "sort of like android has it". That includes the detailed breakdown: so-and-so consumed by the display, so-and-so by WiFi, so-and-so by GSM... and these are just hardware components. Plus of course you get a detailed breakdown per application.

pichlo ( 2015-02-02 19:43:50 +0300 )edit

@pichlo: Not everybody always looks at all the android stuff, and sort of could mean anything. What are the bits the person who asked the question is interested in? Anyway I got to play around with a device for a few days now. And the detailed breakdown is almost completely random without truly useful data. Easiest to see was the display power consumption as brightness levels etc did not make any difference at all. Not sure if this is for all devices, but without specific hw to actually measure consumption at those points (which most hw does not have due to cost and die space) there is no way to give any remotely accurate values for that.

Philippe De Swert ( 2015-02-05 13:17:26 +0300 )edit

answered 2015-12-12 19:13:00 +0300

palikao gravatar image

I think that a Battery section in “Settings” is needed, more than a standalone app (like in N9)

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Asked: 2013-12-24 21:36:19 +0300

Seen: 3,145 times

Last updated: Dec 12 '15