UNIX: Know your 'Books battery health

[randytamayo]

Sharing from MacWorld July 05 (Unix Tip of the Month):

Terminal Commandos, lock and load:

ioreg -w0 -l | grep Capacity

The output will look something like this:

| | | "IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=3971,"Amperage"
=18446744073709550895,"Cycle Count"=61,"Current"=2160,
"Voltage"=11370,"Flags"=4,"AbsoluteMaxCapacity"=42 00})

What does it all mean?
The values you care about are:
Cycle Count (the number of times the battery has gone through a discharge-charge cycle)
Current (the current charge in the battery)
Capacity (the highest charge the battery can hold)
AbsoluteMaxCapacity (the battery’s original highest-charge value)

As your battery ages, the Capacity value will slowly decline in relation to AbsoluteMaxCapacity—the battery is losing its ability to take a full charge. If a battery is giving you very short usage cycles, you may need to replace it. You can find out by checking the Capacity value. The Cycle Count value shows what remains of your battery’s useful life. Studies indicate that powerBook-style batteries have a useful life of between 300 and 500 cycles.

[jepaz]

Mine is still in good condition:

| | | "IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=4400,"Amperage"=0,"Cycle Count"=4, "Current"=4400,"Voltage"=12566,"Flags"=8388608 05,
"AbsoluteMaxCapacity"=4400})

[docnap]

Hi jepaz,

How old is your battery? Your cycle count says 4. If you have had it for a long time now, how did you manage to keep it at a low level? Just curious.

docnap

[jepaz]

Originally posted by docnap
Hi jepaz,

How old is your battery? Your cycle count says 4. If you have had it for a long time now, how did you manage to keep it at a low level? Just curious.

docnap

I forgot to mention...it is brand new....just 6 days old. At least you will get an idea if what you are getting is really new. :cheers:

[DiveSolana]

sirs question how do i get to the terminal to check my battery life?

[jepaz]

Use spotlight and type this: Terminal

Then click Terminal under Top Hit. It's easier this way.

[2pacalypse]

| | | "IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=3529,"Amperage"=2068,"Cycle Count"=164,"Current"=2178,"Voltage"=12360,"Flags"= 1090519047,"AbsoluteMaxCapacity"=4200})


too old...164 cycles in more than 400 days...hehehehehe

[freeformula]

Very useful, thanks Randy!

[stebastian]

Thanks for great tip!

I remember having a discussion with my brother about battery life... As an aside, what is the optimum number of charge cycles? It's an off-shoot from whether to plug or not to plug.... myths about Li-ion batteries.

[nargalzius]

My question is this: can battery life be grounds for battery replacement under warranty? And if so, what are the reasonable figures to assume that the retailer can honor such a warranty claim.

I'd like to be able to use the warranty (sayang naman since 3 years to) to at least get a battery replacement along the road, but I don't want to "cheat" the retailer din of course.

So ano yng figures and time na fair for both? Or is this just wishful thinking?