Touch Excessive Battery Use?

[azazel1024]

As an update I am now just over 2 weeks in since the last charge, and the charge level is hovering in the upper 50's. That is with probably averaging close to 2hrs a day of reading over that period of time and having read most of a 720 page book (about 600 of those pages since the charge) and now most of the way through a 300 page book (about 100 pages left).

So unless the charge craps out tomorrow, I am quite thrilled with it. This is what I was looking for in moving to an ebook reader from a tablet for battery life.

That said I still have a fair amount of "charge" anxiety and probably will until I get at least one more "full life" charge cycle out of it before I can kind of just relax and accept that the battery is lasting the way it should.

My biggest anxiety is, what happens if I plug it in to my computer to transfer some stuff? Is it going to suddenly decide it has 0 battery life like it did the first time I plugged it in after a week of use? Is it going to be fine, but then it'll start discharging rapidly? Would a reboot right after plugging it in make everything fine?

[afv011]

Originally Posted by azazel1024

As an update I am now just over 2 weeks in since the last charge, and the charge level is hovering in the upper 50's. That is with probably averaging close to 2hrs a day of reading over that period of time and having read most of a 720 page book (about 600 of those pages since the charge) and now most of the way through a 300 page book (about 100 pages left).

So unless the charge craps out tomorrow, I am quite thrilled with it. This is what I was looking for in moving to an ebook reader from a tablet for battery life.

That said I still have a fair amount of "charge" anxiety and probably will until I get at least one more "full life" charge cycle out of it before I can kind of just relax and accept that the battery is lasting the way it should.

My biggest anxiety is, what happens if I plug it in to my computer to transfer some stuff? Is it going to suddenly decide it has 0 battery life like it did the first time I plugged it in after a week of use? Is it going to be fine, but then it'll start discharging rapidly? Would a reboot right after plugging it in make everything fine?

I wouldn't worry at all, your device seems fine. I am in a similar situation, in that I read about 1.5-2 hours daily, and get some 4 weeks out of it. Every now and then I plug it to the PC to copy a book, and that has no effect, other than bumping up my battery by a few percent.

[RAH]

Originally Posted by azazel1024

My biggest anxiety is, what happens if I plug it in to my computer to transfer some stuff? Is it going to suddenly decide it has 0 battery life like it did the first time I plugged it in after a week of use? Is it going to be fine, but then it'll start discharging rapidly? Would a reboot right after plugging it in make everything fine?

I agree with afv011 that you should be fine. I wouldn't reboot it unless you see that you have to.

Your situation is almost the exact opposite of mine - I have found that connecting my Nook to the computer is the BEST way for me to fix the rapid draining problem.

However, I will agree that once I have the Nook working OK, I don't like to do anything to it (like connecting it to the computer to copy files), for fear it will get confused again! You could wait till you almost need a recharge to connect to the computer and copy the files. That's kind of what I do - when I have recharged my Nook and then connected it to the computer to top it off, that's when I do any file copying I want to do. Yes, it is a pain to have to worry about this stuff!

[azazel1024]

Yeah, this time around I won't connect it to copy over a few new books until I plan on recharging it anyway. Then I'll transfer the files, unhook it and connect it to the wall charger until at 100%, then I'll reboot it immediately after disconnecting it from the charger. If I get through that charge okay down to around the 20-30% mark when I plan to charge it, I'll give it a try connecting it to a PC to transfer files part way through a charge to see if that suddenly induces rapid discharge or not.

[azazel1024]

And kerplewie.

Started reading at lunch, got about 30 seconds in on a page and it told me it needed to charge. I got a lot more life out of it this time around, something upwards of 2 weeks of pretty heavy use, but at the same time, when last used yesteday afternoon, the charge level claimed to be somewhere around 40% and I didn't use it at all last night or this morning.

I am well past even a gift receipt return, so it would be warranty only and the likely hassles with that. Since its a 1 year warranty I'll give it a go for awhile longer, but there is something odd going on with the device. It lasted longer, and until it just crapped out, the battery meter at least seemed to be more accurate (no preceived slow drain). So maybe now it really is working normally and a little over 2 weeks of heavy use is all the battery is good for (~2hrs a day, 15-16 days of use comes out to around 30hrs of use which seems not to far out of line if it is 60 days of use at 1/2hr per day).

Maybe it is more an issue of calibrating the battery now that there is no slow drain. Who knows, but I guess I'll find out.

Time for another charge cycle or two and see if things are working a little more reliably. For me, 2 weeks of heavy use is just fine for battery life, but I need/want a more accurate battery meter. I'd like to be able to rely on it to tell me when it is getting low, and not just conk out suddenly. Recharging every 2 weeks come rain or shine isn't a terrible hardship, but I'd still like to know how much charge level I really have, not based on milage.

*edit* BLARGH! I as a theory, I let it sit for about the last maybe half hour and tried to turn it on with a good 2-3s power button press. It started right up with 47% battery life being reported both at boot time and in the settings display. It would not start back up when I tried hitting the power button right after getting the "plug in to charge" screen initially.

Same thing happened when the nook had been dropped a little over a week ago. Gave me the charge screen but it started right back up (that was maybe 2-3 minutes after it had been dropped). It also makes me wonder if 2 weeks ago when it claimed to have a flat battery after just having reported ~80% charge and forced me to plug it in, then only charged for 45 minutes till full, if it would have booted back up if I had only waited a couple of minutes before trying to boot it.

I'll keep an eye on this and the next time it does it (before it is really reporting a dead battery) I'll try booting it immediately, then try after 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 15 minutes and then about every 15 minutes until it boots, or I give up (probably after an hour or so) and just charge it up.

I'd wonder if there is a lose connection, but other than the drop incident, both times it did this was within about 30 seconds of having woken from sleep, no jostling, etc. The first time was around 80% charge, the 2nd 47%. I wonder if the calibration is still really wonky and there is some super brief period where it thinks the charge is lower than it really is, but it boots backup fine after powering off all the way as the battery really is charged fine.

[Dopedangel]

These day most tech devices use Lithium batteries that get worse the more you drain and recharge them so it would be better for your nook battery life if you charge when ever possible instead of letting it die out. Usually my nook is in my bag but if I have taken it out and their is usb port nearby I just attach it to my nook if I am not reading.

[azazel1024]

Lithium Ion battery life is limited by overall age of the battery plus total energy used from the battery (IE number of recharge cycles). Discharging a Lithium Ion battery fully doesn't really damage it. The anode/cathode chemistry isn't like a lead acid battery, where it is physically damaged by a deep discharge. Its the total amount of energy pushed through it, age and rapidity of charging.

So if the cells in it are rated for 500 charge cycles, you could fully discharge it and charge it 500 times, or you could discharge it to 90% and charge it back to 100% 5,000 times.

For age, a lithium ion battery will last longer if stored in cold conditions and interestingly it will last longer if kept at approximately 70% charge level. IIRC from reading up on them a couple of years ago, average cell life for common chemistries is about 7 years before capacity reduces below I think it is 50% of new capacity, but if stored at 70% charge perpetually (how you'd manage that, I don't know) you could squeeze rougly 10-20% more cell life out of it (storing it at 0% charge reduces life over storing at 100% charge).

Also charging a lithium ion battery quickly isn't too big of a deal with current chemistries, but once capacity gets close to max, damage can start to occur if you are charging quickly. Its why a lot of devices will allow rapid charging for about the first 80-90% of the cell capacity, and then slows down charging dramatically for the last 10-20% of capacity (example iPad 2 will charge from 0% to 90% in about 3hrs off a 10w wall charger, but then takes about a full hour to go from 90% to 100%).

This in part by way of saying, at least with an eink reader, unless you are planning on some seriously heavy use, the battery is probably going to start failing from age rather than any kind of deep discharge issues or even overuse. Most LiIon batteries can last upwards of 500 charges before they see significant reduction in charge capacity. At even 2 full charges a month, that is 20 years before use would result in serious reduction in capacity, so even if deep discharge reduced the battery life in half, that gets you 10 years of use (old age will reduce it long before then). Odds are good we/you will get 4-6 years of good battery life out of the device, pretty much no matter the usage scenario before you start to notice a decent reduction in battery life.

Since yesterday afternoon I've had the nook ST "turn off" I think 3 more times now after waking it and reading about 30-60 seconds. Twice last night and once first thing this morning. Both times I waited about 20-30 seconds and hit the power button, booted right up. First time last night it told me it has 8% charge when it booted, and then about a minute later it was at 49%. The second time it didn't give me a charge warning when it booted and just told me 48% charge when I checked in settings. This morning it also didn't give me a charge warning when it booted and it says 47% charge in settings.

I am hoping this is just some kind of really bizzare learning it is doing. I also noticed that it only started occuring when capacity basically went below 50%. I want to try to get it down to roughly 20% before I charge it just on the off chance that there is some kind of learning going on, and that a cycle or two of doing that will fix it.

If the permenant behavior is that once charge gets below 50% it will randomly power off when waking from sleep, that is going to be annoying, but at least so far it boots right back up just about and doesn't give me any problems until it has been asleep for at least a couple of hours. Of course, Dopedangle, you are right, if that is the behavior I am just going to charge it every couple of weeks to keep the level above 50% in normal use so that it doesn't do this, as it is really annoying.

However, I am lazy and don't want to have to live with shipping this off and waiting for a refurb, so unless it gets worse or really just breaks, I am not going to go through the hassle of a warranty return as it is usable, but with an annoying quirk right now.

[azazel1024]

I did manage almost 3 weeks of 2 hours or more per day of reading (finally had to charge it Saturday, which makes 19 1/2 days w/ 30-40hrs of reading time total, maybe a little more), so I feel like the battery life was not too bad. It was annoying that once the battery charge indicated dipped below 50% it would occasionally (about once per day) power itself off when first waking from sleep, allow itself to be powered right back on and then would report 8-18% charge for a minute or two and then 40 odd percent. It finally turned off and refused to power back on even after waiting 5 minutes one of those times when it first said 8% charge, refused to read a higher charge and I got about 6-7 pages in to reading when waking up from sleep. So I semi-suspect once the indicated charge dropped below 50%, the times it was telling me 40 odd percent was innacurately high. Though when it was reading 50% and above it might have been inaccurately high.

I just don't know.

At any rate, as my other thread mentioned, it took 10-15 minutes plugged in to my computer and a further 1:45hrs plugged in to the wall adapter to bring it to 100% charge (which I think is about right charging from 0%????). I didn't really use it that day or the next until that evening. It read 98% charge over the 36hrs since I charged it to full and let it sleep (I did reboot immediately after the full charge). I hooked it up to my computer to "test" topping it off. It took somewhere around 10 minutes or maybe a little less to top it off and as of post-breakfast 15-25 minutes of reading (a little last night right before bed and a little during breakfast) it said 99% full.

Right before topping off, waking it it gave me an 8% warning for a few seconds and then immediately reported 98% charge in the settings menu. sigh....

Hopefully I can at least get a handle on its behavior. I don't mind the occasional innacurate battery read, or even power off needing to turn it right back on because of some fault battery sensor or something going on. I just want my 2+ weeks of heavy use and reliable ways to keep it working until I HAVE to charge it.

After the next 1-2 battery cycles I plan on charging it "frequently" which probably means about once a week or so. I just want to know that I have the battery life there if I need it.

[RAH]

Originally Posted by azazel1024

Right before topping off, waking it it gave me an 8% warning for a few seconds and then immediately reported 98% charge in the settings menu. sigh....

Gee, are you sure you don't want to send this back and get a replacement? It almost sounds like it has a loose connection or something. Your Touch's behavior, from reading your postings, seems really bizarre, and outside the "normal" battery problems users like myself have been reporting. I think I'd return it if I were you. I think you are taking a chance thinking it might improve or settle down to being good enough. It might just stop working.

It's not all that difficult to send one back. I did it with my original mis-behaving Touch. You just alert them that you are doing it (on their website), and get a confirmation number. Then you print a prepaid shipping label, box the Nook up, bring it to UPS and send it. In the meantime, they send you a replacement. You'll have it within a few days. Very painless. Seems to me that it almost HAS to be better than your current one.

[azazel1024]

Could be. I figure though that I've got 11 months left on the warranty and so far it hasn't restricted my utility of the device with its behaviors. If it is still behaving really badly in another month or two I will send it back though.

[Tinderbox (UK)]

Hi.

At what % does the touch shut down from low battery, I am on my first charge and just hit a 20% charge warning, I want to use it until it shuts down to calibrate the battery.

John.

[azazel1024]

In theory 0%. The battery isn't actually dead then, but the nook will refuse to operate until charged at that point to save enough battery power to save everything to storage and do an orderly shut down. In reality there is probably enough juice to operate the thing anywhere from a few minutes to maybe even an hour or so...but the voltage has dropped enough that it could potentially "drop out" at "anytime" so the BN programmers set it up to power off once a set battery voltage is read out to prevent lossing data.

You'll know because you'll get a "Nook must be plugged in and charged for 15 minutes before powering on" screen. As I have found with mine (hopefully it is fixed now) once I got below 50% charge I'd periodically get this screen, but it would allow me to reboot the device and work for anywhere from an hour or two to a day or two or normal use before it would force power off and give me the "please charge" screen. Did that for a week before the battery was actually dead and wouldn't reboot.

[azazel1024]

Its gotta be a defective voltage sensor in the thing. I got 2 1/2wks this time around, but with a little less reading per day, probably only 90 minutes. It started doing the same konking out, but letting me restart it right away. Except it only did it for a day and a half. Was alternating between 68% and 25% battery life reading then. Just dead when I got in to work this morning (it was fine during breakfast) and refused to boot. I charged it for 45 minutes in my car at lunch on a 1amp charger. It refused to boot almost the entire time until I unplugged it right about the 45 minute mark, when it booted right up, and told me 0% charge. I left it charging for about 5 more minutes, the entire time saying 0%. I powered it off, carried it in to my desk and it booted right up saying 95% charged.

I am charging it the rest of the way off my work computer (plugged it in 20+ minutes ago and it still claims to be charging even though it was at 95% charge when I first plugged it in).

So I called B&N. They want me to "monitor it" and call them back if the battery issues persist or get worse.

I can pretty much guarantee they'll get worse or be as bad. So once I get near the end of this battery charge I am going to specifically request a warranty return and send it in "as is" discharged, and probably showing this behavior in full force.

Annoying as heck and I wish I could just return it to the store instead of having to pay to ship it back to them.

Oh well. For the hassle of having to go to the post office, package it up, etc these days its almost worth just buying a refurb ST than all that hassle.

The guy I spoke with claimed if I couldn't find the gift recipte it wouldn't be an issue (I may have it, but I am not 100% sure). Anyone know if that is actually true? BN's website claims that the warranty isn't transferable (without a gift recipte) and you must return it with proof of purchase; however, these things aren't even a year old so by rights all of them should be newer than a year and thus every single one should be covered (unless BN wants to get shifty with that whole non-transferable warranty business).

Grrrrr.

[soondai]

Do other people having this problem use the official charger?

Like RAH, I have had this issue on 2 different machines, so I wonder if the problem could be related to how I charge.

I use a cell phone wall adapter, and not the official B&N model. It has a USB plug on it for the cord and I've read that devices that can charge from a computer USB can safely charge from any USB compliant wall charger (like even the one for an iPad for instance) and only draw what they need.

At the store I saw that the official adapter for the NST is .5 amps, same as the output for the computer USB. My cell phone adapter is .7 amps.

I wonder if the problem stems from this somehow.

Just very strange that some of us have run into the problem multiple times, yet no one I've talked to at B&N or a B&N rep I asked on Reddit have every heard of the problem.

Almost tempted to fork over 10 bucks for the official adapter to see.

[azazel1024]

Doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Looking on B&N's official forums there are at least a dozen or more users reporting similar problems.

As for charging, yeah I've been using the official charger. Mine doesn't have a rated output on it, but using a kill-a-watt meter, is draws 5.6w from the wall, which unless it is horribly inefficient works out to a 1amp charger. The charge time from dead also vaguely corresponds to 1amp charging.

If the total charge time from 0 to full at .5amp is 3 1/2hrs roughly as per B&N, then the 1hr 45min or so is roughly half the time, or about double the current draw.

It could stem from charging too quickly, but still seems mighty odd. If it is, it is still a B&N defect/problem though. That said, having charged from my computer after discharging a percent or two (and taking maybe 10 minutes to top off the charge over my computer's USB port to 100%) it still exhibits the wierd battery readings and shortened battery life.

Damned annoying and I just wish it worked itself out. Annoying that I have to pay to ship it back to B&N and I am not 100% confident in regards to the lack of gift recipte about what that'll mean (according to the B&N rep I spoke to it isn't needed with rapid replacement). I am still going to wait through this discharge cycle, in part because I said I would.

I can honestly live with roughly 3 weeks of battery life, though this time around with lighter use it was closer to 2 1/2wks of battery life, which is much less acceptable (probably averaged 90 minutes a day instead of 2hrs a day when it lasted 19 days before). A lot of it is the horribly unreliable battery meter.

The first time around that the battery lasted a vaguely appropriate amount of time, after it dropped below 50% I'd get random "low" (probably accurate) battery readings followed by jumping back up and random power downs, that would let me power it right back up. That lasted about 5 days before the battery was flat dead. This time around it hit about 64% and then did the same behavior, but only for about a day and a half and then it refused to power back on. Spent about an hour charging it at 1amp in my car on my lunch hour and then about another hour and a quarter or so charging it off my work computer's USB port to get to 100%.

It refused to turn on until about 5 minutes before the end of that hour charging at 1amp, which was also annoying/concerning and then reported 0% battery charge for the entire time it was connected. I powered it off and when I connected it to my work computer it turned on just fine and reported 80 odd % battery charge.

So unless things are magically fixed, this thing seems posessed and I just can't trust the battery readings what-so-ever with the added concern of, what if it just refuses to power back on one of these days.

So in short, I am 99% sure I am just going to suck it up and waste half an hour of my time going to the nearest post office/UPS to ship it back to B&N and get a replacement no matter what in another week or two once the battery is flat again (if not sooner).