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moffattm · 02-24-2013, 05:21 PM

I've had several people PM me asking about battery calibration (why and how). I thought I'd create this to explain things.

The battery inside your e-reader doesn't tell the e-reader what percentage of "juice" it has left, instead your e-reader has to learn the characteristics of your particular battery. In order to help your e-reader learn about your battery you need to "calibrate" the battery, which teaches the e-reader the limits of your particular battery. This isn't unique to Kobo, any device that uses lithium-ion batteries (mobile phones, laptops, tablets, etc) can benefit from this.

For information on battery calibration please read Battery Calibration

If you would like to view a short video explaining how to calibrate a battery please view:

Ideally you should have done this as soon as you received your e-reader, but even if you've charged it several times it's still worth doing. It also might be worth doing once every 3 or 4 months too.

Note that this won't make your battery last longer, it's all to do with teaching your e-reader the characteristics of your particular battery so it can better display battery percentage figures. Why is this important? Well without it your e-reader might tell you that the battery is at 50% when in fact it's at 70%, causing you to get upset because you think the battery isn't lasting as long as it should be.

Also, the discharge curve for lithium-ion batteries isn't linear; it doesn't start at 100% and then drop x% for each time period (i.e. 5% for each hour of use). Instead what you'll probably see is it will sit at (or near) 100% for a while and then slowly drop off until it gets to a certain point where it will drop quickly. Similar to this:

If you want to learn about how to make lithium-ion batteries last longer then have a read of How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries

Note: I'm not an expert on batteries, but this is something that I've always done with lithium-ion batteries and it has always worked well for me.

02-24-2013, 05:21 PM	#1
moffattm Addict Posts: 333 Karma: 1440670 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Auckland, New Zealand Device: Kobo Original, Kobo Glo	Battery Calibration I've had several people PM me asking about battery calibration (why and how). I thought I'd create this to explain things. The battery inside your e-reader doesn't tell the e-reader what percentage of "juice" it has left, instead your e-reader has to learn the characteristics of your particular battery. In order to help your e-reader learn about your battery you need to "calibrate" the battery, which teaches the e-reader the limits of your particular battery. This isn't unique to Kobo, any device that uses lithium-ion batteries (mobile phones, laptops, tablets, etc) can benefit from this. For information on battery calibration please read Battery Calibration If you would like to view a short video explaining how to calibrate a battery please view: Ideally you should have done this as soon as you received your e-reader, but even if you've charged it several times it's still worth doing. It also might be worth doing once every 3 or 4 months too. Note that this won't make your battery last longer, it's all to do with teaching your e-reader the characteristics of your particular battery so it can better display battery percentage figures. Why is this important? Well without it your e-reader might tell you that the battery is at 50% when in fact it's at 70%, causing you to get upset because you think the battery isn't lasting as long as it should be. Also, the discharge curve for lithium-ion batteries isn't linear; it doesn't start at 100% and then drop x% for each time period (i.e. 5% for each hour of use). Instead what you'll probably see is it will sit at (or near) 100% for a while and then slowly drop off until it gets to a certain point where it will drop quickly. Similar to this: If you want to learn about how to make lithium-ion batteries last longer then have a read of How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries Note: I'm not an expert on batteries, but this is something that I've always done with lithium-ion batteries and it has always worked well for me.