Libra Battery lifespan

[ownedbycats]

Is four years the age when a battery in a Libra H2O would start getting dodgy? I'm trying to figure out if a recent sudden battery drain is a sign of that or just a fluke (third-party sleepcover or dodgy book).

[Aleron Ives]

It depends how well you treat your battery. If you charge it to 100% regularly it could easily exhibit problems sooner than four years. The only way to know for sure would be to keep using it and see if the battery consistently refuses to hold a charge.

[Sirtel]

Depends on how much you use it, I guess. My Libra 2, which I use a few times per week, still has pretty good battery life. If you use your Libra daily and for several hours, it's not impossible the battery has worn down.

But a sudden battery drain is more likely to indicate a dodgy book or something like that. The battery of my Sage is getting pretty bad, but it doesn't drain suddenly; it just drains much faster than it used to.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

It depends how well you treat your battery. If you charge it to 100% regularly it could easily exhibit problems sooner than four years. The only way to know for sure would be to keep using it and see if the battery consistently refuses to hold a charge.

Eh? I charge all my devices to 100% regularly. Only my Sage is showing signs of some significant wear. And my older, 8-year-old smartphone. My main smartphone, 4 years old, is still going strong.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Depends on how much you use it, I guess. My Libra 2, which I use a few times per week, still has pretty good battery life. If you use your Libra daily and for several hours, it's not impossible the battery has worn down.

But a sudden battery drain is more likely to indicate a dodgy book or something like that. The battery of my Sage is getting pretty bad, but it doesn't drain suddenly; it just drains much faster than it used to.

I was thinking my third-party sleepcover-- it's getting pretty tattered and on occasion I've seen the backlight turn on even when it was closed.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I was thinking my third-party sleepcover-- it's getting pretty tattered and on occasion I've seen the backlight turn on even when it was closed.

Yes, that's certainly possible.

[Apollyon202]

A battery can hold around 1000 cycles, in average, after it's starting to show the signs of wear.

The most deadly is being dried out for extended time, like sitting with 0% for months in a drawer. Another thing is the constant high voltage, which fries the cells on the long term, for example, leaving it on the charger overnight.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

It depends how well you treat your battery. If you charge it to 100% regularly it could easily exhibit problems sooner than four years.

Not with modern (Anything in last 15 years?) properly designed chargers.

Things that wear out LiPoly cell "batteries":
Total number of cumulative cycles
Elevated temperature (above 21 °C)
Time since manufactured.

All those are influenced by materials purity and manufacturing quality, so life can be 18 months to 10 years. Leaving uncharged for a year more likely to be an issue than keeping it on the charger, unless it's a rubbish charger. A Lithium cell/battery charger monitors temperature and voltage, sometimes gas too, and stops charging entirely, unlike Lead Acid or Nickel. Nickel hydride comes in two kinds. One has a recombination catalyst and the other is high capacity. The High capacity ones need about 1/20th of trickle charge of regular ones which need much less than Nickel Cadmium. Don't leave NiMH cells in a charger!

[ownedbycats]

The first battery that came with my cell phone was faulty and puffed up after a year or two. I ordered a replacement and AccuBattery estimates 60% life left on it after four years.

Admittedly constantly running online radio through my phone and outputting to bluetooth is hard on the battery.