Glo Bad battery?

[moffattm]

Originally Posted by jusmee

Maybe it's just the battery meter. It is said that the calibration of the battery meter can take a few cycles to "learn" how the battery behaves and become accurate. If you've only had a few charge discharge cycles, maybe it is still learning?

I agree, I've seen the same problem with new mobile phones where people complain that the batteries are only lasting a day but after a week or so they come right as the battery meter learns the upper and lower limits of that particular battery. I always do three or four full charge / discharge cycles on all my devices and I ignore whatever the battery meter says while I'm doing this because I know it's probably wrong. After doing this I usually get excellent battery life from my devices.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by moffattm

I agree, I've seen the same problem with new mobile phones where people complain that the batteries are only lasting a day but after a week or so they come right as the battery meter learns the upper and lower limits of that particular battery. I always do three or four full charge / discharge cycles on all my devices and I ignore whatever the battery meter says while I'm doing this because I know it's probably wrong. After doing this I usually get excellent battery life from my devices.

Mmm... My Glo has had more than 4 cycles already so far though...



BUT --- I think I spoke too soon *again*. Maybe the battery is not bad afterall, though I'll need to do some more testing before I can be certain.

I did delete the badly formatted Kepub which was giving me battery troubles, which made the batterly life considerably better, but not better enough. My conclusion was that maybe I had a bad battery afterall. However, I realised yesterday that despite deleting the Kepub, I do still have, and am in fact reading, its epub version... So while the badly formatted "first" chapter containing 7 real chapters without chapter marks might not be cached all at once like it was for the Kepub, there might still be something going on. I don't know how epubs are cached. I realised this when I suddenly saw a drop in battery usage, which sort of coincided with me reading passed the 7th chapter.

So! More testing to be done and I'm really hoping for a perfect battery after all.

[VelvetElvis]

Originally Posted by VelvetElvis

My GF's Glo has similar awful battery life. She only uses the light about 1/3 of the time, max, WiFi is always off. She reads probably 2 hours a day.

Charged fully 2 days ago, and it's down to about 1/3 left. We upgraded her from a Touch, which was significantly better. Thought maybe it needed to be re-calibrated, so I did a paperclip reset, but it made no difference.

I'm just getting her to compile some more accurate figures, then firing off a letter to Kobo support for service info.

UPDATE: Jan 17
---------------
3 days after a full charge, it went dead on Sleep mode, WiFi off. Sent the details to Kobo, and they're supposed to be sending me a replacement. I hope it's new/near new, as this one was hosed out-of-the-box.

Contacted Kobo, explained everything I tried, and they simply said that the reader would need to be replaced. Replacement came yesterday after about 4 days, with a pre-paid return envelope.

Although I haven't had a chance to wring out the new one, I'm very happy with the support Kobo has provided.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by VelvetElvis

Contacted Kobo, explained everything I tried, and they simply said that the reader would need to be replaced. Replacement came yesterday after about 4 days, with a pre-paid return envelope.

Although I haven't had a chance to wring out the new one, I'm very happy with the support Kobo has provided.

Glad to hear you got such perfect support! Is the replacement a new Glo? I'm contemplating getting mine replaced also. My battery life isn't as bad as your girlfriend's was, but it still only 8 days (approximated) in mostly sleep mode and about an hour reading a day. So if this last test appears to indeed give me only 8 days I'll also be going for a replacement. Not sure yet whether to go directly to Kobo or to go to where I bought the Glo.

[Mrs_Often]

Nope, it didn't give me 8 days. It gave me 6. Contacted Kobo! See here as well.

[VelvetElvis]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

Glad to hear you got such perfect support! Is the replacement a new Glo? I'm contemplating getting mine replaced also. My battery life isn't as bad as your girlfriend's was, but it still only 8 days (approximated) in mostly sleep mode and about an hour reading a day. So if this last test appears to indeed give me only 8 days I'll also be going for a replacement. Not sure yet whether to go directly to Kobo or to go to where I bought the Glo.

Yes, it's a brand new one. At least, it has all the appearances. New, sealed box, protective screen cover, etc.

However, I'm not liking the initial results. WiFi off, fully charged, it's dead in 4 days. I'm hoping it's a battery calibration thing, but I have my doubts. It currently has the same book on it that I read on my Sony with no issues whatsoever.

What I may resort to doing, is having my GF use her old Kobo WiFi. Then I will put the same book/books on both her Touch and Glo, charge them both, put them to sleep, and monitor the results.

I'm wondering if these battery issues are exclusive to sideloaded epubs?

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by VelvetElvis

Yes, it's a brand new one. At least, it has all the appearances. New, sealed box, protective screen cover, etc.

However, I'm not liking the initial results. WiFi off, fully charged, it's dead in 4 days. I'm hoping it's a battery calibration thing, but I have my doubts. It currently has the same book on it that I read on my Sony with no issues whatsoever.

What I may resort to doing, is having my GF use her old Kobo WiFi. Then I will put the same book/books on both her Touch and Glo, charge them both, put them to sleep, and monitor the results.

I'm wondering if these battery issues are exclusive to sideloaded epubs?

I still don't believe battery issues are caused by a data file. I have read no plausible explanations as to how this is possible.

I also still believe you need to have the device power off, not just sleep, to get the long battery life we expect from an e-ink device.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by VelvetElvis

Yes, it's a brand new one. At least, it has all the appearances. New, sealed box, protective screen cover, etc.

However, I'm not liking the initial results. WiFi off, fully charged, it's dead in 4 days. I'm hoping it's a battery calibration thing, but I have my doubts. It currently has the same book on it that I read on my Sony with no issues whatsoever.

What I may resort to doing, is having my GF use her old Kobo WiFi. Then I will put the same book/books on both her Touch and Glo, charge them both, put them to sleep, and monitor the results.

I'm wondering if these battery issues are exclusive to sideloaded epubs?

Yay at getting a new one! But...

Oh my, 4 days!! That is horrible! You won't know until you've had a couple of full battery cycles though but still, doesn't look good

As for sideloaded epubs, see below.

Originally Posted by jusmee

I still don't believe battery issues are caused by a data file. I have read no plausible explanations as to how this is possible.

I also still believe you need to have the device power off, not just sleep, to get the long battery life we expect from an e-ink device.

I'm absolutely positive that battery drain can be caused by a data file. I tested myself, and I know that kepubs are read by loading a full chapter into cache to accommodate fast page turning. So the longer the chapter, the more has to be stored in cache and the more battery charge is used. I have found two badly formatted kepubs so far that had multiple chapters per chapter (so lots of missing chapter marks), causing a lot faster battery drain than expected, and Kobo acknowledged this and also gave me a refund for both books.

The epub version of the kepub drained the battery a lot less fast, so apparently either the epub reader is more efficient or an entire chapter isn't loaded to cache for epubs; I don't know how it works. So VelvetElvis, no, I don't think it's "just" sideloaded epubs that have these battery issues.

(If you'd like to try it out with kepubs: "Absolute Power" by David Baldacci and "Raven Black" by Ann Cleeves both lack a lot of chapter marks in the kobo store.)

And the sleep/off difference: yes, of course you'll get longer battery life if you power off instead of sleeping. But 4 days of battery life in sleep mode is ridiculous. And, comparing with my Touch: it's been on constant sleep mode now for 9.5 days, with a book loaded, and its battery is at 74%. That gives an estimate of 30 days of life in sleep mode.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by jusmee

I also still believe you need to have the device power off, not just sleep, to get the long battery life we expect from an e-ink device.

Well, I don't know.
On my new Kobo Mini, I have that:
- fully charged on Monday evening, so 4 days of use
- since then, I read for 7 hours
- 673 page turns
- sleeping all the time I'm not reading, never turned off since the charge
- WIFI always off, except yesterday to search and load a free book from Kobo store
- looking up some words in the dictionary and highlighting them for future reference
- reading only one book and going once in a while to the "reading life" part to check reading time in regard of the battery
- battery is 82%

So this is not a Glo and it doesn't have a light, but it tells me that I don't need to turn it off to have more than a week worth with one charge. Actually, I'm reading a book which was originally a .mobi file. There are some formatting issues, so the space between lines is quite huge. That means that I'm turning pages more often than I should be doing.
The biggest drop in the battery percentage was when using the WIFI (obviously).
Prior to that, when using the Sony 650, which doesn't have any wireless capacity, I was averaging 2 weeks on half a charge without turning it off (but I can't tell for sure how many pages I was turning/how long I was reading).
Don't forget that powering up a device uses a lot of power.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by samhy

Well, I don't know.
On my new Kobo Mini, I have that:
- fully charged on Monday evening, so 4 days of use
- since then, I read for 7 hours
- 673 page turns
- sleeping all the time I'm not reading, never turned off since the charge
- WIFI always off, except yesterday to search and load a free book from Kobo store
- looking up some words in the dictionary and highlighting them for future reference
- reading only one book and going once in a while to the "reading life" part to check reading time in regard of the battery
- battery is 82%

[...]

Nice charge!! I want!

Don't forget that powering up a device uses a lot of power.

Yes. Very important, especially if you read multiple times a day and thus switch on multiple times...

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by samhy

Well, I don't know.
On my new Kobo Mini, I have that:
- fully charged on Monday evening, so 4 days of use
- since then, I read for 7 hours
- 673 page turns
- sleeping all the time I'm not reading, never turned off since the charge
- WIFI always off, except yesterday to search and load a free book from Kobo store
- looking up some words in the dictionary and highlighting them for future reference
- reading only one book and going once in a while to the "reading life" part to check reading time in regard of the battery
- battery is 82%

You are assuming that reading is linear. I don't trust battery gauges. Proof is only in how long it takes to deplete the battery to the point it stops working.

Originally Posted by samhy

So this is not a Glo and it doesn't have a light, but it tells me that I don't need to turn it off to have more than a week worth with one charge. Actually, I'm reading a book which was originally a .mobi file. There are some formatting issues, so the space between lines is quite huge. That means that I'm turning pages more often than I should be doing.
The biggest drop in the battery percentage was when using the WIFI (obviously).
Prior to that, when using the Sony 650, which doesn't have any wireless capacity, I was averaging 2 weeks on half a charge without turning it off (but I can't tell for sure how many pages I was turning/how long I was reading).
Don't forget that powering up a device uses a lot of power.

It can't use a lot of power - because that's what I do all the time, several times a day often, and I often go more than 3 weeks between charging.

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

Yay at getting a new one! But...

Oh my, 4 days!! That is horrible! You won't know until you've had a couple of full battery cycles though but still, doesn't look good

As for sideloaded epubs, see below.



I'm absolutely positive that battery drain can be caused by a data file. I tested myself, and I know that kepubs are read by loading a full chapter into cache to accommodate fast page turning. So the longer the chapter, the more has to be stored in cache and the more battery charge is used. I have found two badly formatted kepubs so far that had multiple chapters per chapter (so lots of missing chapter marks), causing a lot faster battery drain than expected, and Kobo acknowledged this and also gave me a refund for both books.

Sounds like customer service keeping the customer happy.

Really, these devices use memory chips to store the data in cache, and I am sure you can't power up half a memory chip. Sleep mode has to maintain the same amount of memory no matter what.

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

The epub version of the kepub drained the battery a lot less fast, so apparently either the epub reader is more efficient or an entire chapter isn't loaded to cache for epubs; I don't know how it works. So VelvetElvis, no, I don't think it's "just" sideloaded epubs that have these battery issues.

Surely people having the reverse experience (i.e. blaming sideloaded epubs) shows something is wrong with the theory that it is caused by datafiles.

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

(If you'd like to try it out with kepubs: "Absolute Power" by David Baldacci and "Raven Black" by Ann Cleeves both lack a lot of chapter marks in the kobo store.)

And the sleep/off difference: yes, of course you'll get longer battery life if you power off instead of sleeping. But 4 days of battery life in sleep mode is ridiculous. And, comparing with my Touch: it's been on constant sleep mode now for 9.5 days, with a book loaded, and its battery is at 74%. That gives an estimate of 30 days of life in sleep mode.

I have never left my Touch in constant sleep mode - too busy reading, so I can't compare, but I have never got 30 days out of it unless I power it down. I have it set to sleep, then power down, within an hour.

I have probably said my piece, about this now - so I will try to just read a see how it all pans out. It is an interesting thing - battery life...

[VelvetElvis]

Originally Posted by jusmee

I still don't believe battery issues are caused by a data file. I have read no plausible explanations as to how this is possible.

I also still believe you need to have the device power off, not just sleep, to get the long battery life we expect from an e-ink device.

I have a Sony PRS-T1. I read 1 - 1 1/2 hours a day, roughly, and I can easily go 3 weeks to a month between charges, and I don't wait until the battery is fully depleted. My GF's Touch, which, which she's now using pending tests on this replacement Glo, can't go any more than about a week and a half (reading 2 - 2 1/2 hours a day.)

[samhy]

Originally Posted by jusmee

You are assuming that reading is linear. I don't trust battery gauges. Proof is only in how long it takes to deplete the battery to the point it stops working.

I agree. The battery status is more of an exponential type, always slow in the beginning.
But the OP stated that her Glo was down within 4 days without reading. In comparison, I was reading for 4 days and the battery reached 82%.

To go further, I finished the book.
- 10,6 hours in 5 days
- 1010 page turns
- Battery is 71%

I won't take that as a reference in the future, but to me it means that there is something wrong with the OP's Glo behaviour.

Originally Posted by jusmee

It can't use a lot of power - because that's what I do all the time, several times a day often, and I often go more than 3 weeks between charging.

To each its own, I guess. As long as what you do works for you, and what another does works too, well all for the best

[VelvetElvis]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

And, comparing with my Touch: it's been on constant sleep mode now for 9.5 days, with a book loaded, and its battery is at 74%. That gives an estimate of 30 days of life in sleep mode.

Finished charging this replacement Glo last night at 6:00 PM and immediately put it to sleep, with WiFi off. This morning at 9:00 AM, it's at 72%

I put only 2 books on it when I received it (after updated the firmware.) Opened the active one, scrolled past the credits and TOC to the first page of chapter one, then put it to sleep. I might add that I read this same book on my Sony, and it caused no problems at all.

Very disconcerting, but I'm going to wait a few more days before contacting Kobo again.