Glo Glo Battery Problems

[VelvetElvis]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

Did you ever get around to testing/reading the books David sent you? To test good books on bad device...

No, I've been testing with books that cause zero problems on both our Touch, and my Sony PRS-T1. My GF is now actively using #3, and I've told her to read it to failure, so I can calibrate it.

Speaking of which, calibration was never an issue on either the Kobo wireless, or the Touch. Or my 2 Sonys, for that matter.

[VelvetElvis]

To throw a wrench into things here, I think the whole "calibrate" issue is probably separate issue from the problems of poor battery life. Calibrating, to my mind, is primarily so the battery charge indicator is more reliable. Calibrating, AFAIK, won't make any difference in battery life from full charge to complete discharge.

I'd love to see more posts describing total battery life, from full charge to "Please charge".

[TechniSol]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

Unfortunately, yes, I always leave the battery to charge overnight. I'm not using it any differently to how I used my Touch...

Do you have an estimate of how long your battery lasts? And/but, weren't you one of the people that switches their device off between reading?

I normally powered my Touch off as it was set to auto power off after 60 mins and didn't have an option to stop that anyhow until someone posted how to tweak a config file.

Since I bought the new Glo I've been leaving it in sleep mode unless I knew it was going to be a few days. Lately, I've left it in sleep mode just to see how the battery holds up. It's been at least 24 hours since I pulled it off the charging cable and it's still at 100%, but frankly considering the apparent non linearity of the battery charge displayed I'm not sure anything anyone reports matters other than full uptime from 100% until they get to the point where it automatically shuts down...

Mine always seems to stay near 100% for quite a while. Others seem to report a drop off and stabilization at lower plateaus. I think there may be two problems involved. Hinky battery curves and/or percentage reporting, and either a bug that causes some units to burn a lot of power while supposedly in sleep mode -possibly side loaded epubs related, or they may have gotten a shipment of questionable or flawed batteries.

I have no proof, this is pure conjecture and supposition... so far I'm just happy that mine seems to go a lot longer than 72 hours just left in sleep mode. I tend to charge before the meter bottoms out, but I think I've seen two weeks with a LOT of reading and the battery only showing around 50-60% discharge, which seems about as it should be.

[Shai-Hulud]

Originally Posted by VelvetElvis

To throw a wrench into things here, I think the whole "calibrate" issue is probably separate issue from the problems of poor battery life.

Undoubtedly. The overall duration is independent from (though it should correlate with) what the battery life indicator is telling you at any given point.

Originally Posted by VelvetElvis

I'd love to see more posts describing total battery life, from full charge to "Please charge".

My findings thus far I've provided in this thread post #33, #39 and #54

[Shai-Hulud]

Originally Posted by TechniSol

I tend to charge before the meter bottoms out, but I think I've seen two weeks with a LOT of reading and the battery only showing around 50-60% discharge, which seems about as it should be.

All contributions help to build a consensus, but to try and nail any problem we have to be careful in separating out perception from fact. Using phrases like "I think" and having a tendency to charge before the meter bottoms out doesn't make you wrong of course, but it makes it tricky to conclude anything with confidence. Especially with a "Hinky" (hadn't heard that word before but it sounds right) battery indicator.

Any chance you'd care to firm up your findings by conducting a full charge/discharge cycle and post back? I'd be interested in seeing what life you actually got when using it normally. Cheers.

[TechniSol]

I'm going to more carefully keep track of this cycle. My Glo was in sleep mode for 24 hours after charging and stayed at 100%. After 4.5 hours of reading last night with the frontlighting on at the lowest setting it finally dropped to 99%... 5 hours total reading time so far, still at 99%. Concrete enough, so far, I hope. All this while reading a 2400+(4443 according to the Glo)page side loaded epub.

No offense, but I don't think hooking this puppy up to the scope and plotting current draw under various conditions would yield much even if it did screw up -so far it's performed like a champ, but I haven't run it all the way down. Unlike some here I'm actually using it as a reader, not just plotting battery curves, but I'm not having an issue. If I was having similar problems my approach would likely change.

The problem is that even with perfectly accurate observation, we're still going to be theorizing 'til everyone but a few of us is bored senseless. Let's not kid ourselves, the most we can do is bring attention to the issue, but so far it seems not to be an issue for many or we'd probably hear a lot more squawking. Maybe we just have a few isolated incidents? Hence, the batch of bad batteries supposition. Just like there seem to be a batch with loose batteries floating around, if you'll pardon the pun.

Based on VelvetElvis's observations there seemed to be an issue with particular epubs he had loaded, but I believe David or DNSB didn't see the same problem with the same epub. Mrs.Often is tweaking some things from standard, and is having a power issue. Related, unrelated, who knows?

Basically, there is such a tiny data set that any conclusions beyond educated guesswork will be unlikely to be proven, unless we find something widely duplicatable.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Here they are:

[lots of settings]

Very very very many big thanks davidfor!

Originally Posted by VelvetElvis

To throw a wrench into things here, I think the whole "calibrate" issue is probably separate issue from the problems of poor battery life. Calibrating, to my mind, is primarily so the battery charge indicator is more reliable. Calibrating, AFAIK, won't make any difference in battery life from full charge to complete discharge.

Oh, absolutely. For instance, I was extremely upset when my battery suddenly dropped from 87% (or whatever it was) to 63 and then 61% in a very short time. But now, it's been at 61% for 24 hours. Calibration problem! It's difficult to keep that separate in my mind from "bad battery", as 87 -> 63 in hours feels like bad battery. I'll just need to have some more patience (extra difficult as I'm mistrusting Glo II due to Glo I experience) to find out what this battery is really like.

Originally Posted by TechniSol

I normally powered my Touch off as it was set to auto power off after 60 mins and didn't have an option to stop that anyhow until someone posted how to tweak a config file.

Since I bought the new Glo I've been leaving it in sleep mode unless I knew it was going to be a few days. Lately, I've left it in sleep mode just to see how the battery holds up. It's been at least 24 hours since I pulled it off the charging cable and it's still at 100%,

Thanks for your elaboration!

Originally Posted by TechniSol

Mrs.Often is tweaking some things from standard, and is having a power issue. Related, unrelated, who knows?

Actually no. My previous Glo (the one that really definitely had battery problems) was absolutely un-tweaked. My current Glo, yes, has some tweaks, but I've also not made any conclusions yet about battery bad/goodness.

[Lily7]

My Glo was at "please charge" today. Now doing a charge cycle as instructed. Calibration or not, needing charging after sleeping for 3 days just isn't right to me... I still think there's an issue.

I'll come back to this thread after doing a few more cycles.

[TechniSol]

I'm sure I'm not the only one noticing the commonality of three days from the post above... Significant? Can we assume that was from a full charge?

Mrs Often, I only meant to indicate that while we're all talking about the same device, two or more things which are "the same" may also be different. I'm not saying the difference is necessarily significant, but we have so little concrete information regarding the inner workings that we must make the distinction.

Will you roll back and update wirelessly or are you sticking with the sideloaded firmware? Might be worth it since SameerH noted it can make a difference.

I'm at just under 45.5 hours from the charger, with ~5 hours reading lighting on lowest, and still at 99%. I'm beginning to think I've dodged a bullet this time, but we'll see. Let's hope. Good luck to the rest of you.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by Lily7

My Glo was at "please charge" today. Now doing a charge cycle as instructed. Calibration or not, needing charging after sleeping for 3 days just isn't right to me... I still think there's an issue.

I'll come back to this thread after doing a few more cycles.

I agree. Doesn't seem good at all. I wish we knew what was going on!

Originally Posted by TechniSol

I'm sure I'm not the only one noticing the commonality of three days from the post above... Significant? Can we assume that was from a full charge?

Mrs Often, I only meant to indicate that while we're all talking about the same device, two or more things which are "the same" may also be different. I'm not saying the difference is necessarily significant, but we have so little concrete information regarding the inner workings that we must make the distinction.

Ah okay. Indeed then!

Originally Posted by TechniSol

Will you roll back and update wirelessly or are you sticking with the sideloaded firmware? Might be worth it since SameerH noted it can make a difference.

Ah yes good idea. Not that I think that it would help, as the same battery nonsense occurred in 2.3.1 and 2.3.2... So I doubt it's specific to a 'wrong' 2.4.0, but you never know. I'll give it a try after a few cycles.

Originally Posted by TechniSol

I'm at just under 45.5 hours from the charger, with ~5 hours reading lighting on lowest, and still at 99%. I'm beginning to think I've dodged a bullet this time, but we'll see. Let's hope. Good luck to the rest of you.

Thanks!

[VelvetElvis]

Originally Posted by VelvetElvis

To throw a wrench into things here, I think the whole "calibrate" issue is probably separate issue from the problems of poor battery life. Calibrating, to my mind, is primarily so the battery charge indicator is more reliable. Calibrating, AFAIK, won't make any difference in battery life from full charge to complete discharge.

I'd love to see more posts describing total battery life, from full charge to "Please charge".

• Feb 24 – 3:00 pm 100%
• Feb 25 – 3:00 pm 54%

I'm going to try a couple of power cycles, but given the above rates, it shouldn't take me long.

If Sameer, or anyone from Kobo wants to IM me, I'd be glad to send you this thing, on my dime.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by VelvetElvis

• Feb 24 – 3:00 pm 100%
• Feb 25 – 3:00 pm 54%

I'm going to try a couple of power cycles, but given the above rates, it shouldn't take me long.

Very disappointing indeed

I can't help notice though, it's a 24 hour sleep, right?

Originally Posted by davidfor

About the only thing is the length of time for the sleeping. The longest was about 10 hours. There might be something happening with longer times. Maybe the device wakes and does something after 12 or 24 hours.

I think davidfor made a very interesting point. I've seen no (or some) battery drain a couple of times when I had the Glo sleeping but checked its battery within 10 hours. So maybe it's a valid point... something going on after a certain amount of hours in sleep – which is in the firmware for the newer devices. This would explain perfect battery life for older devices ("old"/other firmware), and it would also explain why only some of us with newer devices are seeing the battery troubles (not everyone sleeps their device >10 hours).

Have you tried checking at more regular intervals? If I were you I'd try every 8 or so hours at least during your next battery cycle

Originally Posted by VelvetElvis

If Sameer, or anyone from Kobo wants to IM me, I'd be glad to send you this thing, on my dime.

PM him yourself! That's how I got some attention

[samhy]

Originally Posted by davidfor

About the only thing is the length of time for the sleeping. The longest was about 10 hours. There might be something happening with longer times. Maybe the device wakes and does something after 12 or 24 hours.

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

I think davidfor made a very interesting point. I've seen no (or some) battery drain a couple of times when I had the Glo sleeping but checked its battery within 10 hours. So maybe it's a valid point... something going on after a certain amount of hours in sleep – which is in the firmware for the newer devices. This would explain perfect battery life for older devices ("old"/other firmware), and it would also explain why only some of us with newer devices are seeing the battery troubles (not everyone sleeps their device >10 hours).

I'm following this thread with interest, although rest assured that the Mini doesn't show this behaviour. The long sleep seems to occur quite often with poor battery Glos indeed and it would be a good idea to investigate further that way.
The device has to monitor for how long it has been sleeping to be able to shut down after the set amount of minutes/hours, hasn't it? (even though the setting is on "never"???)

I don't remember quite right: did some of you try to shut down the Glo when you're not going to read for more than 5 hours, say? If so, do you notice the same battery drain?

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by samhy

I don't remember quite right: did some of you try to shut down the Glo when you're not going to read for more than 5 hours, say? If so, do you notice the same battery drain?

No we didn't... or at least I didn't anyway and I haven't seen anyone else mention they did. I'm not sure if we want to either. I do think our Kobo's would last us longer, but we'd still have a bad battery if it is the battery that is bad. If it's the firmware that messes up something in sleep mode, it would be a good workaround (although I don't like waiting for startup) – but it wouldn't help to find out what's going on.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

No we didn't... or at least I didn't anyway and I haven't seen anyone else mention they did. I'm not sure if we want to either. I do think our Kobo's would last us longer, but we'd still have a bad battery if it is the battery that is bad. If it's the firmware that messes up something in sleep mode, it would be a good workaround (although I don't like waiting for startup) – but it wouldn't help to find out what's going on.

Very fair point

In my mind it was more a way to tell whether the problem is related to the sleep part. With other things being the same (ceteris paribus), for a given person with a given device, does the battery drops as much when turning the reader off and on as it does when putting it to sleep? If it doesn't, then the sleeping process may be at fault. If it does, then the firmware or hardware need more examination.
Of course, things are not that easy and in the end the problem may be created by several things pilling up

Anyway, kudos to all of you for keeping to try and figure the bad battery issue together. Now, that's willpower