Glo Expected Battery Life (and customer service frustration)

[jkr]

Originally Posted by Uschiekid

@jkr

sorry, I wasn't clear...when you have your kobo ON, is the wi-fi ON or OFF?
I got that you keep the wifi OFF when in sleep mode.

Sorry I was away for a couple of days. It is off all the time. I manually turn it on in the rare event that I need to pull something over wireless, and then manually turn it off. I also recently turned the cover sensor off, but that doesn't seem to have done much.

I charged it up to full the other day, and then left it sitting, face up in standby. It had dropped about 30% in 48 hours with no interaction (don't remember the exact number, unfortunately).

Reading the replies, it seems to be a rare but real problem. It sounds like their response is pretty consistent as well. Ultimately, though, as far as problems go, I suppose it's really not that big a deal to have another device that needs to be charged every couple of days.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by thel8elvis

Was just about to post a similar thread.

.....
I am hesitant to contact customer service, because the battery is a "consumable" and I don't want to get the same run around as you appear to have received. But the battery life doesn't sounds like what others have reported.

In what way is the battery a "consumable" - it would be a different matter of it was user-replaceable like the ones I have on an old Hanlin V3 which takes a standard Nokia phone battery, and the reader even came with a screwdriver to access the battery compartment.

BobC

[John F]

Originally Posted by jkr

Sorry I was away for a couple of days. It is off all the time. I manually turn it on in the rare event that I need to pull something over wireless, and then manually turn it off. I also recently turned the cover sensor off, but that doesn't seem to have done much.

I charged it up to full the other day, and then left it sitting, face up in standby. It had dropped about 30% in 48 hours with no interaction (don't remember the exact number, unfortunately).

Reading the replies, it seems to be a rare but real problem. It sounds like their response is pretty consistent as well. Ultimately, though, as far as problems go, I suppose it's really not that big a deal to have another device that needs to be charged every couple of days.

Maybe check if there is some crud stuck under the edges of the screen?

[thel8elvis]

Originally Posted by BobC

In what way is the battery a "consumable" - it would be a different matter of it was user-replaceable like the ones I have on an old Hanlin V3 which takes a standard Nokia phone battery, and the reader even came with a screwdriver to access the battery compartment.

BobC

I agree, but according to kobo:

http://merch.kobobooks.com/magento/u...ranty_caus.pdf

Page 3 specifically lists batteries as consumable parts, not covered under warranty.

[jkr]

Originally Posted by jkr

I charged it up to full the other day, and then left it sitting, face up in standby. It had dropped about 30% in 48 hours with no interaction (don't remember the exact number, unfortunately).

Actually, scratch that -- it went down to 0 (or at least the out-of-battery screen) in 72 hours, sitting face up, with no use.

[Uschiekid]

Originally Posted by jkr

Actually, scratch that -- it went down to 0 (or at least the out-of-battery screen) in 72 hours, sitting face up, with no use.

That really sounds like the IR sensor bug, but since you don't use a cover, I'm not sure how that could be.

[jackastor]

Originally Posted by Nightyume

You could always point out that a lithium battery should be good for at least 500 charge cycles and that as long as you don't exceed that the drop in capacity at the end of the first year should be less than 20%

Also any decent battery will have a safety mechanism to prevent overcharging (meaning you can leave it plugged in). And 4-6 hours is just overkill as a needed charge time. That's comparable to tablets with seven times the battery capacity.

You might be able to replace the battery yourself. I remember reading somewhere that ereaders basically used dumb phone batteries. But then again I have no idea.

500 recharges. Works out to roughly 3 years. One charge cycle is a period
of use from fully charged, to fully discharged, and fully recharged again. Use a
two to three year life expectancy for batteries that do not run through complete
charge cycles.
Rechargeable Lithium-Ion batteries have a limited life and will gradually lose
their capacity to hold a charge. This loss of capacity (aging) is irreversible. As
the battery loses capacity, the length of time it will power the product (run time)
decreases. So should be longer if there is a few weeks in between charges.

Edited to reflect corrected information

[TechniSol]

Sounds like it's not really going into standby... or, put another way, something is running in the background. I'd make sure I carefully blew out the area where the bezel overhangs the screen in case it is similar to the cover getting in the way of the IR problem...

Have you tried doing a pinhole reset, signing out & back in, or a factory reset? I'll bet the battery is not the problem. I'd dump every book out/do the factory reset, put nothing on the reader and try that power test again. Last resort short of returning it to kobo. If it lasts longer I'd carefully add books back to see if one of them is not processing correctly and running the thing down.

If it's not a year old, it's still in warranty, and dead from 3 days in standby is a warranty issue, not expected performance. Don't take "No", for an answer.

[Nightyume]

Originally Posted by jackastor

1000 recharges. Works out to 3 years daily charging. So should be longer if there is a few weeks in between charges.

Where are you getting 1000 from? Nickel Metal Hydride and Nickel Cadmium do have 1000 charges but they have the memory problem. For things like phones, readers and laptops they tend to use lithium-ion or lithium-polymere batteries which can be charged at any time without creating "memory." Last year LG came out with an advanced battery tech that increased the numbere of recharge cycles on a Lithium-Polymer battery to 800 charge cycles but I doubt they're using those in e-readers. And don't forget that simple age also diminishes a battery's life.

But with the frequency of charging an e-reader normally sees we'ree still talking about years of use without any huge impact on performance and would be almost impossible to get that bad of a performance.

Also the reason batteries enter into the consumables category is because they do have a limited lifespan based on usage. It can still be faulty though and should enter under warranty if it's obviously disfunctional.

You can also argue that if it's dropping that much in standby it is not actually a problem with the battery but rather the device which isn't properly powering down while in standby and is therefore warranty covered issue.

[thel8elvis]

Originally Posted by TechniSol

Sounds like it's not really going into standby... or, put another way, something is running in the background. I'd make sure I carefully blew out the area where the bezel overhangs the screen in case it is similar to the cover getting in the way of the IR problem...

Have you tried doing a pinhole reset, signing out & back in, or a factory reset? I'll bet the battery is not the problem. I'd dump every book out/do the factory reset, put nothing on the reader and try that power test again. Last resort short of returning it to kobo. If it lasts longer I'd carefully add books back to see if one of them is not processing correctly and running the thing down.

If it's not a year old, it's still in warranty, and dead from 3 days in standby is a warranty issue, not expected performance. Don't take "No", for an answer.

I agree, the problem may be a process continuing to run in the background.

To troubleshoot mine, I did factory factory reset, and only added the book I was reading. While I suppose it is possible the epub is somehow corrupted, I don't find that to be a reasonable assumption at this point.

From my fully charging over the weekend, I am down to 51% battery, with a reading time of less than approximately an hour, and 3 days/nights in "sleep" mode.

That's simply not acceptable, and I am going not going to take no from tech support on getting a new one. I believe any decent retailer should have no problems simply exchanging a device at this point.

[jkr]

Originally Posted by thel8elvis

That's simply not acceptable, and I am going not going to take no from tech support on getting a new one. I believe any decent retailer should have no problems simply exchanging a device at this point.

If possible, please do post about your experiences with customer service.

[TechniSol]

I'm not one for guessing when it's important, but I suppose if pressed I'd guess that a kepub from Kobo might be more reliable if you're just going to load one book on to test further after a reset/factory reset, etc. than a random epub.

That said, if I still had negative results I'd still reset again and try another, just in case.

I really do think a full factory reset/restore to original firmware might be required if it's a firmware problem. Or maybe you could get away with side loading a firmware? You know checksums are a pretty good way to make sure firmware isn't corrupted, etc., but they are not absolute. You, lucky you, could be the one in a gazillion... (It'd never happen with a lottery ticket, but then I don't buy them!)

[jackastor]

Originally Posted by Nightyume

Where are you getting 1000 from? Nickel Metal Hydride and Nickel Cadmium do have 1000 charges but they have the memory problem. For things like phones, readers and laptops they tend to use lithium-ion or lithium-polymere batteries which can be charged at any time without creating "memory." Last year LG came out with an advanced battery tech that increased the numbere of recharge cycles on a Lithium-Polymer battery to 800 charge cycles but I doubt they're using those in e-readers. And don't forget that simple age also diminishes a battery's life.

But with the frequency of charging an e-reader normally sees we'ree still talking about years of use without any huge impact on performance and would be almost impossible to get that bad of a performance.

Also the reason batteries enter into the consumables category is because they do have a limited lifespan based on usage. It can still be faulty though and should enter under warranty if it's obviously disfunctional.

You can also argue that if it's dropping that much in standby it is not actually a problem with the battery but rather the device which isn't properly powering down while in standby and is therefore warranty covered issue.

Thanks for the heads up

[TechniSol]

For the last few years most Lithium batteries have been rated for 500+ discharge/recharge cycles. The thing is that to get the "+" part mostly requires shallower discharge cycles and recharge cycles slow enough to limit heating to a minimum. Now, that's not to say your battery will only last 500 cycles, or that capacity will remain anywhere near 100%, but as low as 80% usually makes very little difference for most applications... With shallower discharges one might get nearer 1000 cycles, but overall still probably only ever draw the same amount of power, or a bit more, from the battery over time.

[spersephone]

I have the light on 1% and I'd like it to be dimmer. However, I'm happy with the battery life, and this probably helps.