Touch Power code regression?

[Mrs_Often]

Battery percentage was indeed not always there. But, version 2.x.x should have it if I recall correctly.

[mutant_matt]

Yes. 2.1.5 has the percentage display. For myself, on 2.1.5, Light off after 10, sleep after 15, never power off, I get approx a month's use between charges (using most days for at least half and hour (often more), with occasional use of the light).

My wife has the same (same settings), but my daughter with the same settings and not significantly more use, seems to need a charge almost weekly, and she has another strange problem where sometimes when coming out of sleep, she can be 10s of pages away (usually further forward), than where she left it. She and I have covers using a magnet to auto-sleep (I wonder if that is part of the problem...).

Perhaps that might be of some use?

Matt

[Shai-Hulud]

Update to post #25:

You may recall after 12 hours sleeping my fully-charged "new" touch (Glo software) the battery was down to 91% indicated. Since post #25 I've only had a chance for one 30 min reading session at 0830 on Feb 11th (+42 hours) when the battery was down to indicated 67%. Now tonight (2200 on Feb 12th) when I checked, my touch was showing the "Please recharge ereader" screen. Unfortunately I can't say when this happened precisely. In truth it could have been anytime after 0900 Feb 11th but let's be generous and say it happened just before I checked it. This means for a total reading time of 40 minutes plus an outside maximum of 112 hours in sleep, the unit is dead!

So how's my father's (old) touch faring? Well I didn't set that up until 14 hours after mine but at 98 hours in sleep (waking it up only once a day to check status) it's still showing 91% battery indicated. This is consistent with what Mrs_Often is seeing between her old Touch and her new Glo. I would say that's a pretty big smoking gun for a power problem in sleep mode in Glo/Latest Touch firmware!

Now bearing in mind the usual power profile selected for both machines is 15 Min sleep/ 30 Min power off, I have to re-iterate that I've seen battery chewing happen on the old style Touch's on 1.9.17 as well as newer firmwares on occasion (which prompted my first posting) but it was unpredictable in that I couldn't trigger it on demand. All I did note was that the device failed to enter power-off when this happened. However, it seems that just sleeping it isn't enough to trigger the massive power drain as tests on my fathers unit have shown thus far. Whether this condition is related or not (it seems likely) I can say that there is most definitely an issue with the newer firmware Touch/Glo's when in sleep mode that is reproducible.

Anyone from Kobo care to comment?

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by Shai-Hulud

I would say that's a pretty big smoking gun for a power problem in sleep mode in Glo/Latest Touch firmware!

If it was a firmware problem, then wouldn't more people be encountering it?

I am doing a battery test on my Glo (2.3.2) at the moment, with wifi off and only using sleep mode (no power off) I have so far read a total of 38 hours over 10 days, both kepubs and epubs sideloaded via Calibre, and battery is at 30%.

Edit: Sorry, I forgot about the sleep:15 / Power-off:30 setting. If not many people use this setting that would explain why not many are affected by a proplem specific to this setting.

[madchen]

I found the battery percentage, thanks everyone. I feel a bit silly actually for missing it lol. Also nice to see a return of the time display when you click the middle of the screen.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by Shai-Hulud

[...] This means for a total reading time of 40 minutes plus an outside maximum of 112 hours in sleep, the unit is dead!

[...]
Now bearing in mind the usual power profile selected for both machines is 15 Min sleep/ 30 Min power off,


[...] Whether this condition is related or not (it seems likely) I can say that there is most definitely an issue with the newer firmware Touch/Glo's when in sleep mode that is reproducible.

That is outrageous indeed. I'm still not convinced though that it is the power sleep/off time settings. Mine were set to 15min sleep and never off... There might be multiple issues though, the something-or-other that I had, plus the one you might have where it fails to switch off after 30 mins... but then again, we have extremely similar run-time...

Originally Posted by Shai-Hulud

Anyone from Kobo care to comment?

Yes please, I would like to see a comment. I'm wondering if Kobo is aware of the fact that there seem to be WAY too many battery issues lately. Has anyone let them know through getsatisfaction or the exec email address or something?

Originally Posted by GeoffR

If it was a firmware problem, then wouldn't more people be encountering it?

That's what I keep thinking.

Originally Posted by GeoffR

I am doing a battery test on my Glo (2.3.2) at the moment, with wifi off and only using sleep mode (no power off) I have so far read a total of 38 hours over 10 days, both kepubs and epubs sideloaded via Calibre, and battery is at 30%.

That's a lot better. However, still not optimal considering my Touch running the same firmware (2.3.2) is now at 37% after almost 28 days and is estimated to last 43 days (mostly sleep, a few 30 min reading sessions when I couldn't resist). Granted, the light will use more battery than no light at all on my Touch, but I can't imagine that difference being at least 18 days (your 10 days of 'use' at 30% and my 28 days of 'use' at 37%).

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Edit: Sorry, I forgot about the sleep:15 / Power-off:30 setting. If not many people use this setting that would explain why not many are affected by a proplem specific to this setting.

Indeed. But, as I said above, I'm not convinced this is the (only) problem.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

Yes please, I would like to see a comment. I'm wondering if Kobo is aware of the fact that there seem to be WAY too many battery issues lately. Has anyone let them know through getsatisfaction or the exec email address or something?

I posted on getsatisfaction here.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by madchen

I found the battery percentage, thanks everyone. I feel a bit silly actually for missing it lol. Also nice to see a return of the time display when you click the middle of the screen.

[Shai-Hulud]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

If it was a firmware problem, then wouldn't more people be encountering it?

I posted this with my eyes half shut at 0252 local time - there's dedication for ya What I should have said is with respect to two Kobo Touch's on ostensibly identical hardware platforms, yet with one running the Touch firmware and one running the Glo firmware, the one running the Glo firmware has a dreadful battery life in sleep mode (as also expresed by Mrs_Often et al in a different thread). Quite how far this extends to others I don't know which is why we post on these fora to begin with. Clearly you don't suffer from quite the dreadful battery life others are having with your Glo which is useful to know despite it muddying the water still further. But I'm pleased that someones device works close to as advertised!

My latest discovery was prompted by a comment made by Mrs_Often in response to my original query and which is incidental to it, yet corroborates what (some) others are seeing with their Glos/Touches and further suggests that there is more than one power issue involved here.

So far, observations reveal:

1. The issue I had that originally prompted this thread and which is (I'm guessing) the CPU getting stuck in a loop when trying to enter power-off mode and chewing through battery (but this aside is otherwise ok when left in sleep mode only).

2. The issue with Glo's and recent Touches that run the Glo firmware where the battery life is simply dreadful when left in sleep mode anyway BUT ALSO fail to reliably enter power-off mode when set to do so after 30 mins. Whether the "CPU looping" (for want of a better descriptor) also occurs periodically to compound this is unknown.

3. The use of linux kernel 2.6.35 which suffers from a documented power regression deficiency of around 20% when compared to 2.6.34 (as mentioned on Phoronix and other linux tech sites).

Now common sense says that if the newer Kobo Touches require a different firmware than the old models, then there has been some hardware change made inbetween. But until Kobo acknowledge this publicly or it is otherwise proven to the contrary, we have to assume that hardware differences are a red herring.

With regard to the kernel: yes 2.6.35 is a bad choice for power comsumption generally but as both the old and new models (appear to) have the same kernel there is still a relative change between old firmware and new firmware to the detriment of battery life.

In conclusion (based on MY experience) all I can say is this:
- On the Old Touch, this battery eating state occurs intermittently (actual trigger unknown) when the device tries to enter power-off from sleep (15m/30m) and fails to do so. When set to Sleep mode only, this doesn't to seem to unduly affect battery life.
- On the "new" Touch, this intermittent failure to enter power-off mode from sleep also occurs and depletes the battery life just as quickly BUT the same behaviour is on by default if the device is set to sleep-only. Annoyingly I can't think of a way to determine if the battery is under excessive draw whilst reading normally, short of following the "30 mins a day" for a month with an explicit power off after each session.

And frankly all this monkeying about is getting in the way of me "just reading" which is what I bought the bloomin' thing for!

[Mrs_Often]

Good post and interesting thoughts.

And also:

Originally Posted by Shai-Hulud

And frankly all this monkeying about is getting in the way of me "just reading" which is what I bought the bloomin' thing for!

...exactly.

[mutant_matt]

Seeing as the main goal is to "just use it for reading" (a goal I am sure is the main importance to all of us), I know it's not the answer, but, if it seems that never powering off is the workaround, why not use that, and live with the fact that the power off mode might never get fixed. If you can get a month of life using sleep only, then why not?

Make sure you report it to Kobo though, so they have a fighting chance of tackling the problem.

Matt

[Shai-Hulud]

Originally Posted by mutant_matt

Seeing as the main goal is to "just use it for reading" (a goal I am sure is the main importance to all of us), I know it's not the answer, but, if it seems that never powering off is the workaround, why not use that, and live with the fact that the power off mode might never get fixed.

Because if you read through again you'll see that whilst this strategy might work for my Father (Old Kobo Touch), with the new Touch/Glo firmware this simply doesn't work for me (max 112 hours in sleep)

The only thing that will prolong battery life is explicitly powering off the device manually, but I'd rather they fixed the power bug so it operates as it should

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by Shai-Hulud

Because if you read through again you'll see that whilst this strategy might work for my Father (Old Kobo Touch), with the new Touch/Glo firmware this simply doesn't work for me (max 112 hours in sleep)

The only thing that will prolong battery life is explicitly powering off the device manually, but I'd rather they fixed the power bug so it operates as it should

Mmmm yes... Actually, I think you might just have a bad battery (OR the "other" firmware thing)...

[mutant_matt]

Ahh...

You don't happen to also have a problem with "page jumping", where it's not on the page you left it, coming out of sleep/power up, do you? (just asking 'cos 1 of the 3 Glo's in my house, which are all on 2.1.5, has this problem, coupled with much faster battery usage).

Cheers,

Matt.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by mutant_matt

Ahh...

You don't happen to also have a problem with "page jumping", where it's not on the page you left it, coming out of sleep/power up, do you? (just asking 'cos 1 of the 3 Glo's in my house, which are all on 2.1.5, has this problem, coupled with much faster battery usage).

Cheers,

Matt.

That's a bug of firmware 2.3.1 and 2.3.2 that my "old" Touch also has... but my Touch has very very slow battery usage.