Elipsa Kobo Elipsa Battery life

[Jokomoko]

Hello everybody

I am new to this forum and sent my first post an hour ago but it seems my post got lost because I can not find it again. Perhaps i missed to specify the Prefix so I apologise if the post went to a totally wrong place....

My Question was: How often do you need to re-charge the Kobo Elipsa?

In the new Elipsa unit I received got (last week), I drained the battery in two days. Is that normal? That is, I read a book around 13 hours in two days half time using light with intensity I guess around 50%, and remaining time I did not use light. I disconnected the WiFi most of the time also, trying to preserve battery.

The battery indicator went from 100% to 20% during those 13 hours.
Is that normal? or, could there be something wrong with my particular unit?

What does the expert here think?

Many thanks in advance for any comments

[Uschiekid]

It doesn't sound normal, but another bit of important information is approximately how many pages did you turn in that time. ie are you a fast reader? the battery runs down faster the more you turn pages (rather than how long you are reading, in general, though that does have some effect on it).

Also, did you play around with trying to connect bluetooth devices? People who did that experimenting with the Elipsa, seemed to experience fast battery drain.

And about your post not appearing, it was probably to do with being a new user with the forum. It might have to go through approval, to stop automatic spamming on the site. Shouldn't happen as you make more posts.

[Jokomoko]

Many thanks Usciekid.
I suppose number of pages turned depends on text size rather on how quick one reads while text light time definitely depends reading speed. Out of 13 total reading hours, l used around 7 hours hours (medium light intensity) and 6 hours without the front light. The book I read had 249 pages with my text size. I did some flipping back and forth while reading, but not so many times (say 10-15 times). So, may I assume it is something wrong with my unit? I am thinking of returning it.

By the way, does anybody know if there is any difference between "switching off" the unit versus "sleeping mode" from battery drainage point of view?

[davidfor]

Actually, 13 hours of reading to from 100% to 20% might not be absurd. But, I would hope for more.

Kobo only says "Weeks of battery life" without any qualifications. For older devices, they were quoting either 1 or two months. That was based on 30 minutes a day reading. So, 1 month at 30 minutes a day is about 15 hours. And 2 months is 30 hours. So 13 hours from 80% of the battery is not to far off these devices.

The Elipsa will use more battery that the other devices. But, it also has a bigger battery. I don't remember seeing any comments on the battery life from other users of the Elipsa. I don't know if anyone has enough experience to really say what it will be.

[BookishBiker]

I had a rather dramatic drain on the first day. It was full when I took it to bed, popped it in my bag the next day for an appointment, and it was dead when I pulled it out. This hasn't happened since.

It seems it happened to a few others and also resolved itself very quickly.

Now, I pop it on charge every other day, and the lowest it's been at that point is probably around 50%.

[Jokomoko]

Thanks davidfor. What you write seems to make sense, but if so, it is little bit disappointing to me. I just switched from having kindle last 8 years (Kindle Voyage) with which I felt I could bing read a week before charging (probably not the case) but subjectively it felt to have much, much longer battery life anyway.

[Jokomoko]

Thanks BookishBiker. I hope battery life time will improve for me too.

[ewphoenix123]

It's better then my Forma (~12 hours).
I would estimate 18-20 hours with the Elipsa from 95% to battery warning.
Light around 16%, and a page turn every 2 seconds.

[Jokomoko]

Thanks ewphoenix123,
Your Elipsa seems to have better battery life than mine

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by Jokomoko

Thanks ewphoenix123,
Your Elipsa seems to have better battery life than mine

I would recommend opening a case with Kobo tech support. That way, you are officially charting with them your battery life issue. Keep track of your power usage in a spreadsheet or note. Report it to them. Then again, it could be as Davidfor suggests. The Elipsa has a digitizer built in whereas the Kindle's do not. The battery life could be affected by it. Try taking the battery out of your stylus to see if your Elipsa's battery life improves. 🤷🏻*♂️

I have both Kindles and Kobos. I once ran into a Kindle with poor battery issues. I got it replaced. This is bound to happen from time to time with electronics. However, it could be that the Elipsa is doing more than a regular eReader and therefor running out of juice sooner. I did notice that my Elipsa ran out of power much sooner than my Clara HD. I chalked it up to all the annotating I was doing with the stylus.

[Jokomoko]

Thanks Cootey,
I have not really tried/used the Stylus/Editing part of Elipsa yet. Good advice to remove the battery from stylus for trouble shooting purpose though.
As it happens, I had some other issues with my Elipsa as well. Overdrive does not function for me with my local library (in Sweden) who claims the fault is on Kobo side. I could also not assign both the Elipsa and my PC with same Adobe ADE account despite struggling with it for 2 two days (re-installing everything 250 times). Overall Elipsa is not worth all troubles for me at moment so I have today agreed with my dealer to return my unit with money back. I will continue reading this Forum on the various Elipsa topics. Who knows, perhaps I will buy another Elipsa later again, especially if the issues with Overdrive can be settled where I live. I loved to read E-books with the Elipsa due to its nice screen and size.

[Jokomoko]

Thanks Cootey,

I should have checked with removing Stylus battery, good idea.
As it happens I had some other technical issues with my Elipsa as well, so today I agreed with my dealer to return the Elipsa with money back. I will continue reading this Forum and who knows maybe I will buy another Elipsa in future again hoping for less problems later stage. Wonderfull to read E-books with the Elipsa.

[ewphoenix123]

might be relevant aswell. My wifi is off.

[Jokomoko]

Originally Posted by ewphoenix123

might be relevant aswell. My wifi is off.

Thanks. Yes, WiFi would influence battery life so for sure it is a good idea to switch WiFi off while just reading.

[Mercador]

I've just plug in my Elipsa for the first time since release, it was around 40%. I read around 30 minutes per night with backlightning on, bt off and wifi off. It just take ages to charge it on the PC though.