Touch Strange battery behavior.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by mrbowman

This next two weeks I'm going to deal only with hardcopy paper.

Oh myyyy! I haven't touched those dusty things since I got my Touch 15 months ago! Good luck

Originally Posted by Shai-Hulud

As a few of you have echoed, the real issue is not knowing whether it's software or hardware bugs. We are trying to discover this empirically and by discussing our findings which takes time and a lot of false leads and tail-chasing I'm sure.

To nail it, Kobo need to 'fess up and let us know what's going on. Then they might rebuild customer confidence and incur thanks for their candour rather than anger and resentment at being stonewalled!

Yes. 100% agreed.

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by Shai-Hulud

As a few of you have echoed, the real issue is not knowing whether it's software or hardware bugs. We are trying to discover this empirically and by discussing our findings which takes time and a lot of false leads and tail-chasing I'm sure.

To nail it, Kobo need to 'fess up and let us know what's going on. Then they might rebuild customer confidence and incur thanks for their candour rather than anger and resentment at being stonewalled!

One of the biggest gripes (and it isn't just Kobo who do this) is they automatically push out software/firmware updates without the user (a) having an option, or (b) a changelog of specifying what has actually changed.

Yes, one could avoid any wireless connectivity to avoid the update, but then you have a restricted device which you can't use all of the features of.

For me with Kobo the biggest gripe(s) are, after the Touch came out the Wifi was meant to get an update (mentioned by Kobo people). Never came. The wifi experienced an issue of not updating furthest page read - rather redownloading your entire library, Kobo were aware and at the point of time when I returned my wifi for a refund due to this issue it hadn't been fixed. The Arc gets released and Kobo announce the Vox hasn't been forgotten and an update is coming soon. Kobo reps have even said on getsatisfaction one is coming but no ETA. I doubt it will come.

That said given the price of the Vox it is looking damn tempting for a small android for nighttime reading. Would love the Glo but the wife said no more ereaders as I have enough....said nothing another android

[mrbowman]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

Oh myyyy! I haven't touched those dusty things since I got my Touch 15 months ago! Good luck

LOL

Originally Posted by Solicitous

...Would love the Glo but the wife said no more ereaders as I have enough....said nothing another android

LOL again!

[mrbowman]

Originally Posted by Shai-Hulud

As a few of you have echoed, the real issue is not knowing whether it's software or hardware bugs. We are trying to discover this empirically and by discussing our findings which takes time and a lot of false leads and tail-chasing I'm sure.

To nail it, Kobo need to 'fess up and let us know what's going on. Then they might rebuild customer confidence and incur thanks for their candour rather than anger and resentment at being stonewalled!

that's true

As I said before, I bought an e-reader to read, not to be worried about with hardware/software problems that should be fixed when a product jump to markets. It makes me angry.

I'm frightened about receiving a second defective unit, as others has happened. I cross my fingers.

Enjoy your Kobos, meanwhile I'll go back to hardcopy, pencil to notes, and small pieces of cardboard for bookmarking.

I'll keep you informed when the new/refurbished Kobo arrives

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by mrbowman

that's true

As I said before, I bought an e-reader to read, not to be worried about with hardware/software problems that should be fixed when a product jump to markets. It makes me angry.

I'm frightened about receiving a second defective unit, as others has happened. I cross my fingers.

Indeed. I'm still not trusting my replacement Glo exactly because of this. Every little battery change I find myself mistrusting it more. I had it plugged in a lot on the first day so tiny bits of charging. When I stopped the % was around 64. It slept overnight and it was at 58% in the morning... then 53% in the evening... Next day it was still around 53% but dropped to 30% and then to "please charge battery" sometime in the evening. So 2.5 days on 64%. Of course, it's the first charge and no cycles have taken place to calibrate the meter... but still. It doesn't seem promising. In fact, how could SO many devices have bad batteries?! It should be the firmware. But then, why doesn't everyone have this problem?

Originally Posted by mrbowman

Enjoy your Kobos, meanwhile I'll go back to hardcopy, pencil to notes, and small pieces of cardboard for bookmarking.

I'll keep you informed when the new/refurbished Kobo arrives

Thanks and good luck with the olde fashioned ways! I hope you get a perfectly working battery with 35 days worth of sleep and reading.

[Shai-Hulud]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

One of the biggest gripes (and it isn't just Kobo who do this) is they automatically push out software/firmware updates without the user (a) having an option, or (b) a changelog of specifying what has actually changed.

Actually I made that very point in another thread. It should be "pull" rather than "push" with a full disclosure of feature changes and bug fixes so the consumer can choose whether they wish to alter their machine by 'updating'. After all it was sold as a 'finished' consumer device was it not (as opposed to a beta product with a promise of updates)?

Originally Posted by Solicitous

That said given the price of the Vox it is looking damn tempting for a small android for nighttime reading. Would love the Glo but the wife said no more ereaders as I have enough....said nothing another android

A tablet would doubtless offer greater reading client flexibility and might work for you. But I want the closest thing to reading a real book plus excellent battery life which only an e-ink screen device can offer (just not the Touch it seems )

[Shai-Hulud]

Originally Posted by mrbowman

As I said before, I bought an e-reader to read, not to be worried about with hardware/software problems that should be fixed when a product jump to markets. It makes me angry.

Sentiments I wholeheartedly agree with. Quite honestly I still prefer the tactile nature of reading a real book and believe it offers the very best reading experience (I doubt that will ever change).

However in my 9 months of Kobo usage, I found the e-ink screen to be close enough such that the benefits of portability, flexibility of being able to borrow books from the library out-of-hours electronically and general convenience of personal library management coupled with inherent space saving (I'm a terrible hoarder of books) to offer real advantages. My old books will stay, but new ones will be digital I think PROVIDING I can find a reliable e-reader!

[John F]

Originally Posted by Shai-Hulud

Actually I made that very point in another thread. It should be "pull" rather than "push" with a full disclosure of feature changes and bug fixes so the consumer can choose whether they wish to alter their machine by 'updating'. After all it was sold as a 'finished' consumer device was it not (as opposed to a beta product with a promise of updates)?

...

Aren't there some consumer rights issues, also? Forcing an upgrade forces new EULA, terms of service, ...

[Shai-Hulud]

Originally Posted by John F

Aren't there some consumer rights issues, also? Forcing an upgrade forces new EULA, terms of service, ...

I can't see how a non-optional update could legally impose a new EULA/ToS as you have no idea what's changed and no option to cancel or refuse.

[dgvirtual]

I got my Kobo Touch two months ago, and, admitedly, it was a second-hand one. The battery was manufactured in september 2011, so it must have had about a year of use before I got my hands on it.

But the battery behaved strange... or so it seemed to me. The charge would at times show 106% or 104% after I disconnected the charge cable. The first drop would come quite quickly: the battery would drop to 90% quite soon. Then it would hold charge in a way that I perceived to be "normal". But upon reaching ~40% it would just turn off and demand to be charged!

So I did a discharge test on a fully charged.

First of all, I added telnet capability to my Kobo Touch.

Then I launched a script with a gzip process that would keep the CPU occupied about 96%. The insides of the script:

sleep 600; 
#PIRMAS.BIN is just a large file
gzip -c /mnt/onboard/PIRMAS.BIN  > /dev/null

Then I launched a script that would get a file form my router in regular intervals. This script also would record wifi and telnet/ftp processes state (so I were sure these processes did not die) The insides of the script:

while [ 1 = 1 ]
  do	  
    echo "`date`:`ifconfig|grep inet`" >> /mnt/onboard/wlan_statusas.txt ;
    cd /mnt/sd/ ; 
    wget http://192.168.1.1/ -O index.`date '+%m%d%y'`.html
    wget http://192.168.1.1/ -O index.`date '+%m%d%y'`.html
    wget http://192.168.1.1/ -O index.`date '+%m%d%y'`.html
    wget http://192.168.1.1/ -O index.`date '+%m%d%y'`.html
    echo "`date`:" >> /mnt/onboard/telnet_statusas.txt ;
    ps -A|grep telnetd|head -1 >> /mnt/onboard/telnet_statusas.txt ;
    ps -A|grep ftpd|head -1 >> /mnt/onboard/telnet_statusas.txt ;
    sleep 300 ;
done

Then I killed the nickel (it is nickel that shuts the wifi off in some time, and wifi is the biggest drainer of battery, so I needed it).

killall nickel

Finally, I launched a script that would record the battery state every five minutes.

while [ 1 = 1 ]
  do	  
    echo -n "`date` , charge:" >> /mnt/onboard/baterijos_statusas.txt ;
   cat /sys/devices/platform/pmic_battery.1/power_supply/mc13892_bat/capacity  >> /mnt/onboard/baterijos_statusas.txt
   echo -n "current: " >> /mnt/onboard/baterijos_statusas.txt ;
   cat /sys/devices/platform/pmic_battery.1/power_supply/mc13892_bat/uevent |grep CURRENT| awk -F"=" '{print $2}' >> /mnt/onboard/baterijos_statusas.txt
   echo -n "voltage: " >> /mnt/onboard/baterijos_statusas.txt ;
   cat /sys/devices/platform/pmic_battery.1/power_supply/mc13892_bat/uevent |grep VOLTAGE| awk -F"=" '{print $2}' >> /mnt/onboard/baterijos_statusas.txt
   sleep 300 ;
done

These scripts are messy and not optimal, but they did the job for me.

I repeated the test with another battery in the same kobo touch (manufactured the same year, same month).

Well, first of all, I did drain the battery in both cases in a little bit more than four hours

Here is what the battery discharge looked like (both batteries on one graph - so two colours):



The interesting thing is, that both batteries drop charge dramatically at the end of the period. It is not like I managed to see before (it does not just turn off when the charge is 40%; or maybe it would, if nickel were running and controlling the process - I do not know which is right), but still, it is about 30% of charge drop in the last 10 minutes of operation. Do your Kobo's behave this way as well?

Here is what the discharge current was like; since there were scripts running that would take more energy at sertain moments, I do not attach a lot of significance to this image:



Initial lower level of current is due to the fact that my gzip script slept for the first 10 minutes (otherwise it jams the CPU and it is hard to do everything else via telnet).

However, I calculated the average discharge current and this allows me to guess that both batteries have about 84 to 86% of original capacity (the factory capacity is 1000 mAh and voltage - 3,7 V)

And finally, here is what the voltage curve was like:



Nothing that I can comment on here.

So, what do you think, does what I describe resonate with what you are experiencing? Or maybe my batteries are too depleated already?

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by dgvirtual

So, what do you think, does what I describe resonate with what you are experiencing? Or maybe my batteries are too depleated already?

Nice graphs! I bought my Glo new in Nov 2012 and I imagine it would be similar, but perhaps with a steeper drop from 100% to 80% and not quite as steep at the bottom end.

My Glo does indeed have a very sharp dropoff from around 40%. That's some inventive measurement there!

[dgvirtual]

Originally Posted by jclim00

My Glo does indeed have a very sharp dropoff from around 40%. That's some inventive measurement there!

I have yet to try this on my Glo - I will only do it if I experience any troubles.

[Shai-Hulud]

Nothing like some decent metrics to prove a point, eh Good for you.

Originally Posted by dgvirtual

However, I calculated the average discharge current and this allows me to guess that both batteries have about 84 to 86% of original capacity (the factory capacity is 1000 mAh and voltage - 3,7 V)

I would consider around 85% to be about right to be honest. Even if we assume the Kobo batteries operate to specification and held 100% when sold, you cant account for deterioration through charging or usage patterns in the year between manufacture and you aquiring your device.

Originally Posted by dgvirtual

So, what do you think, does what I describe resonate with what you are experiencing? Or maybe my batteries are too depleated already?

The sudden drop off at the end is precisely what I am seeing too albeit using the shoddy battery meter as my guide. Twice now it's indicated a decent % of power available when less than 12 hours later it had fallen below the charging threshold.

[dgvirtual]

Originally Posted by Shai-Hulud

Twice now it's indicated a decent % of power available when less than 12 hours later it had fallen below the charging threshold.

How long ago did you buy your Kobo? Do you perhaps know the manufacturing date?

I wrote 84 to 86% - which, I admit, is a strange way of putting it I have two batteries, and for one I counted 84, for the other - 86