Aura KA1 - Battery Drain and charging light issue

[scegghy]

Hello All,

I have a KA1 with the firmware 4.7.10413.

I am experiencing again battery drain and a new strange issue: when I charge the kobo, the charging light is red for few seconds and then it disappears.
The kobo seems to keep charging but the charging light is off.

Does someone experiencing my same issues?
What can I do for the battery?

[dmapr]

Not the battery drain, but the charging light behavior has been broken forever. I think it last worked for me on 4.1.x or something like that, although until recently it would just stay red (instead of switching to green when charged). But with the latest firmware I have the same behavior as what you describe, it turns off quickly and never comes back or turns green.

[petercreasey]

Give the drain issue some time to resolve itself. You might be okay.

[isaak]

Charging light is turning off after a bit of time, but if you press the power button while plugged you can see the state of charge (red: charging, green: charged).

[scegghy]

Thanks all for the answers. I don't understand why they changed/broke the charging light behaviour. Sometime the red light doesn't appear and I don't understand if it is actually charging.

About the battery, it goes down very fast. From 96% to 80% to 56% to 40% to 10%. The confort light takes most of the battery drain ;(

[Sir Loyne]

The charging light used to work perfectly when I first got mine. I think it was after the new home screen, but maybe it was before it, when mine started turning itself back on when I was charging it. They "fixed" it by having the charging light go off after a few seconds a couple of updates ago. When it's full, the screen will change to whatever percentage it was at to 100%, but that's the only giveaway to how it's doing now. The battery level doesn't change like it used to.

[chrisridd]

I had some sudden drains recently. The KA1's time (but not date) started to be way off. Strangely, recharging was very quick.

I believe it might be related to reading a particular book, as I've started reading a different one and everything's been OK since. All my books are sideloaded. Sigil's epub checker plugin reports no problems with the "bad" book.

[anacreon]

Originally Posted by chrisridd

I had some sudden drains recently. The KA1's time (but not date) started to be way off. Strangely, recharging was very quick.

I believe it might be related to reading a particular book, as I've started reading a different one and everything's been OK since. All my books are sideloaded. Sigil's epub checker plugin reports no problems with the "bad" book.

I've had many sudden drains recently too, both with the One and the H2o2. Too many to incriminate any book, specially because I've always started reading the book I couldn't read anymore on one device on the other with no problem. Both my devices are on F/W 4.6.10075 since November 2017 and my problems started in January 2018, so I tend not to incriminate the F/W.
And I've had two "behaviors":
* until yesterday, the screen was blocked on the sleep screen, looking perfectly normal except it was impossible to turn it on and it didn't react when connected to my PC. And even charging it for 8 hours didn't work, it needed practically 24 yours to be able to restart (I don't know exactly because it was overnight). It then worked correctly for a while.
* this morning, I turned the One on, checked the battery was at 100% and changed manually a couple of reading positions to "read", went away for 10 minutes and returned to a black screen indicating I should charge. I started charging it, a couple minutes afterwards the battery was at 2%, and it did go very quickly to 100%.

Both my devices are fairly recent: the H2o2 since September 5 2017, as a spare since my 2nd One had started misbehaving (a different problem, connecting to the PC), my 3rd One since September 19 (luckily the guarantee is 2 years in Europe).

I'm getting desperate - it was particularly annoying yesterday morning when I spent 3 1/2 hours in a waiting room - and I can't fit 2 readers in my handbag.

[scegghy]

I would like to know if there is a way to understand if the battery has a problem.
Yesterday in 10 minutes of reading the level went down from 89% to 40%.

[petercreasey]

s, probably shouldn't make a judgement based on just one event and/or just one book.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by anacreon

Both my devices are on F/W 4.6.10075 since November 2017 and my problems started in January 2018, so I tend not to incriminate the F/W.

I suggest you try the 4.7.10413. You can find it for side loading at http://geek1011.github.io/KoboStuff/kobofirmware.html

[anacreon]

The battery continued to drain off every time I left my flat, and I started to wonder whether it could be due to the magnetic lock on my handbag, on the outside of the pocket where I stored readers. It shouldn't have since I've used that handbag since I bought it in September and the problem started in January, AND the automatic sleep off is always disabled.
So I bought another handbag with just a zip, no magnetic lock, and have been using it since February 5th, and the One or the Glo HD's battery haven't drained off even once.
This is no scientific demonstration, but if it is the cause it is annoying since it's practically impossible to avoid magnets, what with phones, credit cards, transport passes and all.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by anacreon

The battery continued to drain off every time I left my flat, and I started to wonder whether it could be due to the magnetic lock on my handbag, on the outside of the pocket where I stored readers. It shouldn't have since I've used that handbag since I bought it in September and the problem started in January, AND the automatic sleep off is always disabled.
So I bought another handbag with just a zip, no magnetic lock, and have been using it since February 5th, and the One or the Glo HD's battery haven't drained off even once.
This is no scientific demonstration, but if it is the cause it is annoying since it's practically impossible to avoid magnets, what with phones, credit cards, transport passes and all.

By automatic sleep being off, do you mean the timer based sleep, or the cover based sleep? The timer based sleep being off means you have to put it to sleep in some other way. But, if the cover based sleep is on, then the magnet in the bag might have interfered, and it might have meant the device kept waking and sleeping as it moved a bit in the bag. I would expect that to be fairly battery expensive. If this is the case, the difference is probably something in how you packed the bag. Even putting the Aura ONE in the other way round could affect this.

[anacreon]

Originally Posted by davidfor

By automatic sleep being off, do you mean the timer based sleep, or the cover based sleep? The timer based sleep being off means you have to put it to sleep in some other way. But, if the cover based sleep is on, then the magnet in the bag might have interfered, and it might have meant the device kept waking and sleeping as it moved a bit in the bag. I would expect that to be fairly battery expensive. If this is the case, the difference is probably something in how you packed the bag. Even putting the Aura ONE in the other way round could affect this.

I meant the cover based sleep is always off, which is why I thought it shouldn't have had an impact. And the outside pocket was just the right size for the One so it couldn't move, and I always put it in back to the outside for better protection. I choose my handbags for the reader, to be able to protect it without a cover, which would add weight, and I don't like reading while the reader is in a cover.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by anacreon

I meant the cover based sleep is always off, which is why I thought it shouldn't have had an impact. And the outside pocket was just the right size for the One so it couldn't move, and I always put it in back to the outside for better protection. I choose my handbags for the reader, to be able to protect it without a cover, which would add weight, and I don't like reading while the reader is in a cover.

No cover (hopefully Jon won't notice), and the cover sleep is off. Were you putting the device to sleep before putting it in the bag? For IR touch devices, there is a good chance something in the bag might touch the screen and keep it active. For the capacitive touch like the Aura ONE, that shouldn't happen. But, some materials can trigger the touch for this. But, what would cause it to change, unless the last firmware update increased the sensitivity somehow. Or something got into the pocket.

When I wrote the earlier post, I did wonder about what happens when the sleep cover option is off. The switch is still in the device and will react to the magnet. The action isn't doing anything, but it could open a circuit that used power. I don't know enough about this to be able to properly comment.