Forma Battery Drain

[alanfw]

Both my and my partner's Forma battery seems to drain quickly.

When I first bought my Forma 18 months ago (from Kobo Australia) it would remain charged in sleep mode for a couple of weeks. Within less than a year my Forma was replaced because the battery failed. The refurbished replacement worked well for a while but now the battery goes flat after only 3 or 4 days on sleep mode.

My partner's Kobo has also just been replaced on warranty. The replacement worked perfectly for a couple of weeks, then an update was forced and it now also goes flat very quickly in sleep mode.

Can anyone shed any light on this issue? Is it a firmware problem? (If so, it seems to be one they don't want to address.)

[meeera]

Does it still happen with wifi and automatic sync turned off?

[NiLuJe]

FWIW, mine is also going wonky. Funnily enough, in my long trail of devices, that's the only battery/device I've ever seen go truly bad. (I'm pretty sure my old K2i is still kicking, for instance).

It's... kinda weird. The last time I actually used it was actually to test power consumption, and the numbers looked good; but I've since seen it drain while in suspend, while *off*; and I've seen it hang in fun and interesting ways while *charging* .

EDIT: To be perfectly fair, it's also the only device I've somewhat extensively used in extremely out of specs conditions (namely, well below 0°C). The battery didn't take it well, even back then ^^.

[Rugbyfan1986]

Don't leave it in sleep mode, use the power button to turn it on and off each time.

[enuddleyarbl]

Originally Posted by Rugbyfan1986

Don't leave it in sleep mode, use the power button to turn it on and off each time.

People shouldn't have to do those kind of manual workarounds. The darn thing should just work as designed and not have batteries die every year.

[milady133]

Interesting, my Forma still maintains the battery. I confess I don't pay much attention to battery life, so a day or two less of battery life in a reader used daily is not going to be noticed. And occasionally I leave it charging for a couple of hours when I see it reaches less than half battery (about once a week)

[desterly]

Mine was draining like crazy too. It would last maybe 4-5 hours of reading and only a day or so on sleep.

Finally out of frustration I reset back to factory, updated to latest firmware, and then re-sync'd my books.

Since doing that it's been a lot better. Still not perfect but doesn't seem to drain much while sleeping and doesn't drain as much while reading.

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

I've seen it hang in fun and interesting ways while *charging* .

the asterisk around charging are a tad interesting but I'd be interested to hear what you've found regarding that. I have the problem still where if i charge it above 90ish percent, it locks up.. have to power off to get it back. Interestingly enough, it only started happening when I got a new cover for it. My wife's does the same thing and we tested the cover on hers too.... for both, if we take the sleep cover off it doesn't lock up while charging.

My guess is it's not fully going to sleep or something.

[NiLuJe]

There's no cover (or magnets) involved at all in my case, and I've seen it happen multiple times, both in Nickel and KOReader, so, no, I'm afraid mine is just dying a slow death .

[Tarmacsurfer]

Hello there, I'll try and avoid ranting here being a newbie and all.

Just registered here to add my tuppence on the subject after stumbling across this post via duckduckgo. I bought my Forma in November 2018 while on honeymoon in Japan, it was the only way to get the 32gb variant at the time (I'm in the UK) and it was something I really wanted. Plus finding one online in a foreign country and the trip to buy it made some good memories. It's seen an awful lot of use and I don't begrudge the battery wearing out, these things happen. What does leave a sour taste is the way kobo seem to expect us to simply bin the unit and buy a replacement.

I've come here after spending twenty minutes on the "help" chat on the Rakuten site. Suffice to say the chatbot at the beginning was more attentive and helpful than the agent I finally spoke to. When they reached the end of the script they simply closed the chat window on me - no answer to a direct and simple question (could you please supply information as to the battery model fitted to the kobo forma so I can effect replacement).

Having spent over a week troubleshooting, researching and attempting to solve the issue as my unit is well outside of both it's home region and warranty period I've tried all the usual fixes (and some less so), to no avail. It's simply a fact that the battery has degraded over time and use.

I'm saddened to be honest. After having tried my best over the years to avoid the grasp of Amazon (I've gone through two Nook readers and now the Forma) I'm probably going to look at one of the lesser known Chinese manufacturers if I can't source a battery and fix my old friend. While the Kobo hardware is excellent in use it seems a tad fragile (my second Nook Glowlight still runs fine after a battery transplant) and the company itself does nothing to support the end user beyond encouraging us to simply dispose and replace. To me that's not acceptable and I get the impression that my money is the only thing Rakuten will listen to.

Rant (rant-ette?) over. It'll be a few weeks until I have the space to open my unit up and delve further but I'll come back and update the community if I get anywhere with a repair - I haven't seen anything beyond a partial teardown online so I'm flying blind unless anyone has further information that I've not seen on my travels.

All the best!

[Aleron Ives]

I don't think you can really blame the Kobo support for not answering your question: it's their official policy that users aren't supposed to replace batteries themselves, so they're not going to help you. I doubt Amazon would help you fix a Kindle, either. It sucks that devices are made to be thrown out these days, but that's how it is, and if we want to fix them, we have to do it ourselves.

Here's a Forma teardown:

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Kobo...eardown/162028

Once you open it and find the battery capacity (apparently 1200 mAh?) and dimensions, you should be able to locate a replacement.

[Tarmacsurfer]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

I don't think you can really blame the Kobo support for not answering your question: it's their official policy that users aren't supposed to replace batteries themselves, so they're not going to help you. I doubt Amazon would help you fix a Kindle, either. It sucks that devices are made to be thrown out these days, but that's how it is, and if we want to fix them, we have to do it ourselves.

Here's a Forma teardown:

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Kobo...eardown/162028

Once you open it and find the battery capacity (apparently 1200 mAh?) and dimensions, you should be able to locate a replacement.

Thank you, that is indeed the partial teardown I was referring to. I've found a couple likely batteries working from that but had intended to cross reference if I could get an accurate part number and find dimensions. While I'm happy to split the case and get the micrometer on the old battery it's far better to work from solid info given the tolerances in the case.

I take your point as to help, but that was not what was requested - there is a world of difference between asking for a singular technical specification and asking for a detailed guide.

The most galling thing to me (first world problems!) was the tenor of the interaction and the summary disconnection. At any rate, I won't be back to argue or discuss this. I'll simply update when/if I locate a suitable battery for anyone wishing to pursue a repair themselves. It will obviously negate any waterproofing but that's a compromise I'm willing to make. Just need to find my spudger now, didn't expect to need my lab bench in the middle of building a house. All cardboard boxes look alike...

[John F]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

...

Once you open it and find the battery capacity (apparently 1200 mAh?) and dimensions, you should be able to locate a replacement.

Just curious, but I don't think the battery capacity is the important part, isn't it the battery output voltage?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by John F

Just curious, but I don't think the battery capacity is the important part, isn't it the battery output voltage?

They are single cells, so with same chemistry the voltage is the same. The charging must suit the capacity, which is also related to the space. Generally the same size will be similar capacity and then the charging will work and be safe. Some cells have a charger/monitoring circuit board. It has to be the same kind of cell, so the voltage will be correct. They are mostly in the range of 3.6V to 4.2V depending on charge condition. Some will list the purely nominal 3.7V

You can feel edge with wires (if wired) to see if there is an integral PCB (circuit board). Some systems have a 3rd monitoring wire and some use 4 wires, with the extra pair as data from an on-the-cell PCB cpu.

[Aleron Ives]

Originally Posted by John F

I don't think the battery capacity is the important part, isn't it the battery output voltage?

Both are important. If the capacity is higher, the battery pack is likely to be physically larger, and if it's even a few mm thicker, it might not fit.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

Both are important. If the capacity is higher, the battery pack is likely to be physically larger, and if it's even a few mm thicker, it might not fit.

That is covered under the "and dimensions" part.

I assume one would always check the dimensions. Also the connector/wiring.