Glo Battery Life -- large books?

[Woodstonian]

Is there any evidence that battery life depends on the size of the book being read? I have an epub that is 2788 Kobo pages in length. It's actually 6 books in one epub. I've been reading through these books for the past couple of weeks, having spend 12.2 hours on it so far, 2857 page turns. I use a Glo Sleepcover so it sleeps when I'm not using it. Wifi is turned off. The battery has only been lasting 1 week.

I bought the Glo back when they first came out in Canada. Prior to reading this large book, I was getting about 3 weeks of normal usage between charges. Could the big book be causing this?

Once I'm finished the book I'm reading, I'll go back to a "normal" book and see what happens if there is no reason to believe to big books are a problem.

[Mrs_Often]

Yes. At least, I think so. It might also be very long chapters, or missing chapter marks. Are you reading kepub (directly from kobo) or epub (sideloaded)?

Kepub will load one whole chapter into its cache. So the bigger the chapter, the quicker the battery life will drain. I'm not sure how epubs are loaded, but same book gives less dramatic results, but still not long enough battery life.

I have a thread about my experience here https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=201790

You could try splitting the the bundle into the actual 6 books. Calibre has a plugin called "EpubSplit" which works extremely well. I've used it a couple of times on every bundle I bought.

[Woodstonian]

Thanks for that, Mrs_Often. I will take a look. BTW, the book is sideloaded.

One other thing came to mind. I recently acquired the Glo Sleepcover (Christmas gift) so I've only been using it for a few weeks. All indications are that the Glo is going to sleep when I close the cover. Do you think there is any possibility that this is a "different" sleep than flicking the slider? I don't know if anyone else has reported any behaviour like that.

[Mrs_Often]

Is it the battery life that is making you suspicious about the sleep?

If you have the correct settings on (to listen for a sleep cover), the Glo should go to sleep when the cover is closed, following the same command that is given when you slide the slider. So I don't think it's a different kind of sleep, no.

Good luck with splitting the book! I'd also check for (missing) chapter markers if I were you. Running a calibre convert should sort them out if there are any missing.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by Woodstonian

I use a Glo Sleepcover so it sleeps when I'm not using it. Wifi is turned off. The battery has only been lasting 1 week.

I bought the Glo back when they first came out in Canada. Prior to reading this large book, I was getting about 3 weeks of normal usage between charges. Could the big book be causing this?

I am curious to know: were you using the Sleepcover when you were getting 3 weeks with a charge?
Each time someone has issues with the battery, them seem to use the Sleepcover (but those with regular battery life don't tell whether they use the cover). I am just wondering if the magnetic part of the cover could not be interfering with the battery

[Woodstonian]

I just got the cover at Christmas and started reading this combo ebook 2 or 3 days later, so I have no helpful experience with this book without using the Cover. I started yesterday, after fully charging the Glo, to NOT close the Sleepcover. I will let it sleep using the power slider. I'll post my experience here in a week or so ... continuing to read this ebook.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by Woodstonian

I just got the cover at Christmas and started reading this combo ebook 2 or 3 days later, so I have no helpful experience with this book without using the Cover. I started yesterday, after fully charging the Glo, to NOT close the Sleepcover. I will let it sleep using the power slider. I'll post my experience here in a week or so ... continuing to read this ebook.

I'm looking forward to discovering the result of your experimentation

[Woodstonian]

Just a quick update ... 6 days in to this experiment with the 6-in one book. In the first few days, I kind of messed things up because I did a couple of font changes and a couple of searches. During each of these, the battery took a pretty good hit ... 8-10% for each. I'm still using the power switch to put the Glo to sleep, not the Sleepcover, which I'm not closing at all. I'm down to 43% battery, but I've been there for 3 days now!

[Mrs_Often]

Oh my that's a lot of battery drain! Starting to sound like a bad battery. Take a look at this thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=203646

However, you can't know until you split your epub up into regular sized books.

[Woodstonian]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

However, you can't know until you split your epub up into regular sized books.

I should have some time shortly to work on that. I made a quick try at it last week and it didn't work out well. This book is very poorly organized. I'm looking at it with Sigil and EpubSplit side by side trying to figure it out.

I have also been following your other Glo battery thread.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by Woodstonian

I should have some time shortly to work on that. I made a quick try at it last week and it didn't work out well. This book is very poorly organized. I'm looking at it with Sigil and EpubSplit side by side trying to figure it out.

I have also been following your other Glo battery thread.

Ah yes poorly organised books would give some trouble with EpubSplit. Annoying! Good luck with that.

[Woodstonian]

The Glo battery discharged this morning ... about 9-10 days of reading this large book. As I said earlier, a big chunk of the discharge took place when I did font changes and searches. I was not using the Glo Sleepcover function during this recharge/discharge cycle. I slept every time, and used the power switch. That eliminates the Sleepcover as being the source of any problem.

I've been able to split the books so I will continue reading them one at a time and see what happens and will be using the Sleepcover.

[Mrs_Often]

9-10 days doesn't seem that bad for a huge book I'd say! Some people report 14 days of use with 'normal' sized books. I hope you get a lot better battery life though now that you've managed to split the books!

[samhy]

Originally Posted by Woodstonian

The Glo battery discharged this morning ... about 9-10 days of reading this large book. As I said earlier, a big chunk of the discharge took place when I did font changes and searches.

That doesn't seem bad.
I notice too that changing fonts and searches, like the first sync, drain the battery more than reading.
Hopefully with smaller books you'll reach 2 weeks

[tkavan]

Originally Posted by Woodstonian

The Glo battery discharged this morning ... about 9-10 days of reading this large book.

FWIW I've just done a battery test with the following results:

I let the battery run down completely, then charged it fully, then used the Glo until the battery ran down again and it shut down.

From full charge to shut down took 6 days and 4 hours, with the unit powered off overnight and put to sleep between reading sessions during the day. WiFi was off all the time. Screen light always on while reading, at probably the 80% mark.

During that time I did the following:
- Desktop sync three times, to get new books
- Three or four font size changes, and three or four margin changes
- Maybe half-a-dozen dictionary look-ups
- Read almost 23 hours

That seems to me to be reasonably close to the Glo technical spec of 70 hours continuous use, with the light at around 20%.

I know this was not a statistically rigorous test, but it might be of interest to other users.