Some people probably know it already, but as there's no topic covering it, i decided to create one.
Most users know you can't determine how much power your battery has only by using the battery indicator, since it has only 7 levels to indicate the whole battery capacity.
Worse, you can't trust in the indicator, as sometimes it jumps from 7 to 1 block suddenly.
Some people make tweaks to have the battery indicator updated, in order to check the real approximate level of charge battery has.
For example, after some usage, let camera running for a while, or turning phone off and on (restarting doesn't work) will update battery indicator and avoid unwanted suprises.
But even so, you never know the exact amount of charge the battery has.
Third party applications only give results based on what the symbian API gives: that means, a percentage matching the amount of blocks default battery indicator is currently showing.It ends up with the applications only showing 7 levels of display: just useless, cause if you want to see charge in 7 levels only, it's easier to look at default indicator.
You've probably realized it already in Phonetinfo, Nsysinfo and similar applications.
But fortunatelly, there's an application that can show a more accurate level of charge battery has, thanks to the use of internal APIs, for it's developed by Nokia.
Jackpot!
You're right, i'm talking about Energy Profiler.
Resource information: Nokia Energy Profiler
While most people only use it to determine current battery usage in Watts, there's another very usefull function they probably don't know about
: the voltage indicator.
When you open the application, it's there, at the top of the screen, the gray one:
Press "2" in the keypad to start measurement.
Voltage indicator is always there at the top of the screen, in both Watts and Amperes view:
Pay attention in the "~" to the left of voltage indicator: if it's there, it means "Energy Profiler" is showing average voltage (hence useless for what we want).Press "8" in the keypad to change from "average" to "current" mode. "~" will then disappear.
Note that, there's a specific voltage view, where a graphic is showed, giving you a better overview of the battery draining history.
It's the next view right after "Amperes" view (that one with green graphic).Just press "0" to change views until you locate it:
Tip 1: for a more "accurate" trace in the graphic, press "down" in the D-pad to change to 2 - 4V view.
In 4 - 8V view (default mode), the trace doesn't allow you to identify small differences in voltage.
Tip 2: from Watts view (the most popular view, that one with yellow graphic), press "0" two times to go to Voltage view.
If you want to keep history of the graphics, close the application by holding "Menu" key, and exit "Energy Profiler" from there.This way, next time you open application, it will ask if you want to load the recovery file.Press "Yes" and you'll be at the point you were when application was closed.
however, if you close application normally, by simply pressing right softkey when application is in foreground, next time you open it, it'll start from scratch (all views will be empty).
now let's take a slightly deeper look at battery charge based on voltage indicator of "Energy Profiler", that's what you're most interested in probably
(Just note everything here is based on
N95-1 and its default battery)
-A fully charged battery has 4.15 volts approximately.When charging, it can reach more than it though i.e. 4.20 volts.
-When voltage reaches 3.70, your battery has 50% of its total capacity approx.
-"Battery low" warnings start to appear when battery has 3.62 volts approx.
They will continue to appear until battery is completely empty
-When battery voltage reaches 3.32 approx., it's in critical level.You can run out of power by anytime.
-If phone is let alone, you can reach even 3.24 volts.
-Note that, when battery is next to be "empty", let's say, with 3.37 volts , you can't change from "offline" to some other profile.If you try to do it, phone will show "Unable to change profile" after some seconds, and it'll return to "Offline".In that condition, if you turn phone off, it can't be turned on again.You have to charge the battery.
It happens in other phones as well.Not only with
N95.
Note: "empty" here isn't really empty: the battery is never empty.It's just that battery has a small amount of charge, and the phone can't deal with it.
-The voltage indicator WORKS even during charging.It means you can check the current level of charge of your battery when charging.Something impossible before "Energy Profiler".
But watch out: in the only time i let "Energy Profiler" opened constantly during charging, it seemed the battery would never be full.Battery here takes usually 1 hour and 15 minutes to get full.But when "Energy Profiler" was let running during charging, after more than 1 hour and 45 minutes, battery wasn't full yet, with phone in "Offline" profile.
Then i closed "Energy Profiler" and battery got full within 5 minutes approx.
Since it uses an internal API, and they may have some problems, i suppose the application takes control of the API so that phone can't access it, hence not knowing when battery is full to show the "Battery full" message.
anyway, i did it one time only.I can't say with 100% of sure it was "Energy Profiler" that caused the issue
Linear Mode
