BatteryBar is a handy app that I use for keeping an eye on the current charge level and remaining charging time of my laptop battery.
Download BatteryBar App
You can use this link to download this app.
This is how the system tray section of the taskbar appears when you install this app.
If the BatteryBar icon didn’t appear in the system tray, right-click on the taskbar and click on the BatteryBar in the Toolbars menu.
BatteryBar App When Battery is Fully Charged
When you hover the mouse pointer over this big battery icon, you will see this infobox.
Let’s understand what all the statistics mean.
The percent field shows the charge left in the battery in percentage.
The battery wear field shows how much the battery has worn out. You see the battery wear level is 72%. This means out of 41.440Wh, only 11.588Wh capacity is usable. 41.440Wh is the original battery capacity.
The more you use the battery, the more it wears out. When you fully charge a battery and then fully discharge it. It constitutes a cycle. Most consumer Lithium-ion batteries last anywhere from 1000 to 3000 cycles. The number of cycles depends on how much you usually discharge your battery also known as depth of discharge.
The capacity field shows the current battery capacity. In figure 4, you see the battery is fully charged and the current capacity is 11.588Wh. The current capacity reduces when the battery is discharging.
When Battery is Discharging
When the battery is discharging, this is how the BatteryBar infobox looks like
The current capacity has been reduced to 10.532 Wh. The discharge rate is 7.444 W.
The more the discharge rate, the quicker the battery discharges. So the “Time Remaining” field in figure 5 is only accurate if I keep discharging the battery at 7.444 W.
The “Elapsed Time” field is showing it has been 6 minutes since I removed the AC power supply.
The “Full Runtime” field shows the battery might power the laptop for 2 hours and 10 minutes. It is based on the usage patterns observed by the BatteryBar app.
When Battery is Charging
When the battery is charging, this is how the BatteryBar infobox looks like
The charge rate is 8.954 W. When the battery is completely discharged and I connect the AC power supply, my battery charges at a rate of 20 W to 30 W. My power adapter is rated at 60 W.
Conclusion
BatteryBar is a nifty, little app that I use daily. There is a paid version of this app but the free version is good enough for me.
Related: WirelessNetView App for Windows