It’s a common knowledge that a battery has certain lifecycles but what is not a common knowledge is that charging it carelessly — like trickle charging or overcharging– can do more harm than good. A new entry in the field of Android Battery optimization is an app called AccuBattery, which not only monitors the health of your Android’s battery but also focuses on how to prolong it. So, without any further delay, let’s have a quick summary on this app.
AccuBattery – A Brief
A battery in smartphones have different charge cycles and its life depends on this very charge cycles, as obvious. As per AccuBattery, charging a phone to its full capacity often causes wear and tear thus shortening the battery life. So, AccuBattery has designed an ideal system to achieve the optimal battery life — by charging it to only 80%. AccuBattery has a built-in alarm which will alert the user when the battery has completed charging. Say, for instance, if I charge my phone to 81%, it would eat away 0.2 cycles in total. Apart, from the battery monitor AccuBattery has a horde is mini displays which show the various stats including a tab which is devoted to the overall health of the phone battery.
Features of AccuBattery
AccuBattery pulls information from the Android’s battery charge controller and gives a much better insight than Android’s default battery tools. Unlike the ‘percentage’ (in Android’s settings), not only would it show the exact figures at which the foreground apps are discharging, but it displays how much the screen-on time is costing your battery life. What’s more, you can also see the amount of battery saved when your phone enters the deep sleep mode. Higher the percentage of deep sleep, the more battery you save. So, just in case you see a lower number, you get the idea that some apps are still running in the backgroundand take necessary actions. Furthermore, you can also see the charge status, the average speed of the charging cable, etc. Also, what is immensely helpful are the mini tit-bits of information which dots the apps. For instance, it’ll let you know how to test the speed of the charger or various know-hows on battery — how it calculates the estimates, what is deep sleep, etc. In a nutshell, the nit-bits help in educating users on the various topics surrounding a phone battery.
Battery Health
The Health tab shows the amount of capacity that has been lost compared to the actual capacity of the device. If you see the screenshot below, it calculated how many times I had overcharged the battery which in turn cost me roughly around 0.5 cycles and thus reduced the health to 97%. The app isn’t correct to the T, but yeah, you get a rough idea.
Persistent Notifications
Though it’s a wonderful app, there’s a slight catch to its functionality. The app itself consumes battery when used in excess. If you might have noticed in one of the screenshots above, the more I used it, the more it climbed to the top of the battery usage list. Thankfully, there’s a workaround to this issue in terms of the sticky notification. In a nutshell, it’ll let you know the amount of battery you have left. Along with it, you also get an estimate of the rate at which the device is discharging or how much time is left when the screen is on/off.
History
And if the above weren’t enough, AccuBattery also includes a History tab which will tell you the charging and discharging story. The total time you had put it to charge and how much did it gain or lose in that particular round. Putting it more simply, it gives you a rough estimate on how a battery behaves when it’s being charged and when it’s being used.
Should You Go for it?
I say, you should. Because AccuBattery doesn’t over-promise. It just shows you the various aspects on how you can prolong a phone battery’s life with simple calculations and a dash of science. And in the process, helps one to get educated on the various nitty-gritty of an Android’s battery life And yeah, if you have an older phone with a slightly degraded battery life, here’s something which will keep you from hammering it further. For a free app which doesn’t require a root access to pull up the information, I would say AccuBattery is a neatly packaged app which aids in getting battery life back in control. Also Read: iPhone Battery Guide: Charging Your iPhone the Right Way
