Five tools to detect battery life of your laptop

The battery is one of the most vital components of a laptop and yet, we know so little about it. Apart from its charge indicator and some power saving modes, we don’t have or formulate a power management plan. This may seem silly for a standalone laptop operated by a single individual, but here are some reasons why you should.

1. Batteries will work differently under different workloads, environments. Therefore, monitoring will help get a start on managing the optimal power required.

2. Calibrating the battery when you notice inconsistent readings. This might be due to the battery’s age.

3. Improving the battery’s lifespan by correctly calibrating and handling it at specific intervals.

Now, let’s learn about five tools that help you analyze a battery’s health.

powercfg command

An excellent tool that's built into Windows. The powercfg command churns out a report on your battery's life. Open the command prompt and type ‘powercfg/batteryreport.' The report will be saved in the C drive under Users inside the folder bearing your username. An HMTL file, once opened via a browser will display several parameters of your battery. You can check the Design Capacity and Full Capacity, see how it's declining, usage on how your battery was used.

BatteryInfoView

A free software with some attractive functions. Its display has two screens - one displaying details about the battery's condition such as Design and Full capacity, number of cycles, etc. The other has information on power state, discharge and charge values, event time. However, it lacks a graphical representation on how the wear on your battery is progressing. You can export the data to a TXT file as well.

BatteryMon

A step up from the previous software. BatteryMon is all about graphical representation, and in real time. But this pertains to the charge level. The vertical axis (Y) displays the charge level (0-100%). Horizontal axis has sampling rate,which can be altered. Despite being slightly tough for new, it has its advantages. A red line shows you the lifespan when compared to expected values.

BatteryCat

A simple battery monitor that observes three parameters - charge, capacity, and cycles. In the main window, it displays each one in relation to the current state of the battery. It also displays the full state of capacity to the current state. You can save the data to later copy it onto a spreadsheet if you want to monitor. You can find it within the 'Users' folder.

Smart Battery

A complete app that lets you monitor your battery's health, calibrate it and save the data for later. Smart Battery allows you to calibrate the battery to better suit the demand. It shows full to current capacity and presents wear rate through a graph. On the main window, it presents all parameters for you to monitor at a glance.