Battery Buddy support thread

[direc85]

Hello!

Battery Buddy is an utility to monitor and control your Sailfish OS devices’ battery level and charging percentage. It lets you set a maximum (e.g. 85%) percentage when the charging stops, and a minimum (e.g. 75%) when it continues again. It can also alert you when the charge is getting low (e.g. 30%) and tell you details about your battery (condition, temperature etc.)

Battery Buddy has been reported to work with the following devices:

• F(x)tec Pro¹
• Fairphone 2
• Jolla Phone
• Sony Xperia 10 / 10 II / 10 III
• Sony Xperia X / X Compact
• Sony Xperia XA2 / XA2 Plus / XA2 Ultra
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact Tablet

You can install Battery Buddy using Storeman, or downloaded directly from Openrepos.net.

If something doesn’t work, there’s an unlisted device it works with, or there’s an unlisted device it doesn’t work with, drop in a message so we can fix it!

Thanks!

Battery Buddy 4.1.1

Highlights:

• Initial Jolla Tablet support (beta)
• Redesign the logo and battery graphic (finally!)
• Fixup! Use correct colors in battery graphic (4.1.1)
• Fixup! Enable low battery animation (4.1.1)
• Use ColumnView to show the log contents with formatting (thanks, nephros!)
• Print correct log file name (4.1.1)
• Move all subpages to MainPage pull down menu

Other nice stuff:

• Use custom ImageButton in About page
• Don’t try to use non-existent control files
• Log charging/discharging current
• Log temperature changes with resolution of one degree Celsius
• Update Swedish translation (thanks, eson57) (4.1.1)
• Update Polish translation (thanks, wetab73) (4.1.1)

Under the hood

• Search for control files using loops
• Remove unused signals from service
• Assume the charge current value always changes
• Invert the charge current sign if necessary
• Print changelog at the end of the build script
• Remove unused files
• Rename internal logging functions for clarity
• Update copyrights (4.1.1)
• Built with Sailfish OS SDK 3.9 for 4.4.0.68

[direc85]

If you are feeling adventurous, and don’t mind possibly having to revert to previous version, there’s now a 4.1.0 beta version available. It contains two major changes:

• Initial Jolla Tablet support (untested, as I don’t have the device)
• Changed logic for searching and selecting the correct /sys/class/power_supply/* files (WorksForMe™ with Sony Xperia 10 III)

It also now logs the momentary power consumption of the device.

[pherjung]

What are the main differences between Battery Buddy and Charge control?

[olf]

harbour-battery-charging-control (“Charge control”) solely controls the (Linux) kernel’s LRC (Limit range charge) sysfs entry.

Battery Buddy works differently and provides additional pieces of information and functions.

[pasik]

hmm, so JollaC hasn’t been tested so far?

[direc85]

No one has reported it, one way or another.

[wetab73]

Works fine on the 10 III. No problems so far. According to the logs, the 10 III goes as low as 32 mAh when sleeping, but even then there are frequent spikes to 200-300 mAh or (rarely) even 700 mAh. And that with almost everything disabled, actually only WiFi remaining active.

[direc85]

I’m getting similar readings; sometimes it’s almost down to 30mA, but every now and then it jumps to three digits - which is part of normal activity, I think (checking email happened to be running at the same time, or WhatsApp was synchronizing something etc.)

[wetab73]

@direc85

checking email happened to be running at the same

I’ve had email sync set to “Always up to date”. Let’s see if changing it to say every 5 minutes makes any difference. Other than that, the readings were taken when Android support was disabled so absolutely nothing was running on the Android side, and actually the very same on the SFOS side, i.e. Battery Buddy being the only application that has a background service, and nothing else running. Location, Bluetooth, mobile data disabled, only WiFi active.

[veskuy]

Thanks for the excellent utility, been using it a few months. I installed the beta on Xperia 10 ii, no problems so far.

[Volker_S]

I’ve been using Battery Buddy for over a year. And it works beautifully on my XA2+. Thanks for that nice app

[Speedy-10]

Hi direc85, thanks for improving this app. I installed the 4.1.0 beta and logged. After that I disabled everything (except: don’t disturb is enabled) on my Xperia 10 III and switched off the display for the measurement.
I’m interested, if your power consumption on your Xperia III is similar.
(Sorry, I can’t upload a .txt-file, so I had to took screenshots.)

[fingus]

First i like to thank the Maintainers of BatteryBuddy for their work on this nice Tool!

I have a design-suggestion for the shown current (milliAmpere).

Now it shows a negative current (e.g. -1293mA) when charging and a positive when discharging.

In my opinion it should be reverse (charging a positive Value and discharging a negative Value with minus (-) symbol before the current).

[Speedy-10]

@fingus

Now it shows a negative current (e.g. -1293mA) when charging and a positive when discharging.

In my opinion it should be reverse (charging a positive Value and discharging a negative Value with minus (-) symbol before the current).

In my case it is already in that way you suppose (see pictures).

[fingus]

The App-Overview (not the log) shows this behaviour:

[Speedy-10]

4.1.0 beta shows:

[fingus]

Thats nice but where to get? Chum and Storeman doesn´t offer to me a newer Version.

[Speedy-10]

→ second comment

[wetab73]

@Speedy-10 You should actually be quite satisfied with the power consumption of your 10 III. Your logs show 1% drop every ~1,5 hours, In my case it is 2% per hour.

EDIT: Today it is slightly better, it was almost exactly 1% per hour on 4 consecutive hours. This is a new device, so maybe the battery is yet to obtain its full capacity, which usually takes a few full charging cycles. We shall see.

What was enabled on your phone when you were taking those measurements? Phone, mobile data, WiFi, Bluetooth, location. etc?

@fingus, this negative vs. positive current is not application version dependent but device dependent. It is how the devices themselves report it. Older models (e.g. XA2) show positive for discharching and negative for charging whereas the 10 III reports it in a reverse way.

[wetab73]

@direc85 If I may a small feature request, would it be possible in the log screen to display battery percentage in a slightly different color than the rest? This would allow to easily see how/when the battery level was dropping. Now it is quite difficult to find it among the other data. Thank you!