how to monitor battery usage?

[ultra99]

Does anyone monitor their battery usage?
I want to know how much I use on average?

 

[Arizona Willie]

Every morning I read the comics on my Surface Pro while having breakfast.


Then I pull up a spreadsheet that I have created and enter the information from the battery app.


Then it calculates what the full charge would be based on the percentage remaining and the time remaining shown in the battery app.


The battery app is virtually worthless. It calculates a full charge anywhere from one hour and 50 minutes to five hours and 45 minutes.


Microsoft should be ashamed of themselves for putting out a piece of trash like the battery app.

 

[ultra99]

Are there any reliable 3rd party software?

 

[machistmo]

powercfg.exe -batteryreport You dont need the spreadsheet unless you want to dump this data into one. The report dumps into your profile.

 

[Ruffles]

I use Battery Bar Pro. The main thing I like about it is the ability to switch power profile base on AC power or battery.

 

[demandarin]

I'm trying out the basic version of battery bar right now. Seems good as far as reporting goes. But you can't mess with any settings with free version.

As for powercfg.exe, I found a few of those applications in my file explorer. Not sure which one to use. Plus clicking on them flashes black box then disappears. Can't find where the info is dumped to like machistmo showed.

 

[machistmo]

You can also use these commands: NOTE taken from my work windows 7 box and commands may differ slighty in 8 simply use powercfg /? to get the commands list.

-ENERGY
Analyze the system for common energy-efficiency and battery life
problems. The ENERGY command should be used when the computer is
idle and with no open programs or documents. The ENERGY command
will generate an HTML report file in the current path. The ENERGY
command supports the following optional parameters:
Usage: POWERCFG -ENERGY [-OUTPUT <FILENAME>] [-XML]
[-DURATION <SECONDS>]
POWERCFG -ENERGY -TRACE [-D <FILEPATH>]
[-DURATION <SECONDS>]
-OUTPUT <FILENAME> - Specify the path and filename to store the
energy report HTML file.
-XML - Format the report file as XML.
-TRACE - Record system behavior and do not perform
analysis. Trace files will be generated in
the current path unless the -D parameter
is specified.
-D <FILEPATH> - Specify the directory to store trace data.
May only be used with the -TRACE parameter.
-DURATION <SECONDS> - Specify the number of seconds to observe
system behavior. Default is 60 seconds.

 

[Arizona Willie]

Where do you get Battery Bar Pro?
I searched in the Store and it didn't find it.

I will google for it but thought I would ask in case that doesn't work either.

Nevermind ... google does it again. Got it.

I use Battery Bar Pro. The main thing I like about it is the ability to switch power profile base on AC power or battery.

 

[demandarin]

I activated the free 30 day trial on full version. Its pretty good actually. Very convenient that its on task bar and shows you percentage of battery or how many hours life you have left, or how much time till battery is charged while plugged in. Also let's you change power modes and customize. Bar graphs also of battery performance.

 

[ultra99]

I should try that too.

But $8.... :/

 

[demandarin]

Just install the free basic version, then activate free 30 day trial for full version. No info needed. But even the free basic version does well on reporting

 

[machistmo]

I'm trying out the basic version of battery bar right now. Seems good as far as reporting goes. But you can't mess with any settings with free version.

As for powercfg.exe, I found a few of those applications in my file explorer. Not sure which one to use. Plus clicking on them flashes black box then disappears. Can't find where the info is dumped to like machistmo showed.

Its in the root of your profile. c:\users\%username%\battery report.html