Hi !
I have a nook HD+ which has been behaving strangely. Its battery life has reduced lately. I initially had problems with 'media' and 'SDcard' draining it quickly. But I was able to check that by formatting my SD card and deleting two 0 kB files in my internal memory.
However, the battery life, since, has not improved much. Moreover, I have started to see a few spikes in the battery charge chart (like the one in the pictures attached with this post) without having plugged the Nook in.
I am on CM 11 snapshot M8. I have already tried calibrating my battery by charging it to 100% and then removing batterystats.bin system file through PlayStore's 'Battery calibration' app, but the issue still remains unresolved.
Has anyone else faced a similar issue with her or his Nook ?
You cannot calibrate batteries in Android. Those silly apps just delete batterystats.bin and that is an Android file responsible for the statistics seen in your third screenshot. It gets deleted automatically when you unplug the charger at an almost 100% charge level, and it has nothing to do with the reported battery level!
The battery percentage as shown by Android comes from the kernel, the power management unit (PMU) driver to be more specific. The PMU, which usually is a separate chip inside the device, is responsible for monitoring, charging, and discharging the battery, among other things. There are many different PMU models, so this is highly hardware-dependent, and there most likely are no apps out there that can directly talk to all the existing PMUs to do something that's actually meaningful (which deleting batterystats.bin is not).
The only thing you can do is once in a while discharge the battery until the device turns off, then recharge it in one go to full capacity. That way, the PMU hopefully "calibrates" its battery monitoring by itself and should report more accurate state of charge values again. Measuring a battery's state of charge is rather difficult and not an exact science. Those percentage values are only estimates. So, the spikes you see on the battery percentage chart are a result of the imperfect method that is used to calculate the current battery percentage. Maybe this gets worse with aging batteries, I don't know. There's nothing really you can do, other than the complete discharge/recharge cycle you've already tried. Maybe a future firmware will come with a better battery percentage calculation method - but as I said, this is totally independent from Android, it's a low-level hardware and kernel driver thing.
Thanks a lot. A very informative post indeed !
Full battery charge/discharge cycles seems like the only solution then.
How will it affect the battery and its capacity to retain the charge though ?
To prevent any misunderstanding: you should definitely not discharge your lithium-ion based batteries to 0% all the time. Li-ion batteries live longer if they are kept between 40% and 80% charge. At 80% you won't get the full capacity / runtime, of course, but the battery will be able to endure more charge/discharge cycles that way. As I said, discharging to 0% followed by recharing to 100% should only be done occasionally, if you feel that the reported battery percentage has become too inaccurate. It probably won't fix the "ghost recharging" seen on the Nook and other devices. What probably happens here is that the battery's voltage is factored into the state of charge calculation. Li-ion batteries are usually charged to 4.2V per cell, which is "100%", and discharged to some arbitrary voltage, e.g. 3.5V, which would be considered "0%". Inbetween, the voltage curve is not linear. That is, 50% would not necessarily correspond to 3.85V (=(4.2+3.5) / 2). Also, the voltage depends on the power draw to some extent. If the tablet draws a higher current from the battery, the voltage will sag. If you then put the tablet into standby, reducing the current to a very small value, the battery voltage will recover and increase again a bit. This is what might cause those spikes (although they shouldn't be that large).
This and more can be learned on Battery University. And here's a source for the batterystats.bin calibration myth.
Thanks a lot Tzul. You have been very helpful !!
I may have to replace my battery soon. If the battery life does not improve, I guess I will have to buy a replacement battery from a third party replacement battery seller.
My XT1092, recently got updated to Lollipop i.e. Android 5.0
Two of my battery runs, starting from 100% full charge came down to like 5% and the phone shut down automatically as if it was 0%
Also on a side note, i did not put any mode on the battery saver mode for those two runs.
Now to test it, i kept my battery saver to start at 5% but i am not sure if it will run at 5% or just shut down
Anyone got an idea/solution for this issue ??
P.S. Even Motorola care chat, does not have an answer, all they said is to keep my phone in safe mode for a day and check it out....
Mine just did this the other day. When I pressed the power button it showed the battery with a little red fill and a huge yellow triangle with an exclamation mark in it. Also happened last night.
I have also had the same issue xt1092 and on lollipop.
well...
yea man, so the thing is motorola support said that, keep ur phone in safe mode for a day and recheck the issue...
so idk... :/
i am checking my battery use and for now i have kept my battery saver on 5% so i hope it starts on battery saver itself.. rather than shutting down...
My XT1095 does the same thing. Really annoying! Its really lying to you about how much battery is left if its going to do that. I just know that if i'm going below 10% i better run to find a charger ASAP!
M3drvr said:
My XT1095 does the same thing. Really annoying! Its really lying to you about how much battery is left if its going to do that. I just know that if i'm going below 10% i better run to find a charger ASAP!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it is quite misleading to say the least..
i did not have this issue with KitKat though..
might be a lollipop thing only
I'll join this list. Really annoying, and never happened on 4.4.4
I've never let my battery get that low honestly, but...
Keep in mind that your battery percentage is completely an estimate. Battery capacity is measured in mAh, but there's no way to measure the current charge capacity in mAh of a battery. The only way to do so would be to run all of the power out of the battery and record the power over time, but then you'd have a dead battery. As a result, the system estimates your remaining battery capacity as a percentage based on the current voltage of the battery. But that can be different depending upon how quickly you've drained the battery and other factors.
So, Android has methods built-in which automatically calibrate the battery, but they only work properly if you fully charge and discharge your device on a regular basis. A battery starts off weak, then it gains strength after a few charging cycles, finally over time it peaks and then begins to taper off as far as battery life goes.
You've likely not taken your device to 0% for a while. The android solution is to fully discharge and recharge your battery a few times to allow it to recalibrate. Slow charging is the best for recalibration. Plug it into a computer for 500mAh charging rather than using a charger. Chargers can charge quicker(1.5A) but do not allow the device to calibrate as well due to the high amperage.
So, just use your device and let it drain fully, and charge fully on a computer USB port and it should recalibrate itself.
InspectifierWrectifier said:
So, Android has methods built-in which automatically calibrate the battery, but they only work properly if you fully charge and discharge your device on a regular basis. A battery starts off weak, then it gains strength after a few charging cycles, finally over time it peaks and then begins to taper off as far as battery life goes.
You've likely not taken your device to 0% for a while. The android solution is to fully discharge and recharge your battery a few times to allow it to recalibrate. Slow charging is the best for recalibration. Plug it into a computer for 500mAh charging rather than using a charger. Chargers can charge quicker(1.5A) but do not allow the device to calibrate as well due to the high amperage.
So, just use your device and let it drain fully, and charge fully on a computer USB port and it should recalibrate itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While it does help the calibration, it's very bad for your battery to do this deep discharge multiple times.
raptir said:
I've never let my battery get that low honestly, but...
Keep in mind that your battery percentage is completely an estimate. Battery capacity is measured in mAh, but there's no way to measure the current charge capacity in mAh of a battery. The only way to do so would be to run all of the power out of the battery and record the power over time, but then you'd have a dead battery. As a result, the system estimates your remaining battery capacity as a percentage based on the current voltage of the battery. But that can be different depending upon how quickly you've drained the battery and other factors.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sometimes you don't have a choice about letting battery drain get that far.
But regardless, its most definitely an issue with lollipop. Uncountable android devices, and this is the first time I've ever experienced this issue. Happens religiously at 5%. So its never happened before on any device I've used, including this moto x pure on KitKat, and it always happens at 5%.
If it were a true calibration issue, one would think it'd happen at different percentages. However I'm certain this is a bug.
qwerty12601 said:
Sometimes you don't have a choice about letting battery drain get that far.
But regardless, its most definitely an issue with lollipop. Uncountable android devices, and this is the first time I've ever experienced this issue. Happens religiously at 5%. So its never happened before on any device I've used, including this moto x pure on KitKat, and it always happens at 5%.
If it were a true calibration issue, one would think it'd happen at different percentages. However I'm certain this is a bug.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand that you don't always have a choice, I just meant that I have no insight as to the possible bug since I've never experienced it. And to clarify, it's not really a "calibration" issue, it's a matter of there is no way to accurately measure the charge of the battery.
Honestly, Google could have even implemented this intentionally in order to prevent damage to the battery from a deep discharge.
raptir said:
I understand that you don't always have a choice, I just meant that I have no insight as to the possible bug since I've never experienced it. And to clarify, it's not really a "calibration" issue, it's a matter of there is no way to accurately measure the charge of the battery.
Honestly, Google could have even implemented this intentionally in order to prevent damage to the battery from a deep discharge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But android has been completely accurate in the past. Right down to 1 single percent.
And there's no way google implemented this as a safety feature. If they were legitimately trying to do this, they'd just have the battery monitor read less than actual capacity as to not confuse the operator.
As well as they have what they believed to be a big feature, "battery saver" which has the option to activate at 5%. So them killing your phone at 5% intentionally doesn't hold water.
qwerty12601 said:
But android has been completely accurate in the past. Right down to 1 single percent.
And there's no way google implemented this as a safety feature. If they were legitimately trying to do this, they'd just have the battery monitor read less than actual capacity as to not confuse the operator.
As well as they have what they believed to be a big feature, "battery saver" which has the option to activate at 5%. So them killing your phone at 5% intentionally doesn't hold water.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No it hasn't. It may not have shut down until after it read 1%, but it has not been accurate because there is no accurate way to measure the current charge of a battery.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_measure_state_of_charge
The fact that it consistently shuts down at 5% does seem like a bug, but it's a very odd bug since it seems like there would have to be some code to specifically tell the phone to shut down.
raptir said:
No it hasn't. It may not have shut down until after it read 1%, but it has not been accurate because there is no accurate way to measure the current charge of a battery.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_measure_state_of_charge
The fact that it consistently shuts down at 5% does seem like a bug, but it's a very odd bug since it seems like there would have to be some code to specifically tell the phone to shut down.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Every android device I've owned, probably 12, including the 3 still in service with me (moto x before lollipop, nexus 7, nexus 4) all have accurate battery meters right down to 1%. Now are they adjusting on the fly and lowering/raising battery percent to accurately match calculations? Probably. But it adjusts to where the battery meter will read down to the very last percent. No surprises.
The whole point of this thread us that some moto x pures are shutting down at 5%. Maybe the battery really is at 0%, maybe its at 5 or 10%, but its a "bug" that the phone is shutting off at 5%. Its rather a flaw in on the fly calculations where its not accurately adjusting at lower percentages, or a software flaw. But it's a bug either way. That's the complaint here.
raptir said:
Honestly, Google could have even implemented this intentionally in order to prevent damage to the battery from a deep discharge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is was Microsoft did with their Surface tablets, you can change it, I have mine set to power off at 10%
raptir said:
While it does help the calibration, it's very bad for your battery to do this deep discharge multiple times.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong. this is the recommended way to use every mobile phone battery. A full charge and discharge is called a cycle, and cycles are how battery lives are rated.
InspectifierWrectifier said:
Wrong. this is the recommended way to use every mobile phone battery. A full charge and discharge is called a cycle, and cycles are how battery lives are rated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please don't just post "wrong" without anything to back it up.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
Table 2 provides details as to why what I said is correct. A 50% discharge will not degrade to 70% capacity for 3-4x as many cycles as a 100% discharge. That amounts to up to double the useful life of the battery assuming your usage stays the same.
InspectifierWrectifier said:
Wrong. this is the recommended way to use every mobile phone battery. A full charge and discharge is called a cycle, and cycles are how battery lives are rated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have fun killing your battery very quickly by fully discharging all the time
raptir said:
Please don't just post "wrong" without anything to back it up.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
Table 2 provides details as to why what I said is correct. A 50% discharge will not degrade to 70% capacity for 3-4x as many cycles as a 100% discharge. That amounts to up to double the useful life of the battery assuming your usage stays the same.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mobile device batteries are designed to be "fully" depleted. They are software controlled. You will never discharge a properly controlled battery 100%. This is why your device still has power to turn on and tell you that the battery is too low to turn on.
There are always exceptions to the rule. However, mainstream devices will almost always keep the battery at a safe level.
You cannot use a single chart on all lithium ion batteries. In fact, every one is different due to chemical and annode/cathode changes. This is why every battery has its own MDS for shipping purposes.
The small changes to batteries cause them to react differently to different usage patterns. When designing a battery these reaction patterns are supposed to be accounted for in the battery calibration.
A key engineering principal: a device should never be capable of destroying itself. Full discharge is normal operation for most devices.
Samsung Phone Battery Calibration Guide
Description:
This guide is for those who are experiencing battery issues (e.g., battery suddenly dying at percentages >1% or battery draining too fast or messed up battery readings after custom ROM flash). If your phone is relatively new, unless if it came with a factory defect or you somehow managed to physically damage it, the battery shouldn’t need to be calibrated like this.
Lithium-Ion batteries really do degrade over time (e.g., voltage sag, electron migration, possibility of dendrites even) at around 500 or so full charge-discharge cycles and as such, old batteries will NEVER perform as well as new ones despite how much calibration you try to perform. You CAN NOT improve battery life with calibration and what this serves to do is just to make the phone read more accurate battery percentages to prevent aforementioned battery related issues from occurring, especially when one flashes custom ROMS quite regularly.
Also, despite what many apps claim to do, this guide is actually more effective than those, at least based on personal experience, in actually performing battery calibration on Samsung devices since even apps that require root permissions only delete the batterystats.bin file after telling the user to charge to 100% after a drain to 0% and as explained below, this solely can not fix your problems nor really do anything to calibrate your battery on your phone so results from these types of apps are really a hit-or-miss affair to say the very least.
Requirements:
Samsung/TouchWiz/OneUI Based Firmware/ROM
Phone Dialer App
A Samsung Phone with a poorly performing inaccurate battery that isn't really required to be replaced yet
USSD Code *#0228# (For Battery Menu & Fuel Gauge Reset)
USSD Code *#9900# (For System Dump Menu & Battery Stats Bin Reset)
*Quick Reset is a built-in function exclusive to Samsung phones used by their tech & support to really calibrate phones that are reading very inaccurate battery percentages by resetting the battery fuel gauge (no app or script can do what this does as far as I know, at least for Samsung phones and it has been proven to be very effective at making the phone more accurately read how much the phone is using relative to maximum battery capacity and usage)
*Resetting batterystats.bin, while it does not really calibrate nor improve your battery like what a lot of people espouse, what it does do is reset the battery information file so that the phone would be "fresh" and the battery usage learning A.I. such as adaptive battery won't accidentally base its optimizations on your old "inaccurate" usage and battery performance
Method 1 (Best Method)
1. Drain Battery to 5%
2. Open phone dialer and type *#0228# then click “Quick Start” then press “OK” when the warning prompt comes up (note that this won’t work if you are plugged in still so unplug first before attempting to run this USSD code)
3. Wait for phone screen to turn on again and notice your battery percentage (it should have gone down to your actual battery percentage)
4. Charge the device to 100% without interruptions
5. Turn off the phone then turn it on again then unplug it from the Charger
6. Repeat Steps 2-4 for around 3 more times (after approximately the third time, battery readings should be leveled out and it should read 100% even after pressing quick start; if not, repeat a few more times and if it still won’t level out then that means your battery is yearning for a replacement)
7. With the phone plugged in at 100%, go back to phone dialer and type *#9900# then scroll down to “batterystats.bin reset” and click it
8. Exit the SysDump Menu and reboot the phone
9. Repeat Steps 1-8 after a week
10. Enjoy More Accurate Battery Readings!
Method 2 (Quicker Alternative to Method 1)
1. Open phone dialer and type *#0228# then click “Quick Start” then press “OK” when the warning prompt comes up (note that this won’t work if you are plugged in still so unplug first before attempting to run this USSD code)
2. Wait for phone screen to turn on again and notice your battery percentage (it should have gone down to your actual battery percentage)
3. Charge the device to 100% without interruptions
4. Repeat Steps 1-3 for around 3 more times (after approximately the third time, battery readings should be leveled out and it should read 100% even after pressing quick start; if not, repeat a few more times and if it still won’t level out then that means your battery is yearning for a replacement)
5. Repeat Steps 1-4 after a week
6. Enjoy More Accurate Battery Readings!
Method 3 (For Phones That Don’t Have the USSD Codes Mentioned Like Non-Samsung Phones)
1. Drain battery to 0%
2. Turn off the phone
3. Charge to 100% without interruptions
4. Turn on phone then if battery isn’t at 100%, charge until 100%
5. Unplug then reboot
6. If again the battery isn’t at 100%, charge until 100% then repeat as many times as necessary until 100% is 100% even after a reboot
7. Enjoy More Accurate Battery Readings!
Method 4 (Not Recommended and ONLY for EXTREMELY BAD cases of Battery Calibration)
1. Drain battery to 0%
2. Turn the phone back on
3. If it dies again, keep turning it on repeatedly until the boot logo/animation doesn’t show up anymore
4. Charge until 100% while the phone is off without interruptions
5. Turn on the phone
6. Enjoy More Accurate Battery Readings!
*Note that Methods 1 & 2, at least based on personal experience with Samsung phones, are the most effective ones while Method 3 is a more generic methodology that may work for non-Samsung phones as well. On the other hand, method 4 MAY POTENTIALLY hasten battery degradation if done too often so it isn’t really advised to do so unless if the phone has no USSD codes aforementioned even on its stock firmware and battery readings are already a mess.
*You can try to flash your latest stock firmware if the USSD codes aren’t supported by your current custom ROM (e.g., CM, LineageOS, Note7 Port, etc.) then perform Methods 1 or 2 then use the phone for a few charge-discharge cycles then go back and flash your preferred custom Recovery, ROM, Kernel, Vendor, API, Mods, Root, etc.…
*If any of the above methods do not seem to work, then your battery is basically waving goodbye at you…
Here are some notable Q&A's regarding the process:
Q: Is my 2+ year old battery going to improve after this process?
A: It's hard to say as it is dependent upon many different factors such as how you use your phone, how many times you run it down to 0%, how often you charge, etc.... In short, it may or may not work in your favor as by this point, you are usually up to your 1000th+ charge cycle and the degradation can be so much so as to warrant a battery replacement instead of any software-related methodologies such as the guide above.
Q: Is there a way to link certain mV readings of the battery to its charge percentage?
A: I'm afraid this is very difficult if impossible and impractical since battery voltage readings regularly fluctuate by significant amounts during use and when not in use, depending on the workload and current draw. As such, voltage readings shouldn't be your main basis, if at all, when calibrating your battery. Sure, the voltage readings do go down when your charge goes down, but from 100%-90% the voltage for Lithium Ion batteries could be 4.2v-4v, and for around 80%-40% it could be around 3.9v-3.7v so the voltage vis a vis charge percentage is non-linear and variable, therefore not feasibly linkable to charge percentage.
Q: Do you really need to wipe the battery stats bin file as the old saying goes?
A: No not really since it has already been debunked that wiping this particular file only wipes the battery usage information such as the one visible from device care or in the settings, not the max or min limits of the battery percentage or anything else of further use. I only specifically included it in this guide so that you could start monitoring your battery performance from scratch and not get confused with your old usage and battery performance, since adaptive technology that uses A.I. such as adaptive battery in newer Android versions base their decisions on your past usage and having your old usage there to base on wouldn't be recommended if you want a fresh start.
Q: Is bump charging (charging to 100% unplugging then charging back to 100% repeatedly) recommended?
A: It isn't incredibly bad to do once and a while, although personally I wouldn't recommended doing so often. This is because with bump charging, you are basically trying to bypass the maximum limitations set by the OEM's as to how much you can charge past "100%" since "100%" on the phone isn't really that, instead it is sometimes around 85%-95% in reality so that you are physically limited from normally charging your Li-Ion battery to true full since this is very bad for its performance, longevity, and goes against its recommended usage. The same principle applies to the phone's "0%" in which it isn't actually true 0% as allowing the user to reach this would mean battery death in which it's own circuitry would shut it off to the point that you cannot recharge it without special equipment.
Q: Why do I see many different ways to calibrate and use the battery fuel gauge reset technique?
A: This is because Samsung hasn't given any official statements nor guides regarding this tool since they only use it internally and why would they teach the public how to use it if the users can just send in their phones to their service centers and they can charge them as they see fit? Well, conspiracy aside, some batteries and phones react differently to certain methodologies in which some phones, after tapping the reset fuel gauge, would actually jump up in percentage instead of normally dropping down. Some can get stuck at a certain percentage and some won't. Additionally, different people interpret the way the fuel gauge reset works differently so different guides can tell you different ways to do it, correct or not. As an example, this guide may not be correct at all yet as long as it works to some extent based on personal experience, then I don't see the harm in trying.
Q: Why is my phone draining faster after doing this fuel gauge reset?
A: It may be because the intent for resetting the gauge is so that it could try to figure out on its own more accurate readings and initially, at least for the first three charge-discharge cycles or so, it is still finding out if the battery should be at this percentage or that percentage. It is sort of like training itself but it should settle down after a few full charges and discharges.
Q: Can I trust battery health apps even if they request root access?
A: This can make them seem legit, but most of the time their effects are negligible at best. Take what they advertise with a grain of salt always. This is since no app can ever truly determine actual battery health and you usually need hardware tools for that since even Android can only say "Good" under battery health and no further details whatsoever.
Q: When I buy a new battery, is it actually new and better?
A: This depends on whether the battery you got was manufactured recently or back when your phone was still in the market. Remember that batteries degrade even when not in use and when stored, so always check the manufacture date of your battery and also check if it isn't some cheap Chinese knock-off imitation (fire-hazard beware!). If you aren't sure, just let Samsung deal with the battery replacement, albeit more costly.
Q: For the J7 Prime specifically, how good can I expect the battery to be?
A: As a long-time owner of this device as long as it first came out in early 2017, I could say that when you have installed recent Android versions through custom ROMS, like Android 9 Pie to Android 10 Q, the battery drain can be much more significant than it was back when it was specially on Android 6 MM since there are a lot more processes, app updates designed for more powerful phones, A.I. technology in the background, and new ways by which the OS works in general so it is tailored for newer and better devices and making it work on this relatively old phone is like running Windows 10 with all its features on a kid's computer from the 90's. Generally, with mixed usage, the phone can last you through the day with a single charge in the morning, with around 3-4 hours of screen on time. When gaming or streaming, SOT can be around 2-3 hours. Standby drain is noticeably worse on newer versions of Android as well. Back on marshmallow, the device can last around 2 days on mixed usage with 4-6 hours screen on time and very insignificant standby drain. Also, note that the device was newer back then so there's that.
Q: Can certain ROMS affect battery performance?
A: Absolutely! I've used unofficial CyanogenMod ROMS back then on my older phones and the battery drain was horrendous with around 2 hours battery life on standby and around 30 minutes or so of SOT! It all depends on how well optimized the ROMS are for the device so always check the feedback and developer's notes before installing any new custom ROM around here.
Q: Why is my phone battery percentage different in TWRP or OrangeFox Recovery than it is inside the OS?
A: This can happen on some devices such as the J7 Prime and other devices from other manufacturers even. I do not know for sure why, but it could be (1), either the recovery or the OS is delayed in reading the correct battery percentage and are out of sync, (2) a bug with the recovery or is device-specific, or (3) the battery needs calibration, although this last one isn't usually the case for phones such as the J7P where this "difference" could appear from time to time even when the battery is already well calibrated.
Thank you for that guide! I used it to calibrate my A70 Battery (4000 mAh) which i use in my A7 2018 (original 3000 mAh). I did the second method and had to do the 3 steps about 7 times. I had to restart my phone after every try to get my real percentage, it usually jumped from 100% fully charged to 65%.
Mightx said:
Samsung Phone Battery Calibration Guide
Description:
This guide is for those who are experiencing battery issues (e.g., battery suddenly dying at percentages >1% or battery draining too fast or messed up battery readings after custom ROM flash). If your phone is relatively new, unless if it came with a factory defect or you somehow managed to physically damage it, the battery shouldn’t need to be calibrated like this.
Lithium-Ion batteries really do degrade over time (e.g., voltage sag, electron migration, possibility of dendrites even) at around 500 or so full charge-discharge cycles and as such, old batteries will NEVER perform as well as new ones despite how much calibration you try to perform. You CAN NOT improve battery life with calibration and what this serves to do is just to make the phone read more accurate battery percentages to prevent aforementioned battery related issues from occurring, especially when one flashes custom ROMS quite regularly.
Also, despite what many apps claim to do, this guide is actually more effective than those, at least based on personal experience, in actually performing battery calibration on Samsung devices since even apps that require root permissions only delete the batterystats.bin file after telling the user to charge to 100% after a drain to 0% and as explained below, this solely can not fix your problems nor really do anything to calibrate your battery on your phone so results from these types of apps are really a hit-or-miss affair to say the very least.
Requirements:
Samsung/TouchWiz/OneUI Based Firmware/ROM
Phone Dialer App
A Samsung Phone with a poorly performing inaccurate battery that isn't really required to be replaced yet
USSD Code *#0228# (For Battery Menu & Fuel Gauge Reset)
USSD Code *#9900# (For System Dump Menu & Battery Stats Bin Reset)
*Quick Reset is a built-in function exclusive to Samsung phones used by their tech & support to really calibrate phones that are reading very inaccurate battery percentages by resetting the battery fuel gauge (no app or script can do what this does as far as I know, at least for Samsung phones and it has been proven to be very effective at making the phone more accurately read how much the phone is using relative to maximum battery capacity and usage)
*Resetting batterystats.bin, while it does not really calibrate nor improve your battery like what a lot of people espouse, what it does do is reset the battery information file so that the phone would be "fresh" and the battery usage learning A.I. such as adaptive battery won't accidentally base its optimizations on your old "inaccurate" usage and battery performance
Method 1 (Best Method)
1. Drain Battery to 5%
2. Open phone dialer and type *#0228# then click “Quick Start” then press “OK” when the warning prompt comes up (note that this won’t work if you are plugged in still so unplug first before attempting to run this USSD code)
3. Wait for phone screen to turn on again and notice your battery percentage (it should have gone down to your actual battery percentage)
4. Charge the device to 100% without interruptions
5. Turn off the phone then turn it on again then unplug it from the Charger
6. Repeat Steps 2-4 for around 3 more times (after approximately the third time, battery readings should be leveled out and it should read 100% even after pressing quick start; if not, repeat a few more times and if it still won’t level out then that means your battery is yearning for a replacement)
7. With the phone plugged in at 100%, go back to phone dialer and type *#9900# then scroll down to “batterystats.bin reset” and click it
8. Exit the SysDump Menu and reboot the phone
9. Repeat Steps 1-8 after a week
10. Enjoy More Accurate Battery Readings!
Method 2 (Quicker Alternative to Method 1)
1. Open phone dialer and type *#0228# then click “Quick Start” then press “OK” when the warning prompt comes up (note that this won’t work if you are plugged in still so unplug first before attempting to run this USSD code)
2. Wait for phone screen to turn on again and notice your battery percentage (it should have gone down to your actual battery percentage)
3. Charge the device to 100% without interruptions
4. Repeat Steps 1-3 for around 3 more times (after approximately the third time, battery readings should be leveled out and it should read 100% even after pressing quick start; if not, repeat a few more times and if it still won’t level out then that means your battery is yearning for a replacement)
5. Repeat Steps 1-4 after a week
6. Enjoy More Accurate Battery Readings!
Method 3 (For Phones That Don’t Have the USSD Codes Mentioned Like Non-Samsung Phones)
1. Drain battery to 0%
2. Turn off the phone
3. Charge to 100% without interruptions
4. Turn on phone then if battery isn’t at 100%, charge until 100%
5. Unplug then reboot
6. If again the battery isn’t at 100%, charge until 100% then repeat as many times as necessary until 100% is 100% even after a reboot
7. Enjoy More Accurate Battery Readings!
Method 4 (Not Recommended and ONLY for EXTREMELY BAD cases of Battery Calibration)
1. Drain battery to 0%
2. Turn the phone back on
3. If it dies again, keep turning it on repeatedly until the boot logo/animation doesn’t show up anymore
4. Charge until 100% while the phone is off without interruptions
5. Turn on the phone
6. Enjoy More Accurate Battery Readings!
*Note that Methods 1 & 2, at least based on personal experience with Samsung phones, are the most effective ones while Method 3 is a more generic methodology that may work for non-Samsung phones as well. On the other hand, method 4 MAY POTENTIALLY hasten battery degradation if done too often so it isn’t really advised to do so unless if the phone has no USSD codes aforementioned even on its stock firmware and battery readings are already a mess.
*You can try to flash your latest stock firmware if the USSD codes aren’t supported by your current custom ROM (e.g., CM, LineageOS, Note7 Port, etc.) then perform Methods 1 or 2 then use the phone for a few charge-discharge cycles then go back and flash your preferred custom Recovery, ROM, Kernel, Vendor, API, Mods, Root, etc.…
*If any of the above methods do not seem to work, then your battery is basically waving goodbye at you…
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello, I followed the first method for my tab S4, it was shutting down instantly as soon as it reached 15- 20 %. but it happened sometimes, not everyday.
So I did as you told in the first method, but I think I probably messed up somewhere, Now what is happening is, as soon as it reaches above 60% during charging, it slows down to like how it slowly charges when above 90%.
Battery backup is as same as before, so that it means its reading 65% as 100%.
How can I rectify it, battery is getting fully charged as 65 - 70%.
How can I reset the gauge again so that it shows correct percentage.
kingrohan said:
Hello, I followed the first method for my tab S4, it was shutting down instantly as soon as it reached 15- 20 %. but it happened sometimes, not everyday.
So I did as you told in the first method, but I think I probably messed up somewhere, Now what is happening is, as soon as it reaches above 60% during charging, it slows down to like how it slowly charges when above 90%.
Battery backup is as same as before, so that it means its reading 65% as 100%.
How can I rectify it, battery is getting fully charged as 65 - 70%.
How can I reset the gauge again so that it shows correct percentage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try repeating the procedure again. It might work it might not. Sometimes phones might read way off so try again. Drain it then repeat steps
Rakeshrh said:
J7 nxt efs folder send me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you'd someone else's imei number if they gave you their efs folder.
I am not sure about this but I think I found a method to skip step 6. and immediately get 100%.
You just have to download an app like AccuBattery or something similar and look for "charge current". I noticed that when my phone reached 100% the charge current was still very high for like 20 minutes or so and after that it dropped to a low value near 0 indicating that the battery was full. If the app is legit than you could use this method to charge the phone to your real 100%.
I quick started once after this method and the phone was still at 100%.
Emre67511 said:
I am not sure about this but I think I found a method to skip step 6. and immediately get 100%.
You just have to download an app like AccuBattery or something similar and look for "charge current". I noticed that when my phone reached 100% the charge current was still very high for like 20 minutes or so and after that it dropped to a low value near 0 indicating that the battery was full. If the app is legit than you could use this method to charge the phone to your real 100%.
I quick started once after this method and the phone was still at 100%.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes the voltage and current stay a bit high as if it were plugged in even though it is not and that is for a few minutes or so, but after that it would normally drop to more or less its "actual" readings unplugged. Personally can't vouch for accubattery and the like, but any app that reads the sensor that is responsible for battery voltage and current should more or less be the one to look at, of course different apps might poll differently so updating the info might take time and there may be variances but if using apps like these help in determining when the battery is at around 100%, then sure you could use this method.
Mightx said:
Samsung Phone Battery Calibration Guide
Description:
This guide is for those who are experiencing battery issues (e.g., battery suddenly dying at percentages >1% or battery draining too fast or messed up battery readings after custom ROM flash). If your phone is relatively new, unless if it came with a factory defect or you somehow managed to physically damage it, the battery shouldn’t need to be calibrated like this.
Lithium-Ion batteries really do degrade over time (e.g., voltage sag, electron migration, possibility of dendrites even) at around 500 or so full charge-discharge cycles and as such, old batteries will NEVER perform as well as new ones despite how much calibration you try to perform. You CAN NOT improve battery life with calibration and what this serves to do is just to make the phone read more accurate battery percentages to prevent aforementioned battery related issues from occurring, especially when one flashes custom ROMS quite regularly.
Also, despite what many apps claim to do, this guide is actually more effective than those, at least based on personal experience, in actually performing battery calibration on Samsung devices since even apps that require root permissions only delete the batterystats.bin file after telling the user to charge to 100% after a drain to 0% and as explained below, this solely can not fix your problems nor really do anything to calibrate your battery on your phone so results from these types of apps are really a hit-or-miss affair to say the very least.
Requirements:
Samsung/TouchWiz/OneUI Based Firmware/ROM
Phone Dialer App
A Samsung Phone with a poorly performing inaccurate battery that isn't really required to be replaced yet
USSD Code *#0228# (For Battery Menu & Fuel Gauge Reset)
USSD Code *#9900# (For System Dump Menu & Battery Stats Bin Reset)
*Quick Reset is a built-in function exclusive to Samsung phones used by their tech & support to really calibrate phones that are reading very inaccurate battery percentages by resetting the battery fuel gauge (no app or script can do what this does as far as I know, at least for Samsung phones and it has been proven to be very effective at making the phone more accurately read how much the phone is using relative to maximum battery capacity and usage)
*Resetting batterystats.bin, while it does not really calibrate nor improve your battery like what a lot of people espouse, what it does do is reset the battery information file so that the phone would be "fresh" and the battery usage learning A.I. such as adaptive battery won't accidentally base its optimizations on your old "inaccurate" usage and battery performance
Method 1 (Best Method)
1. Drain Battery to 5%
2. Open phone dialer and type *#0228# then click “Quick Start” then press “OK” when the warning prompt comes up (note that this won’t work if you are plugged in still so unplug first before attempting to run this USSD code)
3. Wait for phone screen to turn on again and notice your battery percentage (it should have gone down to your actual battery percentage)
4. Charge the device to 100% without interruptions
5. Turn off the phone then turn it on again then unplug it from the Charger
6. Repeat Steps 2-4 for around 3 more times (after approximately the third time, battery readings should be leveled out and it should read 100% even after pressing quick start; if not, repeat a few more times and if it still won’t level out then that means your battery is yearning for a replacement)
7. With the phone plugged in at 100%, go back to phone dialer and type *#9900# then scroll down to “batterystats.bin reset” and click it
8. Exit the SysDump Menu and reboot the phone
9. Repeat Steps 1-8 after a week
10. Enjoy More Accurate Battery Readings!
Method 2 (Quicker Alternative to Method 1)
1. Open phone dialer and type *#0228# then click “Quick Start” then press “OK” when the warning prompt comes up (note that this won’t work if you are plugged in still so unplug first before attempting to run this USSD code)
2. Wait for phone screen to turn on again and notice your battery percentage (it should have gone down to your actual battery percentage)
3. Charge the device to 100% without interruptions
4. Repeat Steps 1-3 for around 3 more times (after approximately the third time, battery readings should be leveled out and it should read 100% even after pressing quick start; if not, repeat a few more times and if it still won’t level out then that means your battery is yearning for a replacement)
5. Repeat Steps 1-4 after a week
6. Enjoy More Accurate Battery Readings!
Method 3 (For Phones That Don’t Have the USSD Codes Mentioned Like Non-Samsung Phones)
1. Drain battery to 0%
2. Turn off the phone
3. Charge to 100% without interruptions
4. Turn on phone then if battery isn’t at 100%, charge until 100%
5. Unplug then reboot
6. If again the battery isn’t at 100%, charge until 100% then repeat as many times as necessary until 100% is 100% even after a reboot
7. Enjoy More Accurate Battery Readings!
Method 4 (Not Recommended and ONLY for EXTREMELY BAD cases of Battery Calibration)
1. Drain battery to 0%
2. Turn the phone back on
3. If it dies again, keep turning it on repeatedly until the boot logo/animation doesn’t show up anymore
4. Charge until 100% while the phone is off without interruptions
5. Turn on the phone
6. Enjoy More Accurate Battery Readings!
*Note that Methods 1 & 2, at least based on personal experience with Samsung phones, are the most effective ones while Method 3 is a more generic methodology that may work for non-Samsung phones as well. On the other hand, method 4 MAY POTENTIALLY hasten battery degradation if done too often so it isn’t really advised to do so unless if the phone has no USSD codes aforementioned even on its stock firmware and battery readings are already a mess.
*You can try to flash your latest stock firmware if the USSD codes aren’t supported by your current custom ROM (e.g., CM, LineageOS, Note7 Port, etc.) then perform Methods 1 or 2 then use the phone for a few charge-discharge cycles then go back and flash your preferred custom Recovery, ROM, Kernel, Vendor, API, Mods, Root, etc.…
*If any of the above methods do not seem to work, then your battery is basically waving goodbye at you…
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hello i have followed the 1st and 2nd Method for my s9 plus phone because my phone drain to 5 percent in a blink after it reach 15-20 percent or even dead... but when i used the code *#0228# my battery percentage didn't change at all and the both method didn't fix the problem at all... i have suffer this issue since 3 months ago, do you have any suggestion? thanks
jonatpd said:
hello i have followed the 1st and 2nd Method for my s9 plus phone because my phone drain to 5 percent in a blink after it reach 15-20 percent or even dead... but when i used the code *#0228# my battery percentage didn't change at all and the both method didn't fix the problem at all... i have suffer this issue since 3 months ago, do you have any suggestion? thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I have mentioned in the guide, when none of these work and you are sure that you followed each one correctly, then sadly it might be time to replace your battery. If for some reason a battery replacement still doesn't fix it (which in most cases it should), then it might be your circuit board in charge of power management and charging that may be faulty, although in most cases battery replacement alone does the trick.
Hello everyone. I have a question for you all. So, got a new phone a few weeks ago and I've noticed lately that after I charge it from, let's say around 10% to 100% and unplug it a minute or two after it reaches 100%, it stays on 100% for longer than it should. It stays on 100% for at least 15-20 minutes of active screen on use (no matter how I use my phone it stays on that 100% for quite some time), and after that the next few percent fall down quicker than they should - for an example after that initial 100% drains to 99, every 1% drains within 3-5 minutes of Screen on use until it reaches the 90-91 mark. When it reaches 90% it looks like it starts to function and drain normally. So my question here is: Can this calibration be off on such a new device?
Thanks in advance.
@Mightx I have a question
I bought a new 'replacemant' battery for my Galaxy S2. I still didn't put it in the phone.What would be the proper steps for starting with new battery? Should I look for a way to delete that 'batterystats.bin' (if such thing exist, on a LineageOS 14.1 which I'm using now)?
And... (since I don't know)... if I insert a new battery and (proabably) its not fully charge. Lets say ...what if its 66% charged? Should I charge it first to 100% before I starting using the battery, or should I discharge it from 66% to...zero? or 5%?
I don't know honestly what to think. On my tablet I installed an app (AccuBattery) and it warn me everytime my batter reached 85% and telling me to remove the charger. So...I'm kinda lost. I want to start using a new replacemant battery the propper way, but I have no clue what that 'propper' way is.
Can someone help please?
Thanks!
Hello.
Thanks for posting this guide.
My battery calibration issue is different to anything I've seen before. I had the usual battery problems and got a replacement battery fitted. My current problem is that the battery has more charge than the phone realises (which is the opposite of the usual problem one tends to see with a bad battery).
The battery level falls quickly from 100% down to 1% at a rate of about 10% per hour. But then it stays at 1% for AGES! Even if I leave a video running on YouTube on maximum brightness. So there's plenty of milliamps in there, it's just that the phone doesn't realise this.
I tried following methods 1 and 3 but the problem is still there.
Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.
You will need superuser rights to properly calibrate the battery. We discharge the battery to 1%, then connect the switched on phone to the switched on charger and charge up to 100%. Not turning off
vukman02 said:
Hello everyone. I have a question for you all. So, got a new phone a few weeks ago and I've noticed lately that after I charge it from, let's say around 10% to 100% and unplug it a minute or two after it reaches 100%, it stays on 100% for longer than it should. It stays on 100% for at least 15-20 minutes of active screen on use (no matter how I use my phone it stays on that 100% for quite some time), and after that the next few percent fall down quicker than they should - for an example after that initial 100% drains to 99, every 1% drains within 3-5 minutes of Screen on use until it reaches the 90-91 mark. When it reaches 90% it looks like it starts to function and drain normally. So my question here is: Can this calibration be off on such a new device?
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I mean, you could try if calibration does anything in your case. But I suppose that's more or less normal behavior since at very high battery percentages (beyond 90%), the software on your phone has a harder time figuring out how much juice is still remaining so the draining seems to slow down at the higher percentages and tends to speed up at the lower percentages (below 40%), which in net effect just gives you the same battery life just like if your phone were to drain evenly across all percentage levels. So imo, you shouldn't worry much about it.
the_new_mr said:
Hello.
Thanks for posting this guide.
My battery calibration issue is different to anything I've seen before. I had the usual battery problems and got a replacement battery fitted. My current problem is that the battery has more charge than the phone realises (which is the opposite of the usual problem one tends to see with a bad battery).
The battery level falls quickly from 100% down to 1% at a rate of about 10% per hour. But then it stays at 1% for AGES! Even if I leave a video running on YouTube on maximum brightness. So there's plenty of milliamps in there, it's just that the phone doesn't realise this.
I tried following methods 1 and 3 but the problem is still there.
Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've experienced this before both with a battery going bad and a phone with a good battery still but with faulty power delivery circuitry. You could try all the mentioned methods to try and see if calibration does anything to solve your issue, but if all these fail, then it may be time to send in your phone for repairs since you mentioned that your battery is new anyways so it may be something wrong with the power delivery.
Mightx said:
I mean, you could try if calibration does anything in your case. But I suppose that's more or less normal behavior since at very high battery percentages (beyond 90%), the software on your phone has a harder time figuring out how much juice is still remaining so the draining seems to slow down at the higher percentages and tends to speed up at the lower percentages (below 40%), which in net effect just gives you the same battery life just like if your phone were to drain evenly across all percentage levels. So imo, you shouldn't worry much about it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply. Yeah I figured after a while that it's probably alright since my phone's not dying at around 10% left or just starts discharging super fast.
Hey! Afew days ago I replaced the battery in the S10 +, do I need to do a battery calibration or can I skip it? or only factory reset?
dafii said:
Hey! Afew days ago I replaced the battery in the S10 +, do I need to do a battery calibration or can I skip it? or only factory reset?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Usually you just use your phone normally and it should automatically settle after a few charge-discharge cycles. In this case, you can skip manual calibration.
r3actor said:
@Mightx I have a question
I bought a new 'replacemant' battery for my Galaxy S2. I still didn't put it in the phone.What would be the proper steps for starting with new battery? Should I look for a way to delete that 'batterystats.bin' (if such thing exist, on a LineageOS 14.1 which I'm using now)?
And... (since I don't know)... if I insert a new battery and (proabably) its not fully charge. Lets say ...what if its 66% charged? Should I charge it first to 100% before I starting using the battery, or should I discharge it from 66% to...zero? or 5%?
I don't know honestly what to think. On my tablet I installed an app (AccuBattery) and it warn me everytime my batter reached 85% and telling me to remove the charger. So...I'm kinda lost. I want to start using a new replacemant battery the propper way, but I have no clue what that 'propper' way is.
Can someone help please?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After a battery replacement, just use the phone normally and after a few charge-discharge cycles, it should automatically settle down and start running normally. In this case, you don't need to go through manual calibration.