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Estimated Battery Life Remaining

MagicAri

New Member
Is there a way to see the estimated time remaining on battery instead of just the percentage? It was on by default on my last laptop no idea how to enable it or if it is possible.
 

kodos

Member
My Surface Pro 2 would show the percentage remaining, the 3 does not. Evidently this is a known issue with the 3. I downloaded BatteryBar, and am much happier with it anyway. Grab the free version, it's pretty good.
 

malberttoo

Well-Known Member
I downloaded BatteryBar, and am much happier with it anyway. Grab the free version, it's pretty good.

+1 for Battery Bar. One of the first things I installed when setting up my SP3. Simply tap the indicator to switch from runtime in minutes, to percentage.
 

Pyro515

New Member
Well that's interesting, I just bought my SP3, and did all the updates, and my SP3, shows the estimated remaining. I didn't do anything special with it. Did I get some weird rogue SP3? Lol. I included pics to prove it.
WP_20140705_08_47_57_Pro.jpg
 

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Ms.Dos

New Member
Maybe this goes without saying, but the % complete on any device is a complete fiction. The software is always making an educated guess, given that there are multiple variables at work. And then when you add even more power-saving technology, it really becomes useless. It's kind of like the Windows Experience Index - it's a number that maybe says something, but is mostly just a number.

So, I guess I', saying that the way to make the battery power level % more accurate would be to turn off all power saving features to make the system drain more linear. Then you would have a meaningful number, but your tablet would only last a few hours. :(
 

BaritoneGuy

New Member
Well that's interesting, I just bought my SP3, and did all the updates, and my SP3, shows the estimated remaining. I didn't do anything special with it. Did I get some weird rogue SP3? Lol. I included pics to prove it. View attachment 2456
I suspect you will find that you no longer have connected standby or the sleep option on the power menu.

Did you install Hyper V by chance?
 
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MagicAri

New Member
My Surface Pro 2 would show the percentage remaining, the 3 does not. Evidently this is a known issue with the 3. I downloaded BatteryBar, and am much happier with it anyway. Grab the free version, it's pretty good.

This was exactly what I was looking for, a simple estimate of how much longer I have on battery. Showing the current discharge rate and offering a simple estimate of how much usage I have left at that rate is a feature I was missing.

This is the default behavior of a Connected Standby enabled Machine...

Battery Bar works fine but since you called this a default, is there a way to change the default behavior and have it display avg estimated times in spite of the non-linear discharge?
 
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jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
This was exactly what I was looking for, a simple estimate of how much longer I have on battery. Showing the current discharge rate and offering a simple estimate of how much usage I have left at that rate is a feature I was missing.



Battery Bar works fine but since you called this a default, is there a way to change the default behavior and have it display avg estimated times in spite of the non-linear discharge?

It would require hacking the device in some way to disable Connected Standby or you can enable the Hyper-V role.
 

Pyro515

New Member
I did not purposely install hyper-V. I do have Visual Studio Express 2013 on it for doing windows apps, but I had estimated time on before that. You are correct though, I do not have the sleep option. I wonder how connected standby was turned off. Very weird.

Mike
 
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