How long does it take to calibrate a phone battery? A practical guide to battery calibration - tips and instructions. Android battery calibration apps

Premature battery drain is one of the most common problems for smartphone users. That's why we offer today several useful tips, allowing you to find out the cause of problems and eliminate them. If you notice that your battery performance and battery life have decreased, you may need to calibrate your battery. Today we will explain what calibration is Android batteries, how to determine whether it needs to be done, and how to calibrate the battery on an Android with and without root rights.

How to find out if the problem lies in the smartphone battery?

First of all, you need to determine why the battery performance has decreased: is it due to improper Android battery calibration or the battery itself? We'll get to calibration a little later, but first it's always worth checking to see if your battery is damaged.

If your phone has a removable battery, turn off the phone, remove the cover, remove and carefully inspect the battery. Look for bulges or drips. On devices with a non-removable battery, identifying external signs of battery failure is more difficult, but not impossible. For example, Galaxy battery S7 swelled and began to put pressure on the housing cover, which caused the formation of a gap between it and the chassis. If your phone has the same non-removable battery, watch for similar signs. By the way, if your device no longer lies firmly on the table surface, tilted at a slight angle, but slides down, this may also be a sign of a swollen battery.

Once you are completely convinced that the battery itself is not the problem, you can move on to the next steps. If you think that the battery may be the problem (even after trying to recalibrate it), we advise you to contact a repair shop for an expert opinion. If you find that you need to replace the battery, use the original battery or a reliable third-party replacement. Trying to save by installing a cheap one battery often leads only to aggravation of the situation and problems with the operation of the smartphone as a whole.

Keep in mind that there are many other aspects that can cause a battery to fail. If your phone is not charging, the reason may lie in a problem with the port, so you should first rule out this and similar situations by studying all the information on what to do if your phone does not charge.

If you have just updated the firmware on your phone, rapid battery drain is a common problem. It can be solved by clearing the cache on your device (we have repeatedly talked about how to do this on different Android smartphones).

What is battery calibration?

The Android operating system has Battery Stats feature, which tracks battery capacity by showing how full or empty it is. The problem is that the function sometimes crashes and starts displaying data that is not real. This distortion of information leads, for example, to the phone turning off before the charge level reaches 0 percent. Android battery calibration is necessary for the operating system to restore proper operation of the function and monitor the actual battery charge level with its correct indication.

It's important to understand that you can't actually calibrate a battery: it's essentially just a cell that stores energy for your smartphone in the form of charge. Of course, lithium-ion batteries contain printed circuit board(PCB), which serves as a safety switch to prevent their explosion or deep discharge, but it is only a protective element that operates at threshold levels.

Myths about the smartphone

Lithium-ion batteries have no memory, so you don't have to do anything to make them work properly. The problem is not the battery, but the way the Android system reads and displays its current capacity.

The same applies to the myth that deleting the batterystats.bin file will be able to magically calibrate your battery. This file in most cases simply stores data about how the battery uses energy between charges. This data is automatically reset every time the battery is charged to 80 percent.

The file batterystats.bin contains information that you get at a glance in the Battery section of your phone: it's the Android system that tracks your battery usage over a charge cycle. When we talk about battery calibration, it is restoring the correct percentage, which gets lost when the battery monitoring function fails.

How to calibrate the battery on Android devices without root access

The old proven method of "full charge and discharge" is one of the most simple ways calibrate your Android battery. You should be warned about the possible negative consequences of completely discharging the battery during its service life, this also applies to the current situation. But if your phone's battery is causing you real problems, it's worth the risk.

Method 1

1. Completely drain your phone until it turns off.
2. Turn it back on and let it turn off.
3. Insert your phone into Charger(connect the "charger" cord) and, without turning on the device, allow it to charge until the on-screen or LED indicator indicates 100 percent.
4. Disconnect the charger.
5. Turn on your phone. The battery indicator will probably not show 100 percent, so plug the charger back in and continue charging until your Android smartphone shows 100 percent on the screen.
6. Unplug your phone and restart it. If it doesn't say it's 100% charged, plug the charger back in and continue charging.
7. Repeat this cycle until the smartphone shows 100 percent (or as close as possible) when you start it without connecting to the “charger”.
8. Now let the battery drain to zero and allow your phone to turn off again.
9. Fully charge the battery again without interrupting the charging process - this way you can correctly set the battery level of your Android device.

remember, that Not recommended perform this process frequently. Even if your battery is dead and your phone won't even turn on, the battery will still have enough charge to prevent damage to the system itself. Don't take any chances, do this process no more than once every three months. If this is required more often, then your smartphone clearly has big problems with its battery.

Be clear: completely draining your battery is a bad thing. Frequent attempts to calibrate the battery are also harmful to the battery of your Android device. The good news is that battery charging automatically turns off when its safe limit is reached, and there's always some power left over even if your phone won't start. In general, only perform calibration when really necessary because this procedure negatively affects battery life.

How to calibrate the battery on rooted Android devices

Despite the fact that clearing the batterystats.bin file is unlikely to have any significant impact on how correctly the Android system indicates the remaining battery charge, there are users who are firmly convinced of this. Therefore, in the interests of fairness, we decided to tell you about this method of solving the problem. This is basically the same process as above, but with the added root application step.

Method 2

That's all we wanted to talk about in this article. Have you tried any of these methods? Did you know alternative way calibrate the battery? Let us know about it in the comments.

But we haven't mentioned one simple factor. Over time, any battery loses its capacity. After about a year and a half to two years, the phone begins to discharge much faster - nothing can be done about it. All that remains is to replace the battery. You can do this yourself if the battery is removable, or by contacting a service center. You can also try to calibrate the battery. Time battery life Calibrating your smartphone's battery won't increase it, but it can eliminate other unpleasant issues.

Any electronics can age. And if this is almost not felt in the example of some VCRs, then this cannot be said about smartphones. Previously, such devices failed due to breakdowns of the case and keyboard. Now they are created from more durable materials, and therefore the battery and screen have become a weak point. The latter may fade over time, and the battery loses a little of its working capacity with each new charge.

The problem is that not every power controller is able to recognize loss of capacity in a timely manner. If this component, available in any smartphone on Android based, does not want to respond to a decrease in capacity, then this turns into one unpleasant moment. Gradually, the operating system begins to show incorrect data about the battery charge level. You can see 7% charge on the screen, but the next minute the device turns off, since in fact there is no longer enough energy for its operation. This problem can be solved by replacing the battery. But first you can try to calibrate it.

Attention: We do not guarantee that the following steps will help. The best way out is to replace the battery with a completely new one.

The easiest way

If you are planning to calibrate the battery on Android, we recommend that you do the following:

Step 1. Fully charge your smartphone battery.

Step 2. Turn off the device.

Step 3. Reconnect it to .

Step 4. Wait until the green indicator appears - this indicates that the smartphone is charged to 100%.

Step 5 . Turn on the device and go to " Settings", to the section " Screen».

Step 6. Select " Do not turn off the backlight" If there is none, then simply increase the sleep time to the maximum possible value.

Step 7. Reconnect the device to the charger, waiting until the charge increases to 100%.

Step 8. Disconnect the device from the charger. Let the smartphone discharge to 0% so that it turns off on its own. This will complete the Android battery calibration.

Another simple way

You can calibrate the battery using a slightly different method:

Step 1. Completely discharge your phone.

Step 2. Turn on the device and connect it to the charger.

Step 3. Let it charge for eight hours.

Step 4. Turn off your phone.

Step 5. Connect it to the network adapter again.

Step 6. It should now charge within two hours.

Step 7 Turn on the device.

Step 8. After three minuses, turn it off, then charge it for one hour.

If you do everything correctly, the battery will be calibrated. But this method does not always help to calibrate the battery on Android - it all depends on specific model smartphone. However, all this applies to the first method. The main advantage of the two methods described above is that they work without root. But the next method still requires root rights. How to get them - we wrote in.

Using Battery Calibration

Of course, third-party software developers couldn’t help but get involved. They created a program for calibrating the battery quite a long time ago. If the previous methods helped to calibrate the battery manually, then the application does everything automatically. But for its operation, as mentioned above, you will need root rights. Download Battery Calibration you can from the 4pda website. Then follow the instructions:

Step 1. Charge your smartphone up to 100%.

Step 2. Do not disconnect the device from the charger for 20 minutes.

Step 3. Launch Battery Calibration.

Step 4. Click the button shown in the screenshot.

Step 5. Disconnect your smartphone from the charger.

Step 6. Completely discharge the device until it turns off. This completes the calibration process.

At a certain point, a smartphone or tablet may begin to discharge much faster than before. Our website already explains why the device begins to discharge quickly. If nothing helps you, do not rush to run to a service center and replace the battery with a new one; it is quite possible that you just need to calibrate the battery.

What is battery calibration on a phone or tablet?

Battery calibration is measuring the capacity and, roughly speaking, editing the battery. As a result of calibration, the battery is used more efficiently and its service life can be significantly extended.

Signs that your battery needs calibration

• Charging the device takes a long time, for example, not a couple of hours as before, but 4-5 hours.

• Significantly shorter operating time of the device on one charge.

• Even after charging for a long time, the indicator does not want to show 100% charge.

• The device turns off when there is no power, although you do not receive any signals from the battery indicator.

If you encounter this kind of trouble, it makes sense to try calibrating the battery. True, it is initially worth considering other options. Here's an example from real life: a user updated his smartphone over the air to new version firmware that was just released for his device. After the update, he noticed that the smartphone began to discharge quickly. In this case, the problem arose precisely because of the firmware, since after a couple of days an additional update was released that solved the problem of fast discharge. These are the types of cases that need to be taken into account.

If you do decide to calibrate, let's talk about it.

Manual calibration

In this case, no third-party applications are used, only the device itself and charging are needed. Ruth, that is, superuser rights, is also not needed.

• The device needs to be completely discharged.

• Then start charging it with it turned on for 8 hours.

• Turn off the device and continue charging it for another 2 hours.

• Disconnect the device from charging, turn it on for 2 minutes, turn it off and connect it to charge again. This time charge for 1 hour.

• Calibration is complete, turn on the device.

Calibration using software

This option is suitable if you have it installed on your device. Download the Battery Calibration app from Google Play Market, install and run.

When you launch it for the first time, you need to provide root rights, otherwise the application will not work.

Here are further instructions, which are not mentioned everywhere:

• Connect your device to the charger.

• Wait until it charges to 100%.

• Click the Battery Calibration button.

• Unplug the charger.

• Discharge your device before turning it off.

• Charge it to 100% without interruption.

In fact, the application deletes system file batterystats.bin, and then the system automatically generates a clean file. Any old information that may have caused the battery to malfunction will not be in this file.

Modern smartphones without a battery cease to be mobile, being “tied” to an outlet. The reliable operation of the gadget depends on the condition of the battery. But there are ways that will help boost and extend the life of the battery on your phone or Android tablet. How to find out the energy capacity of the drive on Android and calibrate it, which determines the service life, you will learn further.

The essence of the problem with the battery in the gadget

An ideal mobile device, while remaining turned on, should consume little energy - a maximum of a few milliamps of current per hour. The capacity of a modern battery is measured in thousands of milliamp-hours. This is how the simplest mobile phones work, in which there is nothing except calls, SMS and a system clock - such, for example, is the simplest children's phone "Beeline A100" or the ancient mobile phone Nokia 3310. A full-fledged gadget with Android system, of course, cannot be compared with these mobile phones.

The essence of the gadget's energy consumption problem lies in self-starting Android processes and services. In second place in battery consumption are numerous programs independently installed by the user. Battery consumption can also be affected by Android version, not brought to mind.

How to turn off unused features on Android

Be that as it may, the consumers of battery energy are the following hardware and software:

• too frequent calls, long conversations on the gadget;
• active movement of the subscriber within the network coverage area, switching between 2G/3G/4G networks;
• SMS/MMS sent in batches per day;
• backlight brightness;
  Backlight levels help the device not waste energy on it
• frequent calls third party applications to GPS in background; GPS services open by command: Settings - Location
• auto screen brightness (light sensor is activated);
  
  Give the command: Settings - Screen and check if auto-rotate the image is enabled
• auto-rotate the image on the screen (the motion sensor is activated);
  
  The setting is also opened by the command: Settings - Screen
• compass;
• vibration feedback on-screen keyboard;
  Go to Settings - Language & input - Keyboard settings
• Internet distribution via Wi-Fi to other devices; Give the command: Settings - More - Modem mode - Access point
• connecting other gadgets and accessories via Bluetooth;
  Give the command: Settings - Bluetooth and check if the module is turned off
• connection computer equipment and accessories via an OTG/microUSB adapter.

All these consumers additionally load the processor and RAM, involve peripherals (controllers and wired and wireless communication modules mobile device).

How to check your device's power consumption

Give the command “Settings - Battery”.

A gap in the usage chart means the gadget is turned off when charging

When the device is turned off, it does not keep track of battery energy consumption - this is only possible when the gadget is active.

Video: how to check and disable power-hungry features in Android

Practical measures to overclock the battery

Mobile device batteries can be recharged or recalibrated.

Calibrating the battery on an Android smartphone

Calibrating the battery controller is necessary for the gadget to access 100% of the battery capacity. Before calibrating the battery, you do not need to do any additional actions (turning off Android animations, switching the device to airplane mode, etc.). The “swing” of the battery is as follows.

1. Discharge the battery to 0% so that the smartphone or tablet turns off on its own.
2. Wait after discharge for up to 5 minutes. This will allow the battery to “settle”.
3. Charge the battery with a standard charger to 100%. Do not turn on the gadget until it is charged.
4. Wait again up to 5 minutes after charging. It is allowed to disconnect the battery during this time (if it is removable). Before removing the battery from the gadget, turn off the charger.
5. Repeat the above steps until the battery is calibrated. Most often, 2-3 full discharge-charge cycles help.

Manufacturers also recommend maintaining the first charge for up to 12 hours, without resorting to downtime between discharge and charge. But this recommendation is not entirely correct - it is a deliberate violation of calibration technology so that people change batteries more often.

After calibrating the battery, you can use your mobile device as usual.

Video: calibrating a non-removable battery in an Android tablet

How to “boost” a battery

Battery boosting is done to ensure that it reaches its maximum resource - and lasts as long as possible. Modern devices use lithium-ion (Li-Ion) or lithium-polymer (Li-Polymer) batteries, which, although devoid of the “memory effect” (unlike previously used nickel-based batteries), can be “boosted” again .

It's a good idea to try several times before connecting the charger to your smartphone or tablet. full discharge battery Often in Android devices, when you try to turn on a discharged gadget again by holding down the power button, a vibration signal is briefly triggered up to two times per second. Hold the power button (or hold it down with something) until the vibration signal in the gadget starts to sound less and less often - and soon it stops for a long time. This will cause the voltage on the controller to drop to the minimum threshold perceived by the device.

Old, “worn out” batteries last for years and beyond if they are not loaded. unnecessary programs and Android features.

Do the following.

1. After disconnecting, try turning on the gadget again.
2. Make several attempts to turn on until the device display stops responding.
3. Remove the battery from the device for a couple of minutes and let it build up the voltage a little (without recharging!).
4. Insert the battery back and hold down the power button again until the vibration signal emitted when you turn on the gadget completely stops.
5. After making several such attempts to completely discharge the battery, connect the charger to the gadget and let it charge. The device itself must be turned off.

The build-up is achieved by reducing the lithium metal crystals in the working layer of the battery under the influence of fluctuations in battery voltage in the maximum permissible range of values ​​(from 2.5 to 4.2 volts). Do not overdo it - discharging lithium-ion batteries too deeply (up to 0–2.5 volts) and leaving them without recharging in this state will lead to an irreparable loss of their capacity.

If necessary, repeat the calibration of the battery controller according to the instructions above.

Video: how to restore a Li-Ion battery from a video camera or smartphone

Difficulties encountered during battery operation

Some manufacturers, in the interests of their own commerce, resort to additional tricks.

Firstly, it wears out the battery as quickly as possible. Little-known Chinese companies or completely underground manufacturers especially save on materials.

The “disposable” controller in the battery itself behaves as follows. After 3-4 years (or up to 1000 discharge-charge cycles), it may one day turn off forever, generating, for example, a “breakdown” pulse and thereby self-destructing (if the controller itself is something special), but without causing harm to the device itself. The battery and, possibly, the gadget itself will need to be redesigned. Fortunately, this measure is one of the last resorts.

“Setting” the battery on glue, from which it is difficult or impossible to remove it, is sometimes used in the most expensive smartphones and tablets with Android. This is reminiscent of gluing the battery in the iPhone 5x/6(s).

Additional locks, cables and other “tricky” devices make it much more difficult to remove/replace the battery.

The service life of a battery cell without a controller (this requires reworking an outdated gadget using a soldering iron) can stretch for 10 years or more until the battery is somewhat reminiscent of a capacitor, capable of holding only a very small charge - 1-2% of its original capacity. Such elements are useful only in all sorts of homemade products, which are unlikely to have anything to do with cellular communications and mobile data transmission. They require slow discharge-charge according to a special algorithm, unattainable in conventional chargers that have not undergone any modification, and regular monitoring of the condition of such batteries.

Completely “dead” cells that do not respond to attempts to recharge them (this is due to the steady aging of the electrochemical material of the battery), stubbornly showing 0 volts on the multimeter, are disposed of in accordance with local legislation and environmental protection requirements.

How to extend battery life on an Android phone or tablet

Ways to save battery power are purely software. They do not apply to interference with the “stuffing” of the gadget (for example, pulling out some of the display backlight LEDs, removing the vibration motor, etc.). Most of these settings are in the main menu Android settings and were discussed above.

Optimizing Energy Saving in Android

Don't keep apps you don't use on your device.

Close unused this moment programs - this will clear up the RAM.

Unnecessary applications are closed by swiping to the right

Turn off unused functions ( unnecessary applications, Android processes and services, “extra” wireless communication, bright lighting at night, operation of built-in sensors, etc.). Root access will also help to permanently block unnecessary applications.

Root will help disable unnecessary programs and services

Avoid places where mobile phones do not receive reception or constantly lose the network (long distances between populated areas, basements and underground garages, shielded rooms in secret laboratories and radiation diagnostics/therapy departments in hospitals, sensitive areas, etc.). Try to use one communication standard, for example, 3G.

Give the command: Settings - More - Mobile networks

If the charging device displays incorrectly on the screen or the device turns off prematurely due to battery wear, recalibrate the battery using the above method.

Maintenance of the battery and the device itself

Give the battery serial “runs” with a full discharge and charge - at least once every six months in order to “boost” the battery capacity and calibrate its controller.

The internal battery controller must be matched charging voltage. If the element itself is charged at a voltage greater than 4.2 volts, it is regularly recharged and gradually swells. This is noticeable after one or two years of intensive use of the battery. Over time, such a battery will no longer fit in the gadget and will protrude back cover(it will stop closing, its latches will fly off). If there is a significant discrepancy between the output voltage of the controller and the element itself, the battery simply explodes. In the 2000s, when the market Chinese smartphones As soon as it began to develop intensively, a swollen battery was a frequent occurrence. Over the years, Chinese manufacturers have become more precise in “tailoring” controllers to Li-Ion cells - but from time to time defective batteries are produced. Change such a battery as quickly as you can.

Dirt on the battery contacts and terminals of the device, although they are gold-plated (gold does not oxidize), is additional electrical resistance, from which the charge may be displayed incorrectly by the gadget. Clean such stains with medical alcohol.

Try not to unnecessarily pull the battery out of place, even if the SIM card and/or memory card slot is located underneath it.

It is permissible to use chargers with lower power - but not vice versa. Charging too powerfully will cause significant heating of the battery and the gadget itself. Do not expose the battery to prolonged heat above human body temperature (36.6). At 40 degrees or more, modern controllers turn off the charging current until the battery cools down again to an adequate temperature - elevated temperatures accelerate battery wear.

If the microUSB connector is dirty, charging the battery may be “drip”, intermittent, or the charging current may not flow into the battery at all. Most often this happens if the gadget is used carelessly and in polluted air for several years. Clean the microUSB socket using a toothpick, a sharpened match, or blow with a vacuum cleaner turned on at maximum power.

Video: how to pump up and calibrate the battery

Proper battery care will extend its service life. But if no restoration helps the battery, replace it.

Sometimes after purchasing a new Android device or during operation, the battery shows unnatural or incorrect values ​​of the remaining charge. There are sharp dips from 50 to 15%, when fully charged, 105% is displayed, etc. This indicates incorrect transmission of information about the current battery capacity. In this case, calibration is required.

What is battery calibration

Battery calibration means forced updating of information about the actual battery capacity.

Why is there a need for calibration?

To display correct information about the remaining energy, the device uses statistical data obtained when charging the battery. During operation/storage, the battery degrades, so the values ​​of real capacity and statistical capacity diverge. The smartphone reports 100% battery charge, but in reality only 70-80% is accumulated, or turns off when in reality there is 50% or more energy left.

When to calibrate the battery

The procedure is performed every time the remaining charge is displayed unnaturally, and when the battery is replaced. When the device has been inactive for a long time in a disconnected state. After changing the factory firmware to a modified firmware and vice versa. However, no more than once every 3-6 months. First you need to make sure that the battery is not damaged. Before you learn how to calibrate your battery, be sure to read the safety guidelines.

Preparation and Precautions

Before calibration you must do backup copy important information located in the internal storage. This is done in case the battery refuses to accept a charge during an advanced battery calibration or charge-discharge cycle.

Do not interrupt advanced calibration and/or when it is necessary to completely discharge the battery. The problem will not be solved, but the degradation of the battery will accelerate.

You should not abuse it and carry out extended battery calibration/charging-discharging cycle more than once every three months, this will accelerate battery wear.

Method 1: easy (ROOT available, removable/built-in battery).

This method of calibrating the battery is gentle and does not require a full discharge cycle.

1. Charge the device to 100%.
2. Without removing the power cable, delete, or better yet move to another folder, the file along the path: /data/system/batterystats.bin. The operation is performed in the file manager.
3. Turn off the smartphone/tablet and connect it to the charger.
4. We are waiting for the 100% charging indicator to appear on the screen.
5. We remove the battery without disconnecting the power cable.
6. We are waiting for a reboot and a notification in the form of a battery icon with a question mark. Only after this do we install the battery back. If the download does not occur, you should try a different cable and/or charger.
7. The charge will quickly rise to 60%. Once the charge level reaches 100%, the calibration is considered complete. If the process stops at a different battery level, wait until the device charges.

Important!

1. In smartphones and tablets where the design does not allow the battery to be removed, you should skip steps 5 and 6.
2. Charging should only be done using a power adapter.
3. If the machine boots operating system, when connecting the ultrasound, use less powerful adapters: 5V/750mAh or 5V/550mAh.

Method 2: alternative easy (there is ROOT rights, the battery is removable).

To calibrate the battery using this method, as in the previous method, you will need root rights.

1. We charge the mobile device up to 100%.
2. Without disconnecting from the memory, delete the batterystats.bin file.
3. Turn off the smartphone/tablet, disconnect the charger and remove the battery.
4. We wait 3-5 minutes and install the battery back, turn on the smartphone/tablet and use it.

Method 3: advanced (presence of ROOT, removable/built-in battery).

The calibration method requires a full battery discharge cycle.

1. We charge the battery to 100%.
2. Without removing the power cable, delete batterystats.bin.
3. Discharge the device until it turns off completely.
4. Connect to the charger.
5. We are waiting for the end of full charging.
6. Turn on your mobile device and use it.

Method 4: without ROOT rights (removable/built-in battery).

In order to calibrate the battery without root rights, you will need to perform a full charge/discharge cycle. The instructions are similar to the previous method, where you should skip the second point. If the battery is removable, after complete discharge it is necessary to remove the battery for 3-5 minutes. Continue according to the instructions. Do not forget that in this case, the battery should start charging at 100%.

Conclusion

Battery calibration helps to correctly display energy consumption, which will improve battery life. It should be understood that the procedure is powerless if the degradation of the battery has reached its limit. Calibration will not help improve battery life if the consumption is related to the hardware or software of the mobile device. In addition, you should be aware of the consequences of extended battery calibration and a full charge-discharge cycle.

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