4 ms·

Surely the answer here is for the browser to not give such fine-grained information. For example always give the charge level to the nearest 10 percent and the

Surely the answer here is for the browser to not give such fine-grained information. For example always give the charge level to the nearest 10 percent and the battery life to the nearest 10 seconds.

dkx 10y ago
Or just Green (high), Amber (medium) and Red (low). There's no need for more granularity than that.
- josho 10y ago
  Or take the iOS approach. The phone is either in a low power mode or not. The benefit is that the user doesn't need an additional setting for each potential web app to set the threshold for a low power mode, it's all done once at the OS level.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  I remember back in the dumbphone Flash Lite days a lot of phones only did that. Seemed to work fine.
leni536 10y ago
Or put it behind an explicit permission like every not necessarily conscious user input (video, audio, location).
- majewsky 10y ago
  I'm skeptical. If you ask for permission to capture video, that's something that users will understand, and they'll be able to make an informed decision. But if you ask for permission to check the battery level, most people will just click through the request because they don't understand the privacy implications.
  - ape4 10y ago
    "Allow this website to know your battery level? (Can be used to identify you)" yes/no
    - barefootcoder 10y ago
      "This browser is so dumb, it's saying that I can be identified by my battery level! Stupid Google!" ... I suspect many wouldn't understand the tracking implications, and even many who can understand it wouldn't immediately make the connection. That said, this isn't the first such thing used to identify users. Other things like resolution, browser, extensions, etc, can be used to make a nearly unique fingerprint and this has been known for years. Search "browser fingerprint" and you'll find many pages on the subject.
quantumhobbit 10y ago
I'd like to always report a low battery no matter what, if that means I get a more efficient website.
ape4 10y ago
Anyone know how many decimal places of accurately is currently provided?
hawski 10y ago
I would opt for levels of concern in power usage: low concern (desktop or mobile that is charging), concern (mobile), high concern (mobile on low battery). Then we could streamline it more, because websites know when you are on mobile already and give single flag: low power. It is is similar in any other case of low resources. There probably is not much of a difference for a website if user is low in power than if it is low in memory. There should be then just one flag/event really: low resources (catch-all for battery, memory, CPU time, storage etc.).

Surely the answer here is for the browser to not give such fine-grained information. For example always give the charge level to the nearest 10 percent and the battery life to the nearest 10 seconds.

dkx 10y ago

Or just Green (high), Amber (medium) and Red (low). There's no need for more granularity than that.

josho 10y ago
Or take the iOS approach. The phone is either in a low power mode or not. The benefit is that the user doesn't need an additional setting for each potential web app to set the threshold for a low power mode, it's all done once at the OS level.
kalleboo 10y ago
I remember back in the dumbphone Flash Lite days a lot of phones only did that. Seemed to work fine.

leni536 10y ago

Or put it behind an explicit permission like every not necessarily conscious user input (video, audio, location).

majewsky 10y ago
I'm skeptical. If you ask for permission to capture video, that's something that users will understand, and they'll be able to make an informed decision. But if you ask for permission to check the battery level, most people will just click through the request because they don't understand the privacy implications.
- ape4 10y ago
  "Allow this website to know your battery level? (Can be used to identify you)" yes/no
  - barefootcoder 10y ago
    "This browser is so dumb, it's saying that I can be identified by my battery level! Stupid Google!" ... I suspect many wouldn't understand the tracking implications, and even many who can understand it wouldn't immediately make the connection. That said, this isn't the first such thing used to identify users. Other things like resolution, browser, extensions, etc, can be used to make a nearly unique fingerprint and this has been known for years. Search "browser fingerprint" and you'll find many pages on the subject.

quantumhobbit 10y ago

I'd like to always report a low battery no matter what, if that means I get a more efficient website.

ape4 10y ago

Anyone know how many decimal places of accurately is currently provided?

hawski 10y ago

I would opt for levels of concern in power usage: low concern (desktop or mobile that is charging), concern (mobile), high concern (mobile on low battery). Then we could streamline it more, because websites know when you are on mobile already and give single flag: low power. It is is similar in any other case of low resources. There probably is not much of a difference for a website if user is low in power than if it is low in memory. There should be then just one flag/event really: low resources (catch-all for battery, memory, CPU time, storage etc.).