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> Though it does seem user hostile to remove it, unless the estimate was substantially off and there's no way to fix it. I think the problem is that users expe

> Though it does seem user hostile to remove it, unless the estimate was substantially off and there's no way to fix it. I think the problem is that users expect percent charge to be a direct, linear correlate of time remaining, but battery discharge isn't linear. Even if it were, predicting time left is tough. Giving the user a percentage rather than a (likely incorrect) time estimate seems like the less bad approach.

skohan 5y ago
idk I always found it to be accurate enough. Also it was a helpful canary to see that if the estimated time remaining dropped quickly, it probably meant I was doing something power-intensive, which maybe I would want to do something about. It seems like it would be trivial to change the default and leave the time estimate as an option.
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 5y ago
Well they show it on a linear bar graph so thats on them
formerly_proven 5y ago
Battery discharge is quite linear, because the OS is using the information from the BMS chip in the battery pack, which tracks the energy stored in it rather accurately, and also tells you very accurately how much power is drawn or put in. Personally I don't use Windows on any of my laptops, so I only noticed this one day on my work laptop. On my Linux laptops my status bar is literally just doing a weighted average of "time_remaining = energy_remaining / current_power", which works rather nicely. That a supposedly top-notch software company like Microsoft is trying to gaslight their users into "predicting battery life is like hard you know! We're gonna remove it because it's so inaccurate, it's basically unsolvable aha" makes me throw up a little, but is also such an accurate and damning reflection of the way these companies conduct themselves.
- skohan 5y ago
  Maybe a better explanation for why they would remove this is because they don't want to make battery degradation visible to the user. I.e. my battery used to get 4 hours of life, now it gets 2 and a half.
  - saagarjha 5y ago
    Perhaps, but pretending that this doesn’t happen is gaslighting.
saagarjha 5y ago
Apple did this concurrent with reports that their laptops had poor battery life. They were likely exaggerated but I don’t think the reason was exclusively that the number was misleading.
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  In particular, it was because reviewers—particularly Consumer Reports—noted that Apple's new set of laptops had inconsistent battery durations. They'd run their test and get one number of hours, then re-run the test and get something very different. They ultimately decided the lower number was more important, because if you can't rely on a laptop to provide a certain amount of working time, the actual amount doesn't matter. Apple responding by hiding the estimate—even on their older computers, where it worked very well—struck me as utterly missing the point.

skohan 5y ago

idk I always found it to be accurate enough. Also it was a helpful canary to see that if the estimated time remaining dropped quickly, it probably meant I was doing something power-intensive, which maybe I would want to do something about. It seems like it would be trivial to change the default and leave the time estimate as an option.

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 5y ago

Well they show it on a linear bar graph so thats on them

formerly_proven 5y ago

Battery discharge is quite linear, because the OS is using the information from the BMS chip in the battery pack, which tracks the energy stored in it rather accurately, and also tells you very accurately how much power is drawn or put in. Personally I don't use Windows on any of my laptops, so I only noticed this one day on my work laptop. On my Linux laptops my status bar is literally just doing a weighted average of "time_remaining = energy_remaining / current_power", which works rather nicely. That a supposedly top-notch software company like Microsoft is trying to gaslight their users into "predicting battery life is like hard you know! We're gonna remove it because it's so inaccurate, it's basically unsolvable aha" makes me throw up a little, but is also such an accurate and damning reflection of the way these companies conduct themselves.

skohan 5y ago
Maybe a better explanation for why they would remove this is because they don't want to make battery degradation visible to the user. I.e. my battery used to get 4 hours of life, now it gets 2 and a half.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  Perhaps, but pretending that this doesn’t happen is gaslighting.

saagarjha 5y ago

Apple did this concurrent with reports that their laptops had poor battery life. They were likely exaggerated but I don’t think the reason was exclusively that the number was misleading.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago
In particular, it was because reviewers—particularly Consumer Reports—noted that Apple's new set of laptops had inconsistent battery durations. They'd run their test and get one number of hours, then re-run the test and get something very different. They ultimately decided the lower number was more important, because if you can't rely on a laptop to provide a certain amount of working time, the actual amount doesn't matter. Apple responding by hiding the estimate—even on their older computers, where it worked very well—struck me as utterly missing the point.