Battery - 30Hr - SharkRF Forum

Battery - 30Hr

oxoocoffee

Hello,

Yesterday i did ty to się How long the battery lesta From full charge till the unit dies.

“Built-in Li-ion battery with up to 30 hours of operation**”

I did see the two ** and did read the description from it. I did not get near that time. Here is my setup and test.

The unit was fully charged at home. I powered it down when leaving home around 4PM. While on a way to my friends home I did turn Pro 4 on and paired with my iPhone 13. Both units were kept within 1 ft away from each other all the time. I did 2-3 conversations that each lasted about 5 min each on YSF. For reminding of the night I did keep my FT-5D radio on and I did hear ocasional quick conversations lasting < 1 min. Maybe 10 of them. Then past mightning I did arrive home and left the Pro 4 on but not plugged in to power just to check how long it lasts. I did not checked at that time what is the reading of battery charge. So at 4 am would be 12hr when the unit was powered on. When I woke up at 7 am the device was off and better was trained. So I consider this very light use and would expect something closer to 30 hr since battery was new. But looks like the unit did lasted no more then 15 hr. That is half of the theoretical time.

Now couple additional points.
1. When I did leave the unit on over night it was connected to YSF room that maybe 4-5 guys are at most and I am pretty sure they were all at sleep.
2. Since I got the unit, it was powered all the time from USB sitting on my desk at home. Well maybe I took it off few times from charger when I was playing with setup and few times needed to enable AP by presssing WiFi buttons. So my point is. Do you have to do few full charge/discharge to calibrate the battery charging system?
3. Do you have any statiscitcs From your lub showing wiat we can expect From various usecase scenarions?

Thank you

HA2NON

The length of the discharge time is affected by a lot of things. The battery will discharge faster if:

- The device is transmitting or receiving
- There's traffic on the connected Wi-Fi network (even if the traffic is not to/from the openSPOT)
- Wi-Fi signal quality
- Cross mode is used
- Web interface is opened

oxoocoffee

Hello

I did try to explain in more detail my use case. It does seems light to me.

The device is transmitting or receiving.
— I understand that. Both take energy to do work. But as I stated Pro 4 was connected to my iPhone WiFI all the time. I ocasoionaly did check the phone for time. And couple times for email update.

- There's traffic on the connected Wi-Fi network (even if the traffic is not to/from the openSPOT)
— Sounds like that always will be the case. If so that I would not advertise theoretical battery time. I would state practical time. Am I missing something here ?

- Wi-Fi signal quality
— Pro 4 was within 1 foot distance phone all the time. So SNR had to be good/decent

- Cross mode is used
— it was not used in this test.

- Web interface is opened
— it was opened once when I left home and connected to phone initially

Based on my use case, it should be longer then 15 hr. But it could of been less then 15 hr since remaining of time I was a sleep and I am pretty sure no one was talking most of the night. So there should be no transition coming from Pro 4

Albo, is your 30 hr estimate done with maximum transmit power enabled on Pro 4?, and 20%, 30% transmission time out of 30 hr?
I am not trying to pick a problem but just understand if my unit is ok

HA2NON

We always measure max. battery uptime with the factory default settings. You can verify your battery by doing a factory reset then measuring it.

oxoocoffee

Ok I will do it and report.
Should I just do basic fresh configuration and then connect to YSF Parrot and let it sit till it dies (with out talking on it and capture log over serial/USB?

I will start with that.

Is there a option to do full device configuration backup / restore vs just specific profile?

Cheers

HA2NON

You need to export/import each configuration profile separately.

markw4itg

We always measure max. battery uptime with the factory default settings. You can verify your battery by doing a factory reset then measuring it. So in other words what you’re saying is the oS4 with no profiles in it at factory defaults will give it 30 hours of use time? Who would keep their device like that? What would be the sense of buying it? Sounds to me the *up to 30 hours of battery is false advertising. That would have to be with a lot of idle time for sure. This screen shot has 10 hours on the clock and it’s at 24% at the present rate it’s probably 12.5 hours and it sat idle most of the night. Either way that’s not even close to 30 hours. I would expect at least 24 hours out of it which is a 6 hour leeway from your inflated number. This is all provided that the battery meter is even close to accurate, which you have already admitted it’s not.

KA2PKH

Wouldn’t a new battery need some recharge discharge cycles to reach full potential?

Zviratko

Wouldn’t a new battery need some recharge discharge cycles to reach full potential? No, this is a misconception. The most "cycling a battery" can do in Li-Ion is relearn the performance characteristics of the cell when charging and discharging to get a correct battery gauge and capacity reading, it will not improve the performance itself. In other words, if you charge a cell to 4.2V and cut off using it at 3.2V you will always get the same performance before and after cycling. You might just not be able to tell whether 3.63V is 20% or 40% reliably.

My 2 cents: I am getting roughly the same performance (probably a bit better) with OS4 as I did with OS3. Light traffic, tethered to a phone wifi in crossmode. Battery life is not in any way revolutionary because it won't last more than a workday like this (barely), which I think is what should matter most.

oxoocoffee

Here are my initial findings

1. Charged battery to 100%. I did leave it connected on charge for another 1hr after the charge indicator reached 100%
2. Turned off OS4 by pressing a power button.
3. Moved OS4 close to iPhone: ~2 feet
4. Powered on OS4 and verified it is connected to iPhone WIFI. No other device was connected to iPhone WiFi sharing. My phone was not used most of the time to minimize WIFI traffic.
5. I used a slider on OS4 to dim the LED to 40%
6. On profile 1 (C4FM) changed room to Parrot (99999)
7. Took an initial screenshot OS4-Pro-Batt-Start.png
8. Left everything alone overnight
a. I did not transmit anything to Parrot,
b. I only opened the webpage 3-4 times on the phone to check the battery for < 1 min.
c. Each time I did fully closed the open page to OS4 to make sure it is not connected since the documentation states that that might affect battery power.
9. Took the last screenshot at 6% (~1h to go)

So, the outcome in this scenario is that I can get about ~14 hours without
1. Any RF transmissions to OS4
2. No communication to Parrot over the network
3. Did try to minimize shared WIFI traffic since documentation states that this might affect the battery.
4. Dimmed from LED
5. Did not keep the web page open to the device

So is my device faulty? since in best case is less than half of 30 hr?

Cheers,

HA2NON

We measured the max. battery uptime with the factory default settings, and connected to the office Wi-Fi network. Make sure you've done a factory reset (Null connector is active, modem mode is Null etc.)

oxoocoffee

Norbert,

Thank you for patiently answering here but after your response above you got me thinking.
I did purchase the device so that I would get close to 30 hr of usage from the device. I must say that in reality, I knew it will not be 30 hr since you guys also marked with “*” indicating that. So I did think it might be 20 hr under heavier use. Perhaps not continuous since, well who would talk 30-20 ht straight I like to camp in the middle of nowhere. So battery time is quite important to me. To tell the truth, this was one of the main selling points.

Now, what are you suggesting is setting modem null to save power. Just wondering what use case is in the real world except just trying to achieve the best battery in the lab.

Perhaps you guys should be a bit more clear about real-world battery time?
I still like the device overall, I am just a bit bummed down by this information.

I like to hear how long the battery lasts for others? Can anyone share their time, please?

Asturcon

I have never had a device that gets the max. advertised battery life. Fot every devide you can buy there are as many different real life uses as users of the device you can count.
That's why it is impossible to give a battery life estimate outside of lab condition estimate.

If I'm spend most of the time connected to DMR TG91 which is active almost 24/7 I know my battery life will be way below the maximum advertised. If I crossmode I will get even less battery life as well.

In my case the battery last long enough to keep the Openspot4 running the time I'm away from a charger. As soon as I get to my car I plug it in, if I think I will be away from a charger for too long I just take a power bank with me to charge my phone and my Openspot as needed.

oxoocoffee

Asturcon

Please re-read my post more carefully. I NEVER stated I expect 30 hr from the device especially since it is clearly marked "30* hr". So I am perplexed where did you get an idea I expect a full 30 hr. but please correct me so I can write more clearly next time. Here is my quote
I did purchase the device so that I would get close to 30 hr of usage from the device. I must say that in reality, I knew it will not be 30 hr since you guys also marked with “*” indicating that. So I did think it might be 20 hr under heavier use. So I expected somewhere 30% most with a new good battery.

My issue is that the real use case seems to be around 10-14 hr at best? So other gentlemen also point it out there as well. All I am saying is that it would be great to know more detail in the future about this vs getting it based on some expectation and finding that it is at best 50%

Asturcon

No, I didn't get the idea that you expected 30h. battery life, like you say it was clearly expressed in your post. My answer wasn't directly to your post per se, it was intended as my point of view of why the wide variation between the advertised battery life vs real world battery life, and how I try to avoid getting out of juice on my Openspot.

So, the way I see it (and I could be wrong) is that the 30h. battery life advertised allows me to compare the Openspot4 battery life vs the Openspot3 that is 10h. I'm assuming that both Openspot models had their batteries tested under the same lab conditions. The results indicate the Openspot4 battery life is an improvement over the Openspot3.

I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong impression about my answer.

oxoocoffee

No problem. All good here now. Thank you for clearing your point

markw4itg

VK3BT

markw4itg Just found your post while looking for any post mentioning "battery". My openSPOT 4 Pro sits in the charger most of the time, particularly if I am planning to take it out. I went out for an hour and the interface is already telling me the battery is "low". It's less than a month old.

oxoocoffee

I like to add clarification to my initial post. Reading others comments, I never expected expect 30 hr or use. I figured that I might get +/- 25 of continuous operation? Perhaps that should be a bit better advertised in the future? Instead of 30 hr. In addition, I do not intend to ever talk for 30 or even 25 hr straight. But when I go camping for a tensed time I like to have the battery last as long as it can be for obvious reasons when camping in the middle of nowhere.

I am overall happy with the device, but just wanted to share my point.

micksmith

If im out for any length of time with my openSPOT4 i take one of those small usb battery power banks, slips nice into the pocket

oxoocoffee

micksmith
That is what I do to and I am sure other do to.
But that is a solution around an advertised problem. I am hoping that is future for new units that information is more clear or realistic number 🙂 still over all excellent unit. My original post was from while back when I just got the unit and shared my perception at that time

73,