iAudio x5: battery life very short.

[Fezzant]

I've been using rockbox for a while now (great stuff) and have noticed that the battery life is very short. If I charge it fully, and then begin using it (backlight is usually always on, but at a brightness of 1, and volume is anywhere from -50 to -30) it starts out normally, but when it gets to what looks like about 75% battery life left (according to the little battery icon), it starts dropping a lot faster, and I usually end up with somewhere from 5-8 hours of battery life before rockbox tells me to recharge and shuts down. when I boot it up after it tells me that, it says the battery has around 3.2V left. I did some searching and saw that this may be bad.

so my question(s): Is this short battery life normal, or is there something wrong (that maybe I did?) that severely shortened its life? (also, I am using a build from January 26th). thanks for any help

[Llorean]

What are you comparing your battery life too? Can you reproduce the exact same settings in the retail firmware, with the same playlist, and see how the battery life is?

Or, run a test in the original firmware, then reproduce the exact same situation in Rockbox?

[Fezzant]

well I'm not really comparing it to anything yet, just wondering if this is normal or not, since it seems like an awfully small amount of time for an mp3 player to work before it needs to be recharged

I might try running a test on the original firmware and then rockbox, though

[Llorean]

Yes but it may just be your battery getting old. The only basis for comparison is the same player in the original firmware. Of course having the LCD backlight on at any level hurts battery life a good bit.

[bk]

From what I've heard, 5-8 hrs for a regular X5 is actually pretty good depending on how much wear the battery has experienced.

Keeping the backlight on will significantly decrease battery life. I suggest changing that setting if you're concerned about battery life.

[soap]

Looks like someone needs to take it upon themselves to create an IaudioRuntime wiki page.
I may be a little biased, but I think the IpodRuntime page has the best table to emulate.

[Fezzant]

also, it shouldn't be that the battery is "getting old", I only got the player a couple weeks ago brand new.

but yeah I'll change the backlight setting, I was just used to always being able to look at it from gray lcd screens ( rip Rio karma :[ )

[Llorean]

Lithium Ion batteries start aging the instant they're made.

How long was your X5 on the shelf? How long was it in a warehouse somewhere? How long was the battery on a shelf before it was put into your X5? What temperatures have the X5 been exposed to?

The only valid test is comparing your battery life in Rockbox to it in the original firmware under the most similar conditions you can come up with.

[Arioch]

> 5-8 hrs for a regular X5 is actually pretty good
where isn't it made for 16 hours in original fw ?

I purchased X5/60 end of spring, so i is not even a one year old now.
I don't think it is time to the battery to age off???

However i would have to reflash it with original firmware....
I wish to see dual-boot someday :-(

Ok, from Your point - what do You expect about power usage effectiveness in stock FW comparing to RockBox ? I feel like original FW does more about caching and, especially with features like Last.fm without caching it may end in spinning up HDD each 3-5 minutes, which might drain power rather quick.

[bk]

where Huh isn't it made for 16 hours in original fw ?

I have an X5L, so I'm only saying that based on anecdotal reports from other people in various forums. It'd be nice if we could get some hard data on the wiki as suggested above.

I wish to see dual-boot someday :-(

An unofficial dual-boot bootloader exists that works very well for most people. Search the patch tracker or iaudiophile.net for details.

Ok, from Your point - what do You expect about power usage effectiveness in stock FW comparing to RockBox ?

It's impossible to know for sure. Presumably manufacturer firmware benefits from the fact that they have all chipset documentation available, support from OEM vendors and the fact that they are coding for a single device (whereas Rockbox developers must support many different devices/arches).

[Llorean]

Please, if you're unwilling to properly test it with a valid comparison, there's no point in complaining about the battery life: You do not know. Also, you admit you use additional settings that the original firmware doesn't even have, like last.fm logging.

I even explained why a less than year old (from purchase) device can have a bad battery in it already. Please, just do proper testing first.