Calibrate Battery thread - This is how you do it!

Search This thread

aal1

Senior Member
Mar 29, 2008
120
24
Katy TX
There have been about eleventeen thousand questions across multiple threads on how to calibrate the battery properly...figured it probably should be a sticky in here if possible.

You have to know how to get into Recovery mode. You can do this with Quickboot when the phone is on, or the powered off phone method:
1. Power off phone or pull battery and replace.
2. Hold all three of these buttons down: Vol-Down, Camera button (lower left as you look at the phone) and Power on button).
3. You will see a small graphical menu come up. Most of us are using Clockwork, so I will focus on that - it will be a green menu.

For the battery wipe, Go to Advanced, navigate the menu with the vol up/down keys, and select using the camera button.


There are three ways so far:

The Drain Way:

1. Drain it down until fully dead.
2. Charge normally to full.
3. Reboot to Clockwork recovery and wipe battery stats (under advanced, on second page), reboot phone.
4. Turn everything on, flashlight, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Pandora, the whole nine, to quickly drain it completely dead.
5. Charge normally to full.

The Powered Off Charge way:

1. Charge your phone 100% while it’s on
2. Unplug it from the charger, power off, then charge it up to 100% with it in a powered off state.
3. Unplug charger from phone. Power it on, and then charge it to 100% while the phone is on.
4. Unplug the charger and then reboot into Clockwork, go to advanced and clear the battery stats.
5. Power on, charge to full, and then enjoy.


Third option (thanks squshy 7), I paraphrased it and wrote it out a bit for ease.

Maybe we can call it the Mr. Miagi Charge way....aka Power On, Power Off, Charge On, Charge Off way lol

(the parentheses are the state of the phone)

1. Start with the phone powered on.

2. (Phone on) Charge battery until the LED turns blue

3. (Phone on) Unplug the phone from the charger, wait until the LED turns off

4. Power off the phone.

5. (Phone off) Plug the adapter into the phone, charge it up until the LED turns blue

6. (Phone off) Unplug, wait until the LED turns off

7. Power the phone on.

8. Wait until the phone is booted back up all the way, and then power it off again

9. (Phone off) Plug the adapter into the phone, charge it up until the LED turns blue.

10. Boot the phone into recovery mode

11. Go to Advanced, and then choose Wipe Battery Stats.

12. Power the phone on and use normally.
 
Last edited:

turtlenator694

Senior Member
Dec 11, 2010
65
11
Still a noob, but what would exactly need you to have to Calibrate Battery? Also what exactly does it do for the user?

P.S I'm sure I could look this up but it would be nice to see it in your thread for others to see :)
 

squshy 7

Senior Member
Dec 6, 2010
1,414
450
Still a noob, but what would exactly need you to have to Calibrate Battery? Also what exactly does it do for the user?

P.S I'm sure I could look this up but it would be nice to see it in your thread for others to see :)

Well it's really a matter of semantics...you're not calibrating the battery, per say...it's actually calibrating how android is reading the battery. (these phones use Li-ion batteries, which don't use memory, so they themselves never actually need "calibrated" like some older types of rechargeables)

But...as far as what this means to you, its kind of a big deal! It improves battery life in letting android know when your battery is actually at 100%. When flashing new kernels and ROMs, its very likely that the phone will read your battery at full, when in reality its probably less. So it would seem like your phone isn't getting as good battery life (when in actuality it just hasn't been charged fully but you don't know that because android reads it as full because it hasn't been calibrated ;))
also, without a calibration, you might notice your battery gauge draining oddly...for example, you might see it quickly drop from 100 to 89, then drop steadily to 72, and then hang for a while at 71 (these are all just made up numbers)

so it means alot! but everybody has different methods and i've never seen anything officially released by spring or samsung to confirm methods...

I will say this though...I've read plenty about how since these Li-ion batteries don't have memory, the DRAINING method, while maybe correctly calibrating your battery, actually HURT the long-term life of your battery.

so heres what ive always done:

(the parentheses are the state of the phone)

(phone on) charge battery till LED blue

(phone on) unplug, wait till LED off
[POWER OFF]

(phone off) plug in, wait till LED blue

(phone off) Unplug, wait till LED off
[POWER ON]

When completely booted, power off again

(phone off) plug in wait till LED blue,

boot into recovery, wipe battery stats

unplug, reboot phone and use ;)

it's always worked so try it out
 

XtaC318

Senior Member
Sep 28, 2010
404
32
33
Myrtle Beach
Actually I'm pretty sure it doesn't fully charge to prevent over charge.. and the whole deal with you guys chargings 2-3 times after the light turns blue is just killing the life of your battery.

Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
 

MysteryEmotionz

Senior Member
Sep 7, 2010
5,615
1,988
Massachussets
My question why is this in devolpment?

Fyi: both methos work but the complete drain does kill battery life. The pluging in multiable times dont. Android nows wheb to stop charging the battery to prevent over charge.

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
 

mrchedda

Senior Member
Sep 6, 2010
98
1
something must be wrong....

With my battery because I've done the above procedure and my battery doesn't even last 5 hours. Its starting to get annoying. Any ideas?
 

bdillon

Senior Member
Oct 2, 2010
66
5
Actually I'm pretty sure it doesn't fully charge to prevent over charge.. and the whole deal with you guys chargings 2-3 times after the light turns blue is just killing the life of your battery.

Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

If it can stop at 92 percent to prevent overcharging, then it can do the same thing when it reaches 100 percent, no matter how many times you plug it in.

I don't know of many, if any li ion battery packs made today that don't have circuitry in them that prevents overcharging.
 

aal1

Senior Member
Mar 29, 2008
120
24
Katy TX
I put it in development because when you load roms, generally battery is a big concern. I cant tell you how many times ive searched for the same topic all over, I just figured it would be as helpful to others as it would have been to me had it been here and been a stickie at the top.
 

mousiluck

Senior Member
Oct 13, 2010
93
4
Having a battery keep at a full 100% for a long time is not good for li-on batteries. The 10% between 90 and 100% is basically used as a safety buffer. That's why the charge drops between 100 and 90 is much faster than the drops from 80 to 0. even though there ways to increase the actual capacity of the battery by using the methods above, you will still see a quicker drop from full to 90 almost instantly after unplugging the charger. I am in no way saying that those methods don't work in helping the phone read the actual charge of the battery, but they do help increase capacity a little bit. by rearranging the electrons in the battery. There actually is an article on google and on xda that backs it up. I'll try finding it

Sent from my Samsung-SPH-D700 using XDA App
 

jct522

Senior Member
Dec 6, 2010
176
17
California
Thank you a ton for posting this. Ive been trying to find a good thread on this all over the place and there never seems to be one. So thanks again.
 

XtaC318

Senior Member
Sep 28, 2010
404
32
33
Myrtle Beach
My question why is this in devolpment?

Fyi: both methos work but the complete drain does kill battery life. The pluging in multiable times dont. Android nows wheb to stop charging the battery to prevent over charge.

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

Lol.. wow alright.
Yes COMPLETELY draining a battery is really bad for a battery; infact if you do so you may end up with a 'bricked' battery.
But the phone also knows not to 'over drain' so with the method of clearing batt stats there's no harm done..actually. allowing your phone to die before charging is healthier than plugging it in before it dies.

I won't argue on the other note anymore; well simply because I don't know enough to continue ;) just know I won't be taking that path :p



Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
 

turtlenator694

Senior Member
Dec 11, 2010
65
11
Thanks for the response. But also if you have a separate charger because you have multiple batteries, do you need to have to go through any of this? Or will the charger charge them to their true full state?
 

Zeinzu

Senior Member
Aug 18, 2010
2,738
1,072
Manchester
www.sdx-developers.com
The only thing that needs to be done to calibrate the battery is either flash at full charge or charge to full then delete batterystats, all this drain to dead and charge this way and that is pointless, though u will all argue otherwise, pointlessy

Sent from my Epic 4g
 

J31Rob

Senior Member
Sep 2, 2007
197
5
IN
You should definitely add that NONE of this matters if your first usages out of the battery aren't proper. When you get the phone, you need to kill the battery before charging.. charge for 10-12 hours w/the phone off or in a dock, kill battery.. repeat 2 more times to condition the battery physically.
 

Top Liked Posts

  • There are no posts matching your filters.
  • 13
    There have been about eleventeen thousand questions across multiple threads on how to calibrate the battery properly...figured it probably should be a sticky in here if possible.

    You have to know how to get into Recovery mode. You can do this with Quickboot when the phone is on, or the powered off phone method:
    1. Power off phone or pull battery and replace.
    2. Hold all three of these buttons down: Vol-Down, Camera button (lower left as you look at the phone) and Power on button).
    3. You will see a small graphical menu come up. Most of us are using Clockwork, so I will focus on that - it will be a green menu.

    For the battery wipe, Go to Advanced, navigate the menu with the vol up/down keys, and select using the camera button.


    There are three ways so far:

    The Drain Way:

    1. Drain it down until fully dead.
    2. Charge normally to full.
    3. Reboot to Clockwork recovery and wipe battery stats (under advanced, on second page), reboot phone.
    4. Turn everything on, flashlight, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Pandora, the whole nine, to quickly drain it completely dead.
    5. Charge normally to full.

    The Powered Off Charge way:

    1. Charge your phone 100% while it’s on
    2. Unplug it from the charger, power off, then charge it up to 100% with it in a powered off state.
    3. Unplug charger from phone. Power it on, and then charge it to 100% while the phone is on.
    4. Unplug the charger and then reboot into Clockwork, go to advanced and clear the battery stats.
    5. Power on, charge to full, and then enjoy.


    Third option (thanks squshy 7), I paraphrased it and wrote it out a bit for ease.

    Maybe we can call it the Mr. Miagi Charge way....aka Power On, Power Off, Charge On, Charge Off way lol

    (the parentheses are the state of the phone)

    1. Start with the phone powered on.

    2. (Phone on) Charge battery until the LED turns blue

    3. (Phone on) Unplug the phone from the charger, wait until the LED turns off

    4. Power off the phone.

    5. (Phone off) Plug the adapter into the phone, charge it up until the LED turns blue

    6. (Phone off) Unplug, wait until the LED turns off

    7. Power the phone on.

    8. Wait until the phone is booted back up all the way, and then power it off again

    9. (Phone off) Plug the adapter into the phone, charge it up until the LED turns blue.

    10. Boot the phone into recovery mode

    11. Go to Advanced, and then choose Wipe Battery Stats.

    12. Power the phone on and use normally.
    4
    Still a noob, but what would exactly need you to have to Calibrate Battery? Also what exactly does it do for the user?

    P.S I'm sure I could look this up but it would be nice to see it in your thread for others to see :)

    Well it's really a matter of semantics...you're not calibrating the battery, per say...it's actually calibrating how android is reading the battery. (these phones use Li-ion batteries, which don't use memory, so they themselves never actually need "calibrated" like some older types of rechargeables)

    But...as far as what this means to you, its kind of a big deal! It improves battery life in letting android know when your battery is actually at 100%. When flashing new kernels and ROMs, its very likely that the phone will read your battery at full, when in reality its probably less. So it would seem like your phone isn't getting as good battery life (when in actuality it just hasn't been charged fully but you don't know that because android reads it as full because it hasn't been calibrated ;))
    also, without a calibration, you might notice your battery gauge draining oddly...for example, you might see it quickly drop from 100 to 89, then drop steadily to 72, and then hang for a while at 71 (these are all just made up numbers)

    so it means alot! but everybody has different methods and i've never seen anything officially released by spring or samsung to confirm methods...

    I will say this though...I've read plenty about how since these Li-ion batteries don't have memory, the DRAINING method, while maybe correctly calibrating your battery, actually HURT the long-term life of your battery.

    so heres what ive always done:

    (the parentheses are the state of the phone)

    (phone on) charge battery till LED blue

    (phone on) unplug, wait till LED off
    [POWER OFF]

    (phone off) plug in, wait till LED blue

    (phone off) Unplug, wait till LED off
    [POWER ON]

    When completely booted, power off again

    (phone off) plug in wait till LED blue,

    boot into recovery, wipe battery stats

    unplug, reboot phone and use ;)

    it's always worked so try it out
    4
    I hate to be this guy but someone's got to do it. I've posted replies to this several times. But it seems like no one is listening. I'm an electrical engineering major and here is my advice on lithium ion batteries.

    Lithium Ion batteries do not have an internal memory so no matter how many times you drain it, or charge it, it will always have the same capacity. NiCad or Nickel Cadmium batteries do have an internal memory. NiCads used to be the standard for Cell-Phone batteries so calibrating them was very commonplace.

    If you are constantly "calibrating" a lithium ion battery by the ways described above you are actually shortening its life. The more you discharge a lithium ion battery the less of a charge it will hold.

    So please, save your battery and just wipe the battery stats. The more you keep it near 100% the better.

    Lithium Ion batteries have a safety mechanism that give it a charging life. The epic LithIon is about 2000 - 3000 charges then the battery will simply not work. After this time the Lithium Ions become unstable and are prone to explosion.

    I wish I could cite my references with a link, but I can't because I don't have enough posts, but I've been a member since 2008.

    Go to google.com and search battery university. Then go to Lithium Ions and read, read, read.
    2
    Still a noob, but what would exactly need you to have to Calibrate Battery? Also what exactly does it do for the user?

    P.S I'm sure I could look this up but it would be nice to see it in your thread for others to see :)
    1
    I don't know why everyone keeps referring to it as "calibrating ur battery". By now everyone should know that ur just calibrating ur phone. Your battery is a "static" source of power....nothing ever changes with that. By wiping ur battery stats, the phone "forgets" how the old kernel distributed and used power before. After wiping ur battery stats, the new rom or kernel can "learn" where to start and stop based on the battery's voltage.;)

    P.S.>>>>That is why everyone "thinks" that their phone is getting better battery life. Before wiping battery stats and flashing a new rom or kernel the phone is "confused" because a previous rom/kernel told it the battery only had 5% left when the battery actually had 30 or 40% left. If you guys doubt this, try it for yourselves.....I don't know how many times I've tried "calibrating" my phone by running it down to 1% and had it stay @ 1% for almost 1hr.:eek:
    That is a sure sign that the phone is "confused" and not the battery.