Rockbox battery runtime testing.

Introduction

Introduction

Battery runtime tests help the Rockbox developers understand how to use the batteries of our players in the most efficent way and how changes to rockbox impacts the battery runtime.

The proposed test methodology is as follows:

Copy the intended test firmware to the device
Reset the settings on the device
Turn device off and charge until the charging light turns off
Turn device on and start repeated playback of a specific album - note the start time
Do not touch the device until it switches itself off - note the end time

The best method for determining if the device is still on (if this cannot be determined by looking at it) is to listen briefly at the headphones. Pressing a button will light up the backlight and this is a considerable power use.

If possible, the same test should be run multiple times and the total runtime averaged. But single results will still be useful. Please note that if your album contains exceptionally high bitrate files, excessive disk spinups can skew the results. For most consistent results you should try to use a playlist greater than the size of your devices RAM containing files of only one type (for example, all MP3) encoded at the same settings.

If you want to make your life easier and make a full benchmark with graphs and statistical info, you can use PluginBatteryBenchmark.

These pages document tests performed on specific devices, please submit your results.

r9 - 11 Mar 2008 - 11:09:16 - RobertKukla