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Wiki > Main > BatteryRuntime

Rockbox battery runtime testing.

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. A simple way to perform this test is to record the output of the device on a sound card's line in, and then check the length of the recorded audio to determine how long it ran.

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.(On a HDD player) 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.

r16 - 17 Sep 2021 - 00:17:02 - DanaConrad

Copyright © by the contributing authors.