Texas Instruments Improves Battery Level Indicators

We’ve all been there.  Your battery-powered device is working one minute and claims 75% charge on the battery and the next minute it’s dead.  Most battery level indicators measure voltage only.  This works because a battery’s voltage drops as it’s available energy is depleted.  However, a battery’s voltage can also drop when its load increases.  Additionally, as rechargeable batteries age their voltages at various charges change.  All told, this makes for a fairly inaccurate assessment of your current battery life.

According to engineers at Texas Instruments (TI) people can lose as much as 30% of a battery’s potential when a device detects a low battery condition and shuts down prematurely.  TI thinks they have a solution to the problem with their new chip, however.  This chip measures impedance in conjunction with voltage, allowing for a more accurate assessment of the battery’s true condition according to TI.  They believe using this new chip they can determine a battery’s useful life withing 1%.  Like other battery life monitoring devices this chip can be placed in the device or in the battery pack itself.

While this may not seem like Earth shattering news, for those of us who depend on laptops, cell phones, PDAs and the likes, getting every last ounce out of that battery may be the difference between completing that project in the airport lounge and sitting on the floor next to the power outlet.