Battery, battery level, power level, remaining battery

[FoO]

Just to be clear, this is July of 2016. I've searched through out the discussions and have not found anything recent or a solid answer.

Currently running:
Controller Firmware Version
Fri Feb 19 15:41:21 2016 (1,455,918,081)

Receiver Firmware Version:
Mon Sep 14 13:46:38 2015 (1,442,256,398)

Steam built: Jul 12 2016, at 14:50:13


I swear there used to be a place you could see the remaining battery level.

Simple yes/no - is there a way to see the current battery level on the steam controller?

[Vepar]

Yes, go to steam settings in Big Picture Mode, and go to Add/Test controller. Below, under detected controllers, you'll see a SC icon with battery level across it.

I don't know how accurate it is though, i've had theese batteries for weeks now and it still shows full charge. Then again, it could be the insane battery life SC squeezes out of them so there's that...

[Vagrant]

What Vepar said.

Also, when your battery level is low, a new controller icon will show up on the top right of the BPM main menu. This icon will have white dots inside a rectangle. These dots are your battery life.

[•]

Anyone missing the percentage indicator out there like I do? Even inaccurate.

[Gort of Goom]

It's highly inaccurate, but makes some degree of sense when considering the range of performance present in alkaline brands. One brand's 50% charge voltage is another's 10% charge voltage. In my experience, using Duracell Coppertop, steam will show 100% charge for the first ~75 hours, and then will drop to 1 bar over the course of about 4 hours. Don't expect it to hold out until 1 bar though, I've had horrible connectivity problems even at 3.

[•]

If anyone remember, long time ago someone suggested a Steam battery life timer that count down while SC is on, which you setup manually. That was a great idea, you know. Over cycles you gonna know estimated specific type batteries life anyway to have shoutdown alert.
Sigh

[cammelspit]

Originally posted by Tos Kerman:

It's highly inaccurate, but makes some degree of sense when considering the range of performance present in alkaline brands. One brand's 50% charge voltage is another's 10% charge voltage. In my experience, using Duracell Coppertop, steam will show 100% charge for the first ~75 hours, and then will drop to 1 bar over the course of about 4 hours. Don't expect it to hold out until 1 bar though, I've had horrible connectivity problems even at 3.

When the voltage drops, you can and will have connection problems if you are not in a perfect environment for EMI. I get connection problems about the time it shows one bar but only with my newer controller. The older one can go right till it dies before I get connection issues. REV9 Vs. REV10 board.

I have also done some testing of the cutoff voltage of the controllers and it seems that the REV9, the initial release version of the controller, will cut off at a little over 1V per cell. Usually, I test it to be around 1.05V or so. The REV10 SC will take the cells all the way down to 0.95 before it cuts off entirely. My assumption is the newer controllers are more power efficient, better boost converters or whatever so they don't need as high a voltage to run but since the radio is exactly the same, the lower voltage makes the radio not quite as strong. The radio SOC on the SC can operate pretty darn low (Sorry, can't remember exactly because I haven't read the white paper on it in many months) so I would guess it is taking power right from the batteries and not the converter like the other MCUs seem to be.

Either way, without reverse engineering the boards I can't be 100% certain but this is my educated guess.

Wow, that got out of hand quickly.

EDIT: BTW the newer controller gets about 4-8 hours longer life with the lower cutoff voltage. Not too shabby but those last few hours have connection problems for me so it's less useful and I usually just replace the cells in both whenever one goes out no matter what...

[Vepar]

Originally posted by Consona:

If anyone remember, long time ago someone suggested a Steam battery life timer that count down while SC is on, which you setup manually. That was a great idea, you know. Over cycles you gonna know estimated specific type batteries life anyway to have shoutdown alert.
Sigh

I suggested something like that once. Not many people were into the idea.

But i'd like to see that option regardless. People don't have to use it but it would be nice if it's there for people that do want to track the battery life manually.

[cammelspit]

I think Valve would likely tell you that it's just not worth the effort to make a feature like that and that is assuming the SC actually gets real voltage readings from the controller and can pass it through to the software, it might not even be capable of that.

[Briggs]

It would be nice if there was some kind of warning that popped up in game. I've been in dungeons when my batteries dies. Once, I was the healer and the party almost wiped (everyone died except for me). Luckily I was able to rez the whole party, but it was awfully embaressing apologizing afterwards. And that wouldn't have been nessisary if I had just a few minutes warning. There is no doubt that the battery indicator is horribly inaccurate, but it is still better than nothing.

It's kind of like a car's fuel warning light. Some cars it goes off when you're running on fumes and other you can go another 20 miles. After a while, if you use the same battieres, you'd be able to tell which case you fall under, or if you fall inbetween.

[cammelspit]

Originally posted by Krovoc:

It would be nice if there was some kind of warning that popped up in game. I've been in dungeons when my batteries dies. Once, I was the healer and the party almost wiped (everyone died except for me). Luckily I was able to rez the whole party, but it was awfully embaressing apologizing afterwards. And that wouldn't have been nessisary if I had just a few minutes warning. There is no doubt that the battery indicator is horribly inaccurate, but it is still better than nothing.

It's kind of like a car's fuel warning light. Some cars it goes off when you're running on fumes and other you can go another 20 miles. After a while, if you use the same battieres, you'd be able to tell which case you fall under, or if you fall inbetween.

I cannot say I am not in support of a more direct warning. A hardware based warning where the controller annoyingly beeps every 45 seconds when it has about 2 hours left would be perfect.

[•]

I vote for haptic warnings, on one side with cammelspit. No need in BPM or even Steam at all, useful during daytime or bright room lighting. Screen prompts seem a little bit uncertain compared to "sound".

[cammelspit]

Originally posted by Consona:

I vote for haptic warnings, on one side with cammelspit. No need in BPM or even Steam at all, useful during daytime or bright room lighting. Screen prompts seem a little bit uncertain compared to "sound".

I would say having BOTH would be preferrable. Like those cars that have the gas light come on without a beep. How the hell am I supposed to know my gas is low if it doesn't beep to make me even look at the indicator. Not that I never look at my gas light but sometimes, you are driving and distracted, just like gaming.

[•]

Exactly.

[FoO]

Haptic warnings would drain things faster though, no? Really, I'd just like to avoid a) losing connection while playing with no warning and b) tossing partially full batteries because I don't know how much longer they are going to last. It's not just annoying, but it's pretty rough on the environement.

[cammelspit]

Originally posted by Ars FoO:

Haptic warnings would drain things faster though, no? Really, I'd just like to avoid a) losing connection while playing with no warning and b) tossing partially full batteries because I don't know how much longer they are going to last. It's not just annoying, but it's pretty rough on the environement.

That is why God created NiMh cells.