Battery problems are among the biggest concerns for smartphone users, which is why we offer so many useful tips for solving battery drain issues. If you notice that your battery performance and duration has decreased, it could be time to calibrate your battery.
How do I know whether my battery is the problem?
First of all, you need to identify why your battery performance has decreased: is it the Android system’s calibration or the battery itself? We’ll move onto calibration in the sections below, but you should check if your battery itself is damaged first.
If your phone has a removable battery cover, turn off your phone, remove the cover and inspect the battery. Look for bulges or leaks. In the image below, you’ll see what a normal battery looks like next to a swollen one. If your phone doesn’t sit flat on the table anymore, that could also be a sign of a swollen battery too.
What is calibrating a battery?
The Android operating system has a feature called Battery Stats, which keeps track of battery capacity, when it is full or empty. The problem is that it sometimes becomes corrupted and starts displaying data that isn’t real, which, for example, causes the phone to turn off before it reaches 0 percent. Calibrating your Android battery simply means getting the Android OS to correct this information so it is reflective of your actual battery levels once again.
It’s important to understand that you can’t actually calibrate the battery itself: it is, after all, just a cell that stores power and discharges. However, lithium-ion batteries do include a printed circuit board (PCB), which serves as a protection switch to stop them exploding or deep discharging.
How to calibrate an Android device battery without root access
The old ‘fully charge and discharge’ approach stands as one of the simplest ways to ‘recalibrate’ your Android battery. We’ve warned you in the past about low voltage problems in lithium batteries and the negative impacts of fully draining a battery on its lifespan and the same holds true here. But, if your phone battery is causing you real problems, it’s worth taking the risk.
Method 1
- Discharge your phone fully until it turns itself off.
- Turn it on again and let it turn itself off.
- Plug your phone into a charger and, without turning it on, let it charge until the on-screen or LED indicator says 100 percent.
- Unplug your charger.
- Turn your phone on. It’s likely that the battery indicator won’t say 100 percent, so plug the charger back in (leave your phone on) and continue charging until it says 100 percent on-screen as well.
- Unplug your phone and restart it. If it doesn’t say 100 percent, plug the charger back in until it says 100 percent on screen.
- Repeat this cycle until it says 100 percent (or as close as you think it’s going to get) when you start it up without it being plugged in.
- Now, let your battery discharge all the way down to 0 percent and let your phone turn off again.
- Fully charge the battery one more time without interruption and you should have reset the Android system’s battery percentage.
Remember that it is not recommended to perform this process regularly. Even when your battery is so dead your phone won’t even turn on, your battery still has enough reserve charge to avoid system damage. But you don’t want to poke the tiger with a stick. Perform this process once every three months at the most. If it is required more often than that, you have bigger problems at hand.
Put plainly: fully discharging a battery is bad for it. Trying to overload a battery is also bad for it. The good news is that charging batteries will shut off automatically when they’ve reached their safe limit and there’s always a little in reserve even if your phone won’t start. Again: only do this when really necessary, because it does have a negative impact on battery life.
How to calibrate an Android device battery with root access
Even though I’m not convinced that clearing the batterystats.bin file has any meaningful effect on how the Android system reports remaining battery charge, there are those who swear by this method.
So in the interest of fairness, we’ve included the process for you here (it is true that different manufacturers use the batterystats.bin file for different things). It’s basically the same process as above, but with the added step of using a root-enabled app.
Method 2
- Discharge your phone fully until it turns itself off.
- Turn it on and let it turn off again.
- Plug your phone into a charger and, without turning it on, let it charge until the on-screen or LED indicator says 100 percent.
- Unplug your charger.
- Turn your phone on. It’s likely that the battery indicator won’t say 100 percent, so plug the charger back in (leave your phone on) and continue charging until it says 100 percent on the screen as well.
- Unplug your phone and restart it. If it doesn’t say 100 percent, plug the charger back in until it says 100 percent on screen.
- You want to repeat this cycle until it says 100 percent (or as close as you think it’s going to get) when you start it up without it being plugged in.
- Now, install the Battery Calibration app, and before you launch it, make sure your battery is at 100 percent again, then restart.
- Immediately launch the app and recalibrate your battery.
- Once you’ve calibrated your battery, discharge it all the way down to 0 percent and let your phone turn off again.
- Fully charge the battery one more time without interruption while it’s switched off, and the Android system’s battery percentage will be reset.
That’s it. Have you tried any of these methods? Do you know an alternate way to fix battery problems? Let us know in the comments.