AccuBattery is a new Android app that’s designed to make it as easy as possible to keep your battery in the best shape you can. Research has, time and time again shown that charging your device to 80% not only reduces the wear on your battery, but saves on the amount of cycles your device uses in the long run, thus extending the lifetime of your battery. AccuBattery is designed to give users the most information about their batteries, whether that’s the actual capacity of charge inside of the battery or which apps have used the lion’s share of your battery. Accuracy and precision is the aim of the game here, and AccuBattery will tell you how much electricity, in mA, each certain app has used, as well provide users with lots of different tips and tricks to extend the life of their battery. AccuBattery works better over time, and it’s the sort of app that will help users make the most of their batteries as well give them a little insight in to the oft-confusing world of Android battery life.
Just as with all other Android apps, AccuBattery is a short download from the Play Store, and to celebrate the app’s launch, they’re offering users 30% off of the premium version until August 22nd. Once users have download the app, they’ll be given an introduction into what AccuBattery is all about, and what it can do for you.
While these splash screens can often be boring to sit through, these appear to be nice and informative, without offering an overload of information. For an app like AccuBattery, it’s great to see an in-depth, yet easily-understood introduction like this.
AccuBattery is a multi-faceted app that can do a lot for users, no matter what it is they like to do with their devices, but one of the big things here is charging your battery to 80%. This is because AccuBattery has done extensive research – which people can read here – about the wear on a smartphone’s battery. As many of you might know, batteries inside of our smartphones are designed to last a certain amount of cycles, and charging your device too often, or overcharging your device to 100% or above can use up these cycles on your device quicker. That’s why AccuBattery is proud to offer a battery alarm once users get to 80%. While 80% is the recommended charge level, users can change the charge alarm level to whatever they choose. If they do extend it, AccuBattery will adjust its battery life estimates accordingly.
This is a neat feature, as it not only goes hand-in-hand with the research that AccuBattery have done, but it also gives your device’s battery some sort of consistency, too. Charging to 80% every time will create a memory effect, and a consistent memory effect will ensure a long-lasting battery when coming down from 80%, rather than a battery that might be topped up here or there. Of course, this is no good if you’re the type of user that’s going to continually top up to 80%, a full charge is always better than a partial charge. Regardless of your charging habits however, AccuBattery will inform you of the wear on your battery in cycles and such.
Charging your device is one thing, but we all know that there’s more to it than that. Which is why it’s great to see that AccuBattery has some of the best battery stats – for a non-root app – that I’ve seen in a long time. AccuBattery is even more accurate than Android’s own system for monitoring battery life. This is because it gets its data straight from Android’s battery charge controller, rather than the estimates that Android presents to the end user. It’s easy to see whether or not your Pokémon GO addiction is hammering your battery versus your Facebook habit thanks to these easy figures.
You’ll notice the tips and tricks dotted throughout the interface here, and these are great, because for a lot of users AccuBattery could come across as intimidating, but the overall friendliness of the UI and tips throughout certainly help to take the edge off of things. It goes without saying however, that AccuBattery is certainly something that will appear to power-users and those looking for more control over their battery life, but it’s not exactly too complicated, either. In fact, there’s a lot to be said for an app like this that helps educate users more on how their battery life acts and why their battery might be performing quite as it should. For those that are either app developers themselves or want to troubleshoot further, AccuBattery even features a specialized CPU overlay to show users real time battery drain figures.
The amount of power used by each app is worked out precisely and those the biggest culprits out there, the top four, are front and center to let you know which apps are using your battery the most. This, on top of the average battery stats usage makes AccuBattery pretty simple for those that want to see, at a glance, how and what is affecting their battery as well as how much they can expect out of their battery when charged.
It’s all fine and well having all of this information neatly laid out in a clean, attractive app, but not everyone will want to constantly be opening and closing it – something that will probably lead to more battery drain in the long run – which is where the persistent notification comes in. This can be adjusted in the settings, but many users will appreciate this, as it gives quick info about your battery, including how much battery is being used each and every hour, which is pretty much the point of using such an app in the first place.
I’ve tried out a number of battery saving and battery “boosting” apps out there in the past, but many of them are simply filled with empty promises. Sure, a lot of them have a lot of common sense features with the likes of turning off radios and adjusting auto-sync settings, but the most important thing when it comes to battery life on Android is knowledge. AccuBattery gives users all sorts of information about their battery, including the health of the battery itself and sound advice to help prolong the lifetime of said battery as well inform users of which apps and settings will contribute to a diminishing battery life. With a simple and easy-to-use notification included as well, this is one of the better apps out there for keeping an eye on your battery. It might end up being the sort of app only used by power users, but that needn’t be the case, and the great thing about AccuBattery is that it makes all this vital information available without complicating things or confusing those that might not be familiar with this sort of thing.
Ratings
- Speed (4/5) – Everything here runs well, and while it does take some time for AccuBattery to get accurate results, the app itself is nice and speedy.
- Theme (4/5) – The user interface here is both good-looking as well as easy to use, which is just what you want in an app that challenges such a complex problem for a lot of users.
- Features (5/5) – Instead of over-promising to revolutionize your battery life, AccuBattery uses proven methods to prolong the life of your battery and provide users with detailed information about which apps are causing the most problems. This is an app that will help users make their own decisions on how to get the most out of their battery, but do so by arming them with the best information possible. The charge alarm to make sure your device is charged no more than it needs to be encourages a consistent charging pattern and also helps to make sure that people don’t push their batteries too far.
- Overall (5/5) – A quality app that gives users the best weapon to have when dealing with poor battery life – or perhaps a failing battery itself – AccuBattery is well worth taking a look at, regardless of how technical a user you are.
Pros
- Doesn’t confuse users that might not have any real idea of how or what they’re doing when it comes to battery life on Android.
- Provides accurate and precise – as precise as possible – information about the battery life and what apps are doing to your battery, allowing the user to make their own informed decisions.
- There’s no wool over the eyes here, if the user doesn’t want to turn something off or change a setting, they don’t have to, this is about empowering the user, not doing it all for them and over-promising things.
- Charge alarm helps train users into taking better care of their battery, which will in turn make sure that the battery lasts at its best for as long as it can.
Cons
- In order to be so precise, it does take some time to calculate accurate readings.
- Stay Awake battery stats would make it much, much easier for users to find the biggest culprits draining their batteries.
AccuBattery is perhaps one of the most complete apps out there that makes it nice and easy to keep track of your battery usage and such, without it promising to revolutionize your battery life. With the CPU overlay and charge alarm features, AccuBattery makes it straightforward to take better care of your battery, and in the case of the CPU overlay, even allow developers to see how efficient or inefficient their app is, which is a big deal as users really care about their battery life. Knowledge is power, and taking care of your battery and having one that doesn’t give up on your during the day is all about knowing what you’re doing. AccuBattery is an app that will help people take back control of their smartphone battery life and it does so without patronising them or over-promising on things, instead it just lets users get on with things and delivers an excellent tool to get the job done.