There's been a flurry of news about smartphone manufacturers slowing down older models in order to prevent phones with older batteries from shutting down unexpectedly. Even though the intent was good, there still has been customer backlash. Customers didn't have access to detailed battery information, for one thing. These incidents illustrate how important it is to give consumers access to reliable battery information.
The lithium-ion batteries commonly inside today's mobile devices can degrade over time. One simple way to manage an aged battery is to integrate a fuel gauge IC into your design. Fuel gauge ICs can provide accurate state-of-charge (SOC) information as well as these types of parameters:
- Available and reported remaining capacity: available capacity can change whenever the load or temperature changes, so the reported remaining capacity metric can be used to communicate the actual capacity that's left
- Age and age forecast: the age parameter typically presents the percentage ratio of the present full capacity compared to the original design capacity, while the age forecast estimates how many cycles a user can get from the battery during its lifetime
- Time-to-empty: this measurement can assess whether the battery can support the expected runtime for a hypothetical session, helping to prevent unexpected crashes
- Battery resistance: this metric provides the calculated value of the average internal resistance of the battery
- Timer: this capability allows the fuel gauge IC to track the battery's age in terms of absolute time stemming from the moment that the IC was first connected to the cell
These offer some examples of the insight that a good battery fuel gauge IC can provide. To learn more, read "How to Use Your Battery Fuel Gauge to Build Customer Trust."