原作者：
来源Your Battery Gauge Is Lying To You: Everything You Need To Know About Bump Charging And Inconsistent Battery Drain
译者imzero
Your Smartphone Is Lying To You (And It’s Not Such A Bad Thing)
Climbing out of bed, about to start your day, you unplug your new smartphone from its wall charger and quickly check your email. You’ve left it plugged in overnight, and the battery gauge shows 100%. After a quick shower, you remember that you forgot to send your client a file last night. You pick up your phone again, but the battery gauge now reads 90%. A 10% drop in 10 minutes? The phone must be defective, right?
大早上的，好不容易从床上挣扎起来，准备开始新的一天，先把刚买的智能手机从充电器上拔下来，再迅速的看两眼邮箱有木有新邮件。给手机充了整整一晚上的电呢，电量指示也是满满的。冲个澡之后，突然想起来昨晚上给一个客户的文件忘记发了，于是赶紧拿起手机，这时却发现：呀，电量怎么只有90%了呢？不过洗了10分的澡，电量也下降了10%？手机不是有什么问题吧？
A common complaint about today’s smartphones is their short battery life compared to older cell phones. Years ago, if you accidentally left your charger at home, your phone could still make it through a weeklong vacation with life to spare (I did it more than once). With the newest phones on the market, you might be lucky enough to make it through a weekend.
现在，和老款的手机相比，对智能手机最大的诟病就是电池太不耐用了。想想几年前，即使是不慎把手机充电器忘到家了，手机坚持个1个礼拜绰绰有余（我经常干这个事）。而现今市场的手机，能坚持过个2天周末就算你运气了。
And why should we expect anything else? Phones used to have a very short list of features: make and receive phone calls. Today we use them for email, web surfing, GPS navigation, photos, video, games, and a host of other tasks. They used to sport tiny displays, while we now have giant touch screens with bright and vibrant colors. All of these features come at a cost: large energy requirements.
而且，我们还指望些什么呢？过去的手机功能极其简单：不过就是打打电话，接听电话嘛。如今的手机呢，我们要用来收发邮件，上网，GPS导航，拍照看视频，玩游戏等等。过去的手机不过一块很小的显示屏，而今的手机有着巨大而色彩亮丽的触摸屏。所有的这些功能的代价就是：极高的电量需求。
Interestingly enough, improvements in battery management technology have compounded the average user’s perception of this problem. Older phones were rather inelegant in their charging behavior; usually filling the battery to capacity and then switching to a trickle current to maintain the highest charge possible. This offered the highest usage time in the short-term, but was damaging the battery over the course of ownership. As explained at Battery University, “The time at which the battery stays at [maximum charge] should be as short as possible. Prolonged high voltage promotes corrosion, especially at elevated temperatures.”[1]
有意思的是，电池管理技术的改进也加深了普通用户在这个问题上的认识。旧款的手机充电相当粗放，通常是电池充满后，充电器切换到涓流电流，来维持一个最高的电量。这个能在短期内提供最长的使用时间，但是会在充电过程中减少电池的寿命。正如电池百科（译注：网站名-batteryuniversity.com，下同）中解释的那样：“电池保持最高电量的时间越短越好，长时间的高压充电会加速电池内部腐蚀，尤其是在高温下。”【1】
This is why many new phones will “lose” up to 10% within a few minutes of coming off the charger. The reality is that the battery was only at 100% capacity for a brief moment, after which the battery management system allowed it to slowly dip down to around 90%. Leaving the phone plugged in overnight does not make a difference: the phone only uses the wall current to maintain a partial charge state.
这就是为什么新款的手机都会有这个现象——从充电器上拔下之后，几分钟之内电量就消耗了10%。事实就是，电池只能在很短的时间内保持100%的电量，之后电池管理程序会允许电量逐渐下降到90%左右。即使是充一晚上电，也不不见得有什么区别：手机只是利用墙电来维持一个充电状态。
To monitor this, I installed CurrentWidget on my HTC ADR6300 (Droid Incredible), an app that can log how much electric current is being drawn from the battery or received from the charger. Setting it to record log entries every 10 seconds, I have collected a few days worth of data. While many variables are involved (phone hardware, ROM, kernel, etc) and no two devices will perform exactly the same, the trends that I will describe are becoming more common in new phones. This is not just isolated to a single platform or a single manufacturer.
为了监控电量使用情况，我在我的HTC ADR6300上安装了一个名叫CurrentWidget的应用程序，它既可以记录电池放电量的多少，又能记录充电量的多少。我把它设置成每10秒记录一次，这样收集了数天的有效数据。当然要说明的是，电量消耗记录要涉及到很多变量（手机硬件，ROM，内核等等），而且也不会有2个机器耗电完全一样，但我描述的电量使用趋势是现代手机所共有的。这并不是单纯的针对某一个手机平台或手机制造商。
Chart 1 shows system reported battery levels over the course of one night, with the phone plugged in to a charger. Notice that as the battery level approaches 100%, the charging current gradually decreases. After a full charge is reached, wall current is cut completely, with the phone switching back to the battery for all of its power. It isn’t until about two hours later that you can see the phone starts receiving wall current again, and even then it is only in brief bursts.
表1显示了手机连上充电器经过一晚上之后，系统记录的电量水平。要注意的是，随着电池电量达到100%，充电器的电流逐渐减少。当完全充满之后，墙电完全被切断，同时手机完全切换到电池供电。大概2个小时之后，你又可以看到手机又开始利用墙电电流，即使这样也只有短暂的高峰。
图1（解释一下这个图，最上面橙色表示手机系统记录的电池电量，绿色的点表示充电器的电流，红色的应该是指电池的放电量）
The steep drop in reported battery seen past the 6.5 hour mark shows the phone being unplugged. While the current draw does increase at this point (since the phone is being used), it still cannot account for the reported 6% depletion in 3 minutes. It should also be obvious that maintaining a 100% charge state is impossible given the long spans in which the phone is only operating on battery power.
根据系统记录，当手机从充电器上拔下约6.5个小时之后，电池电量开始急剧下降。而从此图中可以看出，到手机使用6.5小时的时候，电流的确升高了，这并不能解释系统记录中3分钟内消耗了6%的电量。维持100%满电的状态很明显是不可能的，这是因为有很长一段时间，手机系统只能靠电池供电。
Using the data from CurrentWidget, however, it is quite easy to project the actual battery state. Starting with the assumption that the first battery percentage reading is accurate, each subsequent point is calculated based on mA draw and time. Chart 2 includes this projection.
然而，根据CurrentWidget记录的数据，查看实际电池状态是很轻松的事情。假设刚开始的时候电池电量的读数是准确的，后面的点都是根据电量（mA）和时间的关系计算出的。图2就包括了这二者的关系图。
图2 （蓝线表示软件计算得出的电量和时间的关系）
Now we can see that the 6% drop after unplugging is simply the battery gauge catching up with reality.
现在，我们可以看出拔下充电器之后，系统记录中电量下降6%与实际相符合。
The phone manufacturers essentially have three choices:
手机的制造商们实际上有3种选择：
1. Use older charging styles which actually maintain a full battery, thereby decreasing its eventual life
1.使用旧式充电模式，维持电池的满电状态，但有害电池寿命。
2. Use new charging methods and have an accurate battery gauge
2.使用新式充电模式，同时使用精确的电量指示。
3. Use new charging methods and have the inaccurate battery gauge
3.使用新式充电模式，同时使用不精确的电量指示。
Option one has clearly fallen out of favor as it prematurely wears devices. Option two, while being honest, would most likely be met with many complaints. After all, how many people want to see their phone draining down to 90% while it is still plugged in? Option three therefore offers an odd compromise. Maybe phone companies think that users will be less likely to worry about a quick drop off the charger than they will worry about a "defective" charger that doesn't keep their phone at 100% while plugged in.
很明显，选择1不会受亲睐，因为它会过早的报废手机。选择2呢，实话实说，可能会招来大量的抱怨。毕竟，有多少人愿意看到他们的手机正在充电呢，电量就损耗到了90%？选择3可以说是提供了一种折中的方法。或许，手机制造商认为用户可能不怎么关注拔下充电器后，电量迅速消耗，而是更担心手机充电器可能有什么“缺陷”，使得他们的手机老是充不满电。
Bump It. Or Should You?
One technique that has gained popularity in the user community is "bump charging." To bump charge a device, turn it off completely, and plug it into a charger. Wait until the indicator light shows a full charge (on the ADR6300, for example, the charging LED changes from amber to green) but do not yet turn the device back on. Instead, disconnect and immediately reconnect the power cord. The device will now accept more charge before saying it is full. This disconnect/reconnect process can be repeated multiple times, each time squeezing just a little bit more into the battery. Does it work?
有种充电技术在用户广为流传——“插拔充电”。用这种方法给手机充电，首先要把手机完全关闭，然后把手机插到充电器上。等到充电器指示灯显示完全充满后（在手机ADR6300上，充电器的LED充满后，灯的颜色会从琥珀色变成绿色），这时候也不要打开手机。而是，先拔下电源线后立即再插上电源线。这时候，即使手机显示充满电，但依旧能够充进去电。这个断线重新连接的充电方式可以重复数次，每次都能给电池硬充进去一些电量。但这种方法真起作用么？
The following chart plots battery depletion after the device has received a hefty bump charge (6 cycles) and then turned on to use battery power. Note that the system does not show the battery dropping from 100% until well over an hour of unplugged use, at which point it starts to steadily decline. Again, however, it should be obvious that the battery gauge is not syncing up with reality. How could the rate of depletion be increasing over the first 5 hours while the rate of current draw is relatively steady? And why does the projected battery line separate from the reported levels, but then exactly mirror the later rises and falls?
拿一块耗尽电的电池按上述方法经过6次充电后，再打开手机用电池供电，根据这个用电量绘制出下面这个图。从中可以看出，系统记录中并没有显示电量一开始就从100%下降，而是经过一个小时后才开始下降，此后电量稳步下降。然而，数据再一次显示出电池指示电量与实际用电并不同步。手机的耗电率怎么可能在头5个小时不断增加，同时电流却相对稳定？而且，为什么绘制出的电池消耗线和系统记录的如此差别，但是后来（5小时后）却极其同步的升高或降低呢？
图3
The answer, of course, is that bump charging definitely works. Rather than anchoring our projected values to the first data point of 100%, what happens if we anchor against a later point in the plot?
原因很明显，插拔充电确实起作用了。而如果绘制图像的第一个数据点起始数据不是100%，如果我们把后面同步变化的点拖动到一起会怎么样？
图4
Aligning the data suggests that a heavy bump charge increases initial capacity by approximately 15%. Note that the only other time that the lines separate in this graph was once again when the phone was put on the charger and topped up to 100%. Just as with the first set of graphs, the phone kept reporting 100% until it was unplugged, dropped rapidly, and again caught up with our projections.
校正数据后显示，反复的插拔充电增加了大概15%的电池初始电量。要指出的是，当手机插上充电器并充电充到100%的时候，图表中显示只有在其他时间系统显示的电量和计算得出的电量不相一致。正如图1中显示的那样，手机会一直显示100%直到充电器被拔下，然后电量迅速下降，然后就图相就一致了。
So What Does It All Mean?
If you absolutely need the highest capacity on a device like this, you will need to bump charge. There are currently people experimenting with "fixes" for this, but I have yet to see one that works. Be warned, however, that repeated bump charging will wear your battery faster and begin to reduce its capacity. If you are a "power user" who will buy a new battery a few months from now anyway, this presumably isn't a concern. If you are an average consumer who uses a device for a few years, I would recommend that you stay away from bump charging. The bottom line is that you don't really "need" to do it unless you are actually depleting your battery to 0% on a regular basis.
如果你绝对需要最高的电量，你可以用插拔的方式进行充电。有很多人利用“补丁”来对此进行试验，但是我没有看到有起作用的。然而，反复这样充电要注意安全，反复的插拔会更快的损耗电池寿命，而且会降低电池容量。如果你是一个“发烧友”，你会很快再去买一块新电池，这当然不是一个问题。如果你就是一个普通用户，几年内不准备再更换新手机，我劝你还是不要用插拔充电了。底线就是你并不真正需要这么做，除非你经常真正把电池电量全部用尽。
If you are someone who can top off your phone on a regular basis, do it. Plug it in when you're at home. Plug it in when you're at your desk. As explained by Battery University, "Several partial discharges with frequent recharges are better for lithium-ion than one deep one. Recharging a partially charged lithium-ion does not cause harm because there is no memory."[2]
如果你经常充满电就拔下充电器，那么还是继续这么做吧。当你在家的时候就给手机充上电。当你在办公室的时候，也给你的手机插上电。正如电池百科中解释的那样，“多次的不完全放电，同时多次的充电对锂电池来讲，要比把电全部耗尽再充电要好。给尚有余电的锂电池进行充电不会造成任何危害，因为锂电池没有记忆性。”【2】
Beyond that, the best advice I can offer is to stop paying such close attention to your battery gauge and to just use your phone. Charge it whenever you can, and then stop obsessing over the exact numbers. If you really need more usage time, buy an extended-capacity battery and use it normally.
除此之外，我给你的最好的建议就是，别太在意手机电量指示，宽心的去用手机吧。当你能够充电的时候就充电，不要太关注那个电量指示数字。如果你确实需要更长的使用时间，去买一块超容量的电池并正常使用吧。
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