I thought that I read somewhere that speech drains the battery faster than the Braille display.
Andy At 08:49 PM 1/13/04 -0500, you wrote: >I would think a braille display would drain a lot of power. I can read for hours with voice. Your battery probably won't last two years. Neither will mine. A rechargeable battery will discharge, even with nothing connected to it, I think. > >Brenda Mueller > >> ----- Original Message ----- >>From: Paul Henrichsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED] >>To: Braillenote List <[EMAIL PROTECTED] >>Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 15:15:01 -0800 >>Subject: battery drain. Was [Braillenote] A suggestion regarding alarms > >> Hi, Terry. I guess this alarm suggestion stems from the fact that I >> still >>really dislike the amount of battery drain on my bn. >>I know that everyone on this list has tried to assure me that the >>percentage of drain is normal, but it just really bothers me that I can >>read for an hour and drop almost ten percent. >>I just had my bn fully charged on Sunday morning and I am already at 47 >>percent on Tuesday. I have probably used the unit for maybe three hours or >>so, four hours if I were over exaggerating. >>I like everything about this unit except for the battery drain. If it goes >>down this fast with a new unit not yet a month old, Imagine what it will be >>like in two years. Will it drop 50 percent each day if I read for an hour >>or so at that time? >>What can I expect in a year and a half or two years with regard to battery >>drain? >>How will I know it is time to get a new battery? >>Is it because I have speech and braille turned on that I drop so fast? Is >>it because I am editing, dleting and adding characters instead of just reading? >>I assume not because I drop at least four percent a day when my unit is >>switched off. >>I have a book port, a portable reading device from A P H. Although it >>doesn't have an alarm, it does have a clock; so that it keeps track of the >>time even when the unit is off. It uses flash memory to store books and >>that card is always in the unit. It doesn't drain nearly as fast as the bn >>does. I don't keep a flash card in my unit; nor do I use the modem, serial >>port or infra-red port. >>Of course, we are talking apples and oranges here, but I do remember that >>in the early rom updates of the book port, it ate batteries like candy. >>They somehow fixed the drain problem and updated the rom so now, it doesn't >>drain hardly at all. > >>If I over exaggerate, I probably get ten hours out of a full charge. I >>thought we were supposed to get between 16 and 20 hours; or is that if the >>unit just sits there doing nothing? >>I had thought that if we could turn off functions that we weren't >>interested in using that, perhaps, we could increase the battery life. >>I think this is really going to be a sticking point if the new packmate >>gets a much higher battery life. We already have the problem with a newer >>internet explorer that pocket pc provides for the pacmate and the fact that >>they can use a wireless connection. >>I think their 50 hour battery life was an exaggeration, but what if they >>can get 20 or 30 hours to our ten? >>There is no way to even tell how long you have used the bn between charges >>The L key doesn't work on the support page. With my braille lite 18, I >>could bring up the status menu and find out how much of a charge I had left >>and also how many hours I had been using the unit. >>We can't do this with the bn. >>If I used the stopwatch each time I switched on the unit to get a running >>total, would that drain the battery even faster? >>I tried it last night after a suggestion from a user that this wold tell me >>how much time I had used the unit. I read for an hour and five >>minutes,according to the stopwatch. I dropped from 58 to near 48 percent. >>This is the only thing that really frustrates me. >>Can you tell<grin>? >>Paul Henrichsen >><[EMAIL PROTECTED] >><home.pacbell.net/paulh52 > > > >>___ >>To leave the BrailleNote list, send a blank message to >>[EMAIL PROTECTED] >>To view the list archives or change your preferences, visit >>http://list.pulsedata.com/mailman/listinfo/braillenote > > >___ >To leave the BrailleNote list, send a blank message to >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >To view the list archives or change your preferences, visit >http://list.pulsedata.com/mailman/listinfo/braillenote > > >
