[Bug 811777] Re: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining
Here are several reasons why percent remaining is a useful statistic: --Power consumption varies, making time remaining less accurate. Yes, if we can improve the estimate, then by all means, we should do so, but that doesn't change the fact that percent remaining is more precise and accurate. It can also be more useful when the user is going to switch to a different sort of task, as it will drain the battery at a different rate. --The battery percentage is FAR more important to users who are concerned about managing battery health. ===Batteries have to be stored at the proper charge level (which is impossible to deduce from time remaining since as the battery's overall capacity decreases, this statistic will change, while the percentage will not). ===To maintain battery health, it is necessary to start charging the battery at a particular percentage (for batteries where memory is an issue, a full discharge is recommended. For Lithium ion batteries, which are the standard for laptops, it's around 10-20 percent). --Some users prefer percent remaining (to charge) to time remaining (to charge). When possible, good interfaces accommodate user preference. This alone is sufficient reason to give the user more options. The current design makes this statistic less accessible and limits user choice. Currently, when you click on the battery icon, it displays the time remaining (time to charge), gives you the option of putting this info in the menu bar, and does NOT display the percentage. This is a poor design because: it decreases user control over what statistics are being displayed (giving the user options is BETTER) it makes the other statistic (percent remaining) harder to find. One has to either look at battery statistics (which doesn't display percentage when battery is charging), power system settings, or use the terminal. Additionally, both statistics are most useful when used in conjunction with the other, so user experience can be improved by making both accessible regardless of preference. A better design is to give the user the option to display EITHER the time remaining OR the percentage, and displaying the other statistic when you click on the battery icon. This would increase customization make both statistics accessible, resulting in a better user experience. ** Summary changed: - Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining + Battery meter design needs to make percentage and time statistics easily accessible. ** Summary changed: - Battery meter design needs to make percentage and time statistics easily accessible. + Battery meter design needs to make both percentage and time statistics easily accessible. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/811777 Title: Battery meter design needs to make both percentage and time statistics easily accessible. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/811777/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 811777] Re: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining
** Changed in: indicator-power Status: Incomplete = Opinion ** Changed in: indicator-power (Ubuntu) Status: Incomplete = Opinion -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/811777 Title: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/811777/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 811777] Re: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining
The summary of this bug report says 'Show Percentage Remaining' is more useful than 'Show Time Remaining'. As far as I can tell, though, this bug report does not contain any evidence for that, and doesn't even contain any evidence that showing the percentage is useful at all. For that reason, I'm marking it Incomplete. Without that evidence, I believe that battery percentage -- while easy for a battery to report, and for an OS to display -- is pretty much useless to humans. For example, on the 2008 MacBook running Ubuntu that I'm using right now, 98% means about 2 hours remaining. On my 2011 MacBook running Mac OS X, 98% means about 10 hours remaining. That's a fivefold difference in how long I can use the computer, represented by exactly the same percentage value. It may be true that on some machines, the time estimate changes too much and/or too often to be useful either. If so, then as Vish and Ted have suggested, that is a fixable bug. (Sample from more minutes, and/or give less emphasis to recent changes in the charge level, and/or cater for old batteries by reversing the charge curve from the previous cycle.) Making the time estimate less prominent would not fix that bug. And showing the percentage would not improve the situation at all -- because in the absence of a time estimate, your brain would be estimating the time based on the rate of percentage decline, and that rate would be fluctuating exactly as much. Percentage might be interesting to someone troubleshooting a battery problem, or investigating whether a battery is worn out. So it is useful to show it in the Power Statistics window, where it already is. I would be happy to help anyone who would like to make that window more understandable. ** Changed in: ayatana-design Status: New = Incomplete -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/811777 Title: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/811777/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 811777] Re: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining
Ok, fair enough. I personally prefer the percentage but perhaps the design goals are different perhaps time left (if it works) is more useful than a percentage. I'll quote my original report for the only support I have for my opinion: This is in contrast to how other OS's work. My Android phone shows me a % but does not tell me how many minutes I have left. Gnome Shell shows both the time a percentage: https://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/Guidelines/SystemStatus/BatteryPower -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/811777 Title: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/811777/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 811777] Re: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining
NotifyOSD shows time and percent, e.g. screenshot, time remaining 16 min. in battery state 17%. ** Attachment added: indicator-power.png https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/indicator-power/+bug/811777/+attachment/2237166/+files/indicator-power.png -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/811777 Title: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/811777/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 811777] Re: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining
#2 +1 Percent doesn't tell me how much time is left, which is rather human language (similar to df -h). I don't experience fluctuance here, notebook usually has ~2:30 after fully charged (which is less due to Bug #760131) and is mostly consistent with conky, in between offset sometimes 1-5 minutes, which is probably due to different update time of both apps. It also doesn't display the time by default, the option needs to be clicked in the menu. indicator-power 0.3-0ubuntu1 Compromise may be to add a choice which value a user likes to view. If it all isn't satisfying there're already indicators created by community. http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/02/battery-applet-status-ubuntu/ -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/811777 Title: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/811777/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 811777] Re: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining
From IRC: tedg And I think we should fix upower to better time instead of going back to percentage. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/811777 Title: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/811777/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 811777] Re: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining
Not really sure how you are basing the more useful here, but I'd have to disagree with the current bug report. What is the first thought that pops into your head when you see NN% remaining? Alteast, in my head it is, oh! that would be approximately nn mins left or maybe something closer But I'm always not exactly sure what the percentage really relates to. From reading the bug report it seems the problem here is number fluctuates way too much ... and is therefore distracting , maybe we should be looking into fixing the update interval and not how the time is displayed. ** Changed in: indicator-power (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided = Low ** Changed in: indicator-power (Ubuntu) Status: New = Incomplete ** Changed in: indicator-power Status: New = Incomplete ** Tags added: needs-design -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/811777 Title: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/811777/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 811777] Re: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining
Vish, thanks for the comments. It's not just that the number fluctuates, but that the number is usually wrong. The time remaining on my laptop just went from 13 hours 2 minutes to 2 hours 4 minutes to 1 hour 52 minutes to 1 hour 58 minutes within about 2 minutes time of mostly idling. I estimate this laptop gets about 2 hours of battery time. So at 50%, I have about an hour left. I concede that there's some use for a time estimate but a percentage is nice because it only takes up about 3 characters of space on our symbolic status menu and a simple click to open the menu will show the actual time remaining. I also agree with not showing either the time or percentage by default next to the main tray icon itself but it's a nice power user feature. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/811777 Title: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/811777/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 811777] Re: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining
** Also affects: indicator-power Importance: Undecided Status: New ** Also affects: ayatana-design Importance: Undecided Status: New -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/811777 Title: Show Percentage Remaining is more useful than Show Time Remaining To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/811777/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
