Power management of device with modular components
View Patent ↗Managing power in an electronic device to enhance battery performance includes various elements. One aspect includes automatically accelerating discharge of a battery below a threshold prior to recharging the battery. Another aspect includes measuring power requirements of modular components to create an order for use in power distribution. For example, a modular component with a highest power requirement might be charged first. In another example, power might be transferred first from a modular component with a lowest power requirement.
1. Non-transitory computer-readable media storing having computer-useable instructions for performing a method of managing power of an electronic device that includes a primary battery, the method comprising:
monitoring a first power level of said primary battery;
incident to a device-usage downtime, which is determined by tracking usage cycles of the electronic device, automatically accelerating a discharging of said primary battery;
detecting that said first power level of said primary battery dropped to a threshold level; and
recharging said primary battery from a power source.
2. The media of claim 1 , wherein the electronic device comprises one or more of a laptop computing device, tablet computing device, notebook computing device, handheld computing device, and mobile phone.
3. The media of claim 1 , wherein the primary battery comprises a rechargeable battery.
4. The media of claim 1 , wherein the device-usage downtime is determined by a combination of the usage cycles and input from a user.
5. The media of claim 1 , wherein automatically accelerating comprises performing an extraneous function.
6. The media of claim 5 , wherein said extraneous function comprises running streaming video, turning on a light, displaying a message, running a heat sink, transmitting sound at an audible frequency, transmitting sound at a nonaudible frequency, transferring power from the primary battery to one or more other batteries, or a combination thereof.
7. The media of claim 1 further comprising, displaying a GUI to indicate an acceleration of discharge of the primary battery.
8. The media of claim 1 , wherein said power source comprises another battery.
9. The media of claim 1 , wherein said threshold level comprises a level which reduces battery memory.
10. A method of managing power of an electronic device that includes a primary battery, the method comprising:
detecting an occurrence of a discharge-triggering event, which indicates a possibly appropriate time to at least partially discharge the primary battery from a first power level;
determining that the electronic device is not currently in-use;
automatically accelerating a discharging of the primary battery by performing an extraneous function;
detecting that the first power level of said primary battery dropped to a threshold level; and
recharging said primary battery from a power source.
11. The method of claim 10 further comprising, tracking patterns of electronic-device usage to identify a regularly occurring time duration of non-usage, which is anticipated to repeat at a future instant in time.
12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the discharge-triggering event includes a beginning of the future instant in time.
13. The method of claim 10 , wherein the discharge-triggering event is an event that is scheduled to occur at regular intervals.
14. The method of claim 10 , wherein the extraneous function comprises running streaming video, turning on a light, displaying a message, running a heat sink, transmitting sound at an audible frequency, transmitting sound at a nonaudible frequency, transferring power from the primary battery to one or more other batteries, or a combination thereof.
15. The method of claim 10 , wherein said threshold level comprises a level which reduces battery memory.
16. Non-transitory computer-storage media storing computer-useable instructions that, when executed by a computing device, perform a method of managing power of an electronic device that includes a primary battery, the method comprising:
tracking patterns of electronic-device usage to identify a regularly occurring time duration of non-usage, which is anticipated to occur at a future instant in time;
upon initiation of the future instant in time, determining that the electronic device is not currently in-use;
automatically accelerating a discharging of the primary battery by performing an extraneous function; detecting that the first power level of said primary battery dropped to a threshold level that reduces battery memory; and
recharging said primary battery from a power source.