How to calibrate the battery of any Android phone

Batteries are one of the most controversial subjects in a smartphone for two reasons. First, because autonomy is one of the greatest needs of users and manufacturers, they have not yet found a good balance between uptime and performance. Second, because almost everything related to them is almost hidden science, and no one can come to a consensus on what is true or not.

But if you suddenly realize that your smartphone's battery life has plummeted for no apparent reason, especially after a system upgrade, it may be time to calibrate it. The following explains in detail what the battery calibration of your Android is and how to do it.

Should I calibrate my Android battery?

First and foremost, if your battery has been experiencing problems, a service visit may be necessary, especially in cases of abnormal heating or "exhausted" batteries. So before trying the procedure below, take a look at our article that helps you identify problems with your battery.

If you have not encountered any physical problems with it, calibration may be the solution. One of the most obvious symptoms that the battery needs to be calibrated is that the phone restarts itself or runs out of power quickly.

If you have just made a software update on your smartphone, be aware that high battery consumption after this procedure is a common complaint. In this case, clearing the smartphone cache partition may solve the problem. Take a look at our guide on how to clear the cache on multiple devices.

But what to calibrate the battery of your Android?

The Android operating system has a file called batterystats.bin, which indicates how much battery capacity is and when it is full or discharged. The problem is that this file sometimes gets corrupted and starts to show unrealistic data, which causes the phone to turn off before it reaches 0%, or that once the battery is fully charged, it quickly discharges.

The battery calibration process involves correcting the values ​​of said file, and will not repair anything physical or chemical in the battery, ie a software, not a hardware correction.

Lithium-ion batteries have no memory, so there is not much that needs to be done to keep them working as they should. The problem lies in the way the Android system reads and displays the current battery capacity, not the battery itself.

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Is it time to calibrate your device's batterystats.bin? / AndroidPIT

But do these processes for calibrating the battery work?

Perhaps this is one of the most controversial questions when it comes to Android smartphone batteries. And the answer, frustrating as it may be: yes and no. The truth is that the effectiveness of the tips ends up varying from model to phone model, from brand to brand. It may also be that some other software problem is disrupting the battery, and sometimes a factory reset may also be useful.

The users of AndroidPIT itself are divided between the results. Some thank you for your help and report that the battery life really improves after the tips, others say nothing happened. Anyway, let's go to them anyway!

Warning: Do not repeat these processes more than once every three months, as this may permanently damage the battery. If it is required more often, you have bigger problems in the hand.

Methods to calibrate your Android battery

The traditional approach of fully charging the battery and then discharging it to zero is one of the simplest ways to recalibrate your Android battery.

No root (device as factory came)

Fully charge the battery with the power on and when fully charged, disconnect the charger and turn off the smartphone. With it off, reconnect the charger and let the phone charge 100% again, ie until a green LED lights or the screen shows that the charge has reached 100%.

Then unplug the charger, turn on the device and set it so that the screen does not go out on its own. This is usually in Settings> Display> Suspended. If you do not have this option, set the longest possible wait time. Reconnect the charger and wait for the device to charge 100% again.

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Recharge your Android at 100% / AndroidPIT

After that, unplug the charger and do not recharge it until the phone has reached 0% battery power and automatically shuts down. A good way to do this is to have a movie play, or play a few hours of a heavy game.

When the smartphone shuts down, plug it in and charge again at 100% with the phone turned off. With this process the battery has been calibrated and should work properly again. You can now go back to Settings> Display> Suspend and reset the wait time to what you think is best.

With the rooted device

It is said that deleting the batterystats.bin file will recalibrate your battery as magic. But on most devices this file simply stores data about what is using the battery when the phone is not being charged. That is, that information you see in Settings> Battery> Battery Usage, such as app usage, system components, etc.

This file restarts whenever the battery reaches more than 80% charge and the smartphone is unplugged from the charger. So I am not convinced that deleting the batterystats.bin file has any significant effect on how the Android system reports the remaining charge. But there are those who use this method and find it useful.

So to be fair, we have included the process for you here. basically the same process as above but with the added step of using a root enabled application.

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Most current smartphones show on-screen battery power even when turned off. But some s have an LED / AndroidPIT by Irina Efremova
  • Discharge the phone completely until it turns itself off;
  • Turn it on and keep using it until it turns off again;
  • Plug your phone into a charger and, without turning it on, let it charge until the on-screen indicator or LED indicates 100%;
  • Unplug the charger.

Now we need to make sure that the battery is really at 100%.

  • Turn on your phone. The battery indicator is unlikely to show 100% charge, so plug the charger back in (with your phone turned on) and continue charging until the indicator in the upper left corner of the screen shows 100% charge;
  • Disconnect the phone and restart it. If it does not report 100% charge, plug the charger back in until the indicator shows 100%;
  • Restart the phone and repeat this cycle (charge up to 100%, disconnect, restart) until the smartphone shows 100% (or as close to it as you think it will get) when you turn it on without being connected to the charger;
  • Now install the Battery Calibration (ROOT) app, and before you start it, make sure the battery is back to 100% and restart again.
Battery Calibration
The free Battery Calibration app is very easy to use / AndroidPIT
  • Immediately start the application and click Calibrate;
  • Use the smartphone until the charge reaches 0% and it turns itself off;
  • Fully charge the battery again without interruption with the device switched off. Turn it on and now the system should show the correct charge level.




Battery Calibration (ROOT)
Install on Google Play

that. Have you tried any of these methods? Do you know an alternative method?

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