Why haven’t we managed to develop an easily-quantifiable unit for ‘how much energy something has left’ in rechargeable devices? For example “oh man, that phone call just cost me 5 Whatevers of phone battery”
In: Technology
Well we do. The problem lies in the fact that different batteries have different capacities, different devices use different amounts for different tasks. This could be represented with regular units of electrical measurements, but for the average user this would mean little. The usage of percentages is a more readily understood concept by the general public hence it use in mainstream electronics.
Don’t you just use “percent”? “Can you pass me the charger? I’m on 12 percent”
That does exist. We just don’t talk in amps and Volts unless you are an electrician, mechanic, scientist or electrical engineer.
I am sorry, may I introduce you to the mAh aka milli-Ampere.Hour?
Although there’s catch, it’s a unit of charge and not energy. You need to multiply it with the voltage to get the energy, but we do use mAh or Ah (which is essentially C – Coulomb) for determining battery usage.
What are you doing while buying phones and power banks without having knowledge of the mighty mAh?
What you are describing is a unit of energy: like Joules (J), Calories (cal) or Watt hours (Wh).
For electricity the Watt hours are the most common as they are easy to calculate using Volts and Amperes.
Some batteries comes with a Wh rating, but most small electronics use Ampere hours (Ah). They are equivalent for a given nominal voltage, so you can use them to compare batteries for similar devices, but not for say a car and a phone.
Most batteries come with an Ah rating written on the box. They are rarely used in advertising/consumer facing specs because they can’t be translated into hours of use: A phone with a 4Ah battery might last longer than one with a 6Ah battery.
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