The battery indicator is presented in the Business Dashboard for all battery-powered Airthings devices.
The battery indicator is presented in the Business Dashboard for all battery-powered Airthings devices.
The indicator translates to the estimated power left in the batteries in the device - where 100% means brand new batteries, and 0% means the batteries are depleted.
Accuracy
The accuracy of the battery indicator depends on the type of batteries used in the device. AA batteries are typically either based on Lithium or Alkaline and have a different voltage output and lifetime depending on type and quality.
When an Airthings device is powered up by inserting batteries, it tries to detect the type of batteries based on several factors. It measures the voltage from the batteries over time to estimate the power left in the batteries - and is very accurate in optimal conditions.
If the device for some reason draws more power than expected (excessively powered on/off, bad RSSI, led flashing often because of wave-gestures, etc.), or if the quality of the batteries are not within the expected range, the detected battery life and the battery indicator will not be aligned.
Battery replacement detection
In some cases, the device can fail to detect a battery replacement, and it can think that the same batteries that were removed were re-inserted into the device. This typically happens when you swap between battery types before the batteries are depleted.
For instance, if you replace Lithium batteries - which have a higher starting output voltage than Alkaline batteries - with new Alkaline batteries before the lithium batteries are depleted, the device can think that the Lithium batteries were re-inserted because of the similar output voltage.
Best practice
All Airthings devices come with lithium batteries and if you need to replace them, we recommend using lithium batteries. It is best to replace the batteries before depletion to avoid gaps in data, and it is often better to replace all batteries at a location at once than go back and forth to replace devices one by one when they deplete. So please note that it is useful to keep track of when the batteries were replaced at each location to better plan the next visit because you can't always rely 100% on the battery indicator.
You should always set up alerts (dashboard.airthings.com/alerts) to either email or third party services to be notified when a device is offline. This can work as a reminder to replace batteries when the first device shuts down because of depleted batteries.
