(Last edited Feb 29, 2008)

This is part nine of Putting it all together series and the second part of Optimizing battery life. To read part one of Putting it all together click here. To read the first part of the Optimizing battery life, click on the this link.

Aside from lowering the brightness setting of the Palm device, there are other ways you can decrease the battery usage and maximize battery life by turning off various features that aren’t needed or used.

Turn off infrared and/or bluetooth Beam Receive

The Palm device by default turns on the infrared beam receive. If you don’t expect on receiving infrared signals often during the day, it’s a good idea to turn it off and only turn it on when you are receiving infrared signals. Letting the Palm to constantly be searching for infrared signals when you’re not using it will no doubt drain the battery unnecessarily.

Launch the Prefs Application. Tap on Power. Then, tap on the black triangle located right next to Beam Receive: to access the drop down menu. Select Off. Tap on Done button. Beam Receive is now turned off. When you need to receive infrared signals, go back and turn it back On.

For bluetooth,launch the Prefs Application. Tap on Bluetooth. Then, tap on the black triangle located right next to Bluetooth: to access the drop down menu. Select Off. Tap on Done button. Bluetooth is now turned off. When you need to receive bluetooth signals, go back and turn it back On.

Especially when there’s a lot of bluesnarf attacks, which is the stealing of information from a mobile phone or PDA equipped with bluetooth, or bluetooth viruses or anonymous bluetooth messaging pop ups, you may want to turn off bluetooth so that you prevent being infected with bluetooth viruses or getting unexpected messages froms strangers not to mention being less vulnerable to bluesnarf attacks.

By turning off these wireless reception features when you don’t need it, you should experience somewhat of a better battery performance.

Ensure that nothing is draining the battery

- First of all, test whether the battery is draining due to unexpected and accidental pressing of the hardware or other buttons or the screen when inside your purse, bag, etc. The best way is to monitor the battery level over the course of a typical day. Then, leave it in a drawer at home for one day and see if the battery level changes. If so, then determine what could be the culprit, whether it’s the case, or just that the buttons get accidentally pressed when it’s moving around bumping other things. If it’s determined that it’s due to accidental button pressing, consider getting a hard case in which the buttons won’t get accidentally pressed.

There’s also a freeware program called Disable Buttons which somewhat suppresses the Palm screen from keeping it turned on when a button is pressed. The program isn’t perfect. The screen will blink for a brief second but it will turn back off. It doesn’t completely stop the screen from turning on. I have created a posting that discusses other disable power on applications. (Please disable pop ups before going to Freewarepalm as it has a lot of pop up ads).

- Determine if there are alarms or programs that turn on the Palm at unexpected times. Some email programs will try to connect to the internet at funny hours of the morning. Or maybe an alarm has been set accidentally for sometime in the morning and the Palm stays turned on until the battery is drained. Check and monitor whether you notice such events happening.

- Sometimes some “hacks” or enhancement applications that run somewhat like in the background, can cause the battery to drain. If you use any type of “hacks” whereby you install something that requires a Hackmaster extension, X-Master, YAHM (works on OS 5), Tealmaster Plus, or similar programs, check whether any of the “hacks” programs is the cause of the battery problems. Disable most of them, letting only one run at a time and monitor whether that specific hack is draining the battery. If you determine that one of them is causing the problem, decide whether it’s important that you need it, look for an alternative, or email the developer to see if he can patch it.

- Try and search whether you can determine what is draining the battery, especially if you have hacks installed. Check out PalmInternals which can see quite technical in the listing. Or try TrapCatcher from the same developer.

If it’s something strange, a good idea is do a quick search at one of the popular Palm forums and see if it’s due to some bug of a program. As I’ve previously mentioned, with the Zire 72 and even on the TX, the auto lock feature has a bug that drains the battery if it’s activated. This is frequently mentioned in the forums that not many Palm users are aware of. So, doing some research in the various Palm forums may shed some light on a lot of questions and problems you may have.

Battery monitoring or logging application

To get a better idea of how the battery level changes over time and determine your usage, you may consider installing a battery monitoring application.

Battery Graph can graphically present a lot of your battery information including when it’s charged, turned on/off, how long it’s been turned on, etc.

Runtime, and Battery Log also offer similar features but they may not work for OS 5. Backup your Palm before trying these apps to prevent problems.

Battery Test test how long your battery lasts before it’s completely drained

Battery Test
I’m not sure how useful this application can be as you are draining the battery completely (which is not recommended as it may shorten the life of the battery) but it seems to be quite a popular application for many people. If you’re curious on how long your Palm battery lasts before it’s completely drained, then you may be interested in this application.

Monitor your battery level status

Obviously, make sure you don’t drain the battery by checking on the battery level status. Here are some applications that offer battery status indicators, some even within an application.

Michau’s Battery Meter, PAjDA Battery, UtiALL, Memory Line.

Profeo SystemAlarms will alert via alarms when the battery reaches specified battery levels.

Extend your battery power by changing the threshold level using Fullpower

Considering the article that will be discussed from BatteryUniversity, this application may be doing exactly the opposite of what’s recommended, but since many people want to extended their battery life in the short term and fail to have a longer term focus, here’s an application that will change the threshold level of the Palm battery.

Usually, when your Palm turns off due to a low battery, there is still some “juice” left, probably to provide somewhat of a “reserve” to keep everything in RAM stored as long as possible, in hopes that the battery will be charged so that no data stored in RAM will be lost, due to a total loss of power.

Now, you can utilize the maximum amount of battery power in the Palm battery by completely draining it simply by changing the threshold level that is set by the Palm. Fullpower will allow you to fully maximize the amount of time you can use the Palm at a possible cost of a shorter battery life before it finally dies. In my view, I’m not willing to take the chance but I’m sure a lot of people are, since this is a very popular program

Palm article on battery conservation

Here’s an article from Palm on battery conservation.

Underclock the processor

Another way to increase battery life is to slow down the processor speed of the Palm with regards to many of the applications. Each Palm device has a processor of a a specific speed. In the Zire 71 case, it’s running at 144mhz. Although many program may operate at its optimimum level at 144mhz, some program like an ebook reader, can probably run without much degradation in performance, at a slower speed, maybe even at 80mhz or less. By slowing the processing speed of specific applications, you may improve the battery life of the Palm since it’s using less processing power.

On the other hand, if you find that some programs are sluggish and you want to improve on its performance, you can do the opposite and OVERCLOCK the application, but of course, rather than conserving battery, you are draining it but the program will run faster and be more responsive.

There are a few overclocking/underclocking applications available. Depending on the processor, some of them may or may not work for your specific device.

Lightspeed

Lightspeed is a popular over/underclocking application for many Palms.

Here are some of the devices supported by this application: Sony CLIE NX60, NX70V, NZ90, TG50, NX73V, NX80V, Palm Tungsten T3, C, T, T2, E, Zire 21, 31, 71, 72, Sony CLIE TJ25/27/35/37, Garmin iQue 3200, 3600 and Tapwave Zodiac 1/2, Intel PXA270 processor, Samsung SGH-i530 smartphone.

Those in bold will likely require the beta 2.0 version in order to work. You may need to download it from Clievideo’s website.

warpSpeed

warpSpeed is another over/underclocker application. It supports Tungsten T, T2, T3, T5, E, E2, C, LifeDrive, Zire 31, 71, 72, Treo 600, 650, Sony PEG-TJ25, PEG-TJ27, PEG-TJ35, PEG-TJ37, iQue3200, 3600, Zodiac 1, 2.

PXA Clocker

PXA Clocker Lite (freeware) and Pro (commercialware) can change the processor settings of Palms equipped with the Intel PXA25x/26x/27x processors, thus the name. It supports Tungsten C, T3, T5, E2, Zire 31, 72, LifeDrive and many of Sony Clie devices (NX60, NX70V, NX73V, NX80V, NZ90, TG50.

FastCPU

FastCPU is an over/underclocker application that supports all handhelds running Palm OS 3.5, 4.0 or 4.1. It does not support OS 5 Palms.

Afterburner

Afterburner is another over/underclocker application that supports all major platforms from OS3.0 to OS4.0. It also does not support OS5.

While we’re on the topic of overclocking and speeding up program run times, there’s an application that can do speed up the run time of applications, but it’s not an overclocking application and has not been known or documented to conserve battery life.

QuickBits

QuickBits works to improve the running time of many applications, especially those which rely heavily on text drawing, memory read/write, memory filling, form popup/hide, form draw). Apparently, it claims to optimize these tasks in applications to improve their performance.

This looks like it works on non or pre-OS 5 Palms.

External battery or charger

Power To Go sled

Another way to extend the battery life of your Palm is to have an additional battery or power source. There are many different kinds and varieties of external battery packs or extenders. Some require a 9 Volt battery while others require AA or even is just another LiOn battery that attaches to the Palm via the universal connector or just another cable that allows you to charge the Palm when you’re not near a wall socket. What they all offer is the ability to use an external battery or power source so that even if you’re close to draining the battery on the Palm that you still have some kind of back up power source available.

Palm Power to Go sled (P10906U) is a sled that attaches to the Palm via the universal connector of Palms. It is practically an additional Lithium Ion battery that attaches to the universal connector and allows the Palm to still connect to a cradle or charger and go through Hotsync, while charging the Palm first and the Power To Go sled.

9 Volt emergency charger

Belkin Emergency 9V power adapter charger (F8P3003) allows you to use a 9 Volt battery to charge your Palm, which connects via the universal connnector or whatever connector your Palm uses

Proporta 9V Charger (Palm Handhelds) is a 9 V charger for Zire 31, 72, Tungsten E as well as a different model for devices with universal connectors.
Use coupon code DISCOVER at Proporta and save an additional 10%

PDA Parts 9 Volt charger

battery extender and charging cables

Pocket solution Battery extender charges using AA batteries.

Tech Center Labs catalog of various battery chargers for Palm devices.

Charging cables

USB charging cable with car cigarette ligher adapter

Or yet another way is a charging cable that can allow you to charge your Palm via the USB port or, via the car cigarette lighter. This allows you the added versatility of charging even when travelling and reduces the bulk that the cradle can take up.

Recharging HotSync USB Cable With Cigarette Lighter Adapter (P10884U) is a Palm branded USB cable that can charge the Palm while you perform a Hotsync. In addition, it includes a cigarette lighter adapter that can allow you to charge the Palm when connected to the cigarette lighter plug.

Belkin USB Sync Charger (F8P3000) offers a similar cable.

Battery extender that attaches to your Hotsync cable

These battery extenders will attach to the USB end of your Hotsync cable, allowing you to use dry cell batteries instead of your computer to charge your Palm providing an additional battery source.

Surplus-PDA adapter

Boxwave battery adapter

iGo charging adapters and tips

iGo charging adapter and Palm universal connector tip

iGo offers various battery charging solutions and adapters with specialized tips for Palm devices with universal connectors or for Palm Smartphones. If you already own an iGo adapter for your laptop computer or other portable devices, you simply need to purchase a tip that will fit your iGo adapter. This all in one adapter solution can really eliminate all those extra adapters, cables, wires that you may otherwise have to bring along. With iGo, you bring only one adapter plus the various tips to charge all your portable devices.

Replacement Battery

Eventually, the battery, like everything else in life, will eventually stop working. If doing all the above tricks doesn’t improve the battery life, then, you have to either consider getting a replacement battery or getting a new Palm, especially if the costs of battery replacement is almost comparable to getting a new Palm.

Check out this Ebay store - PDA and Wireless Accessories Palm batteries for replacement Palm batteries as well as other PDA parts and repair stores I’ve mentioned in my previous posting where they do sell batteries as well here

In the next and last part of the Putting it all together series, I will be discussing on how to expand the alarm sounds of your Palm so that you can have a much bigger collection of alarm tones plus third party applications that can allow you to select a different tone for each alarm (something that the default Palm can’t do).

Thanks for visiting and supporting Palm Discovery. If you are not reading this article from Palmdiscovery.com or palmdiscovery.net, the website you are reading it from is guilty of copying and posting my content without consent. Please visit Palm Discovery for the original source of the material.

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