Specifications

The following information is provided for each installed battery (when available, as not all batteries will support all of these features).

Product Code PM007
Status Indicates the current status of this particular battery. e.g., "Charging", "Discharging", "Not in use".
Manufacturer The name of the company that manufactures the battery pack.
Device Name This is usually the model number of the battery pack, as defined by the manufacturer.
Serial number The serial number of the device as defined by the manufacturer.
Unique ID An identification string, which is unique across all battery packs.
Time remaining A rough estimate of how much time remains before the battery is fully discharged.
Battery Temperature The temperature inside the battery pack.
Date of manufacture The date when the battery was manufactured.
Type of use Indicates if the batteries normal use is to provide power for normal operations or if the battery is a fail safe / backup device. (Laptop battery or UPS)
Rechargeable Indicates if the battery is rechargeable or not.
Chemistry The type of battery. Typical values are: Lead Acid, Lithium Ion, Nickel Cadmium, Nickel Metal Hydride, Nickel Zinc, Rechargeable Alkaline-Manganese.
Design capacity The theoretical capacity of the battery when new. Measured in milliwatts hours (mWh) for most batteries.
Full charge capacity The battery's current fully charged capacity. In some batteries it is possible to compare this value to the designed capacity to estimate the battery's wear.
Alert levels The manufacturer's suggestion of when a "Low" and "Warning" battery alert should occur.
Bias Some batteries reserve a small charge that is biased out of the battery's Full Charge Capacity and Current Capacity values to show "0" as the critical battery level. Critical bias is analogous to setting a fuel gauge to show "empty" when there are several liters of fuel left.
Charge cycles The count of the number of charge/discharge cycles the battery has experienced. This provides a means to determine the battery's wear.
Voltage The current battery voltage in Volts across the battery terminals.
Charge Rate The current rate of battery charge or discharge. For most batteries this value will be in mW.

Compatibility

Any laptop battery or UPS that complies with the Windows, Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) specification should be able to report information to BatteryMon. Older PCs may also have a problem if their BIOS does not support ACPI. Some features may not be supported by some battery types, typically they will report only partial information in this case. It has been also been noted that several UPS manufacturers are not providing compliant device drivers.