Teric owners, have you required repair or replacement service?

[Belzelbub]

But, I do have to wonder if charging it to full after a trip and then leaving it sitting has contributed to the degradation. I have read many times that Li-ion batteries prefer to be stored at a state of charge of 80% or less.

That certainly couldn't hurt. However, based on this...

Interestingly, the battery consumption during dives has not changed, remaining 7-8% per dive (all around an hour each). There are other variables around this measurement, simply decided to follow it.

...I'm not 100% convinced that it's really battery degradation. Seems to be more of something causing excess battery drain while in Standby/Off. If the battery were degrading, I would expect that the usage % during a dive would be increasing as well.

I don't have a Teric, and don't even know if this is even possible to do, but might be a decent data point. Is there a Factory Reset option on the Teric (I don't even know if there is one on my Perdix). Or if not, perhaps re-installing the firmware might be a bit of a reset.

After gathering enough data in the current mode, do a factory reset/firmware update and repeat. If a slower discharge rate is observed, then that's a data point that the battery itself is fine. Still no clue as to what is causing it, but may be useful to SW. Just a thought as it seems that they often seem fine for a while, then start excessive drain rather abruptly.

 

[scubadada]

Hi @stuartv

Anything is possible. I received the Teric from Shearwater in January charged to 100%. This computer has been dived on just 3 trips and has been charged to 100% just 8 times before the current storage period. I always remove the computer from the charger promptly.

I expect better, based on the poll, some folks must simply have long lasting batteries. We'll see what happens. I have a year and a half on warranty. I'm in no hurry.

 

[scubadada]

Hi @Belzelbub

I updated the firmware from v23 to v30 on June 28. No change in pattern, will watch carefully.

 

[stuartv]

...I'm not 100% convinced that it's really battery degradation. Seems to be more of something causing excess battery drain while in Standby/Off. If the battery were degrading, I would expect that the usage % during a dive would be increasing as well.

When good, call it 0.5% per day. When bad, I think scubadada said almost 5% per day.

5% per day is 0.2% per hour.

I'm not sure the difference there is enough to show when looking at battery consumption during an actual dive.

Scubadada reported 7-8% per hour of diving. Can you really even notice an extra 0.2% in that?

Is there a Factory Reset option on the Teric (I don't even know if there is one on my Perdix).

Yes, there is.

Hi @Belzelbub

I updated the firmware from v23 to v30 on June 28. No change in pattern, will watch carefully.

I updated both of my new ones from v23 to v30 yesterday. I believe that is not the same as doing a Reset. I mean, all my settings were preserved. Only tissue loading and surface interval are reset, I think.

I don't really think a Reset will make any difference to battery drain, but I guess it *could*.

 

[stuartv]

I wonder if having a full Log in the Teric somehow increases the battery drain.

I guess if it does, then doing a factory reset (which presumably clears the log) would possibly make a difference.

It would make NO sense that a full log increases battery drain. But, this whole problem seems pretty nonsensical.

Or is it something related to the pressure sensor? Even when Off, the Teric still checks ambient pressure every so often. It needs to know the most recent ambient pressure at the surface if it turns on automatically at 5' of depth at the start of a dive. I wonder if something happens over time that causes the battery drain from checking ambient pressure to increase.

 

[scubadada]

Hi @stuartv

After all this time with Teric battery problems, I would think that Shearwater would have done extremely extensive research into determining a cause(s) and a solution(s) for the problem(s). I have never heard anything from Shearwater, have you? If it were not such a great computer and Shearwater didn't have exemplary customer service, I would have given up some time ago.

 

[Belzelbub]

Scubadada reported 7-8% per hour of diving. Can you really even notice an extra 0.2% in that?

I wouldn't think you'd notice 0.2%, but if a battery is degraded 100% might not equal 100% any more. That would mean that a higher drain activity like diving might show up more easily.

For nice round numbers, let's assume that a battery charged to full at peak capacity holds 100 battery units. That same battery that is degraded when charged to full only holds 70 battery units.

Therefore, when new during a dive, that 8% is consuming 8 battery units. When degraded, since you start with less, that same 8 units consumed would now be reported as a bit over 11% consumption. Full isn't full anymore with a degraded battery. Given the amount of consumption difference between new and "degraded" that is being seen, the difference might be more drastic than my extremely simplified example.

I wonder if having a full Log in the Teric somehow increases the battery drain.

I guess if it does, then doing a factory reset (which presumably clears the log) would possibly make a difference.

Memory is what got me thinking along these lines, though I'm not sure that's the case as the log in @scubadada 's latest Teric is presumably relatively empty.

Years back, I had an issue with an iPhone and memory usage/capacity. For some strange reason, every few months, I would get a low storage space warning. The first time, I tried offloading as much as possible, but it only helped for a day or so. I decided to do a backup and full factory reset. Then I restored my phone from backup. Storage space was back to what I was expecting with it being mostly available. That actually bought me several months before it happened again. Only saw that with that one phone. In that case, I think it was a hardware issue, but a factory reset would actually work for a while.

 

[stuartv]

I wouldn't think you'd notice 0.2%, but if a battery is degraded 100% might not equal 100% any more. That would mean that a higher drain activity like diving might show up more easily.

I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing.

What I'm saying is, when the battery is good, it drains 0.5% per day. That is 0.02 percent per hour.

If it's bad and losing 5% per day, then that is 0.2% per hour.

If it uses 8% when in dive mode for 1 hour, then the difference between a good and bad battery is that starting with a full battery, you get out after your dive and you have, either 91.98% left, or you have 91.8% left.

Your earlier comment was that usage during a dive would be increasing. So, it increased from 8.02% to 8.2% used during a 1 hour dive. Would you really be able to notice that difference? I don't think so.

 

[scubadada]

The battery use during diving is an imperfect measure. The number of dives/dive time are likely the main contributors. However, additional time with the system pressurized in dive mode monitoring pressure or being in dive mode and searching for a transmitter could also contribute. I decided to monitor battery use during diving because I thought that a major change might be detected, such as an increase from my usual 7-8% for an hour dive to something like 10 or 12%. We'll see.

 

[Belzelbub]

Your earlier comment was that usage during a dive would be increasing. So, it increased from 8.02% to 8.2% used during a 1 hour dive. Would you really be able to notice that difference? I don't think so.

I’m trying to say that if it’s just battery degradation, that is detectable at minimal usage over a day, it should also be detectable during higher drain activities over a shorter time.

If it was just the battery degrading, then that .5% to 5% is the battery draining 10x faster. Or, in other words, the battery has 1/10 of its original capacity. A normal usage of 7% in an hour on new would be more like 70%. That would definitely be noticed, but since no one has reported anything like that, I don’t think it’s just the battery.

More likely, something is turning on and depleting the battery quicker.