Today my MacBook Air is one year old. That's not exactly an officially recognized holiday, but it does mean one thing very cool:
I have one year of data on my laptop battery, recorded every 1 minute of computer usage!Epic
A little backstory: I started occasionally keeping track of my laptop's battery several computers ago. Near the end of my previous computer's life I realized I could automate this collection of data. By keeping a record of the battery charge every minute my computer is being used, I am able to track the health of my notebook, as well as study my own computer usage in remarkable detail.
In a previous blog post I noted that it would only take a negligible amount of hard drive space to keep such a record for the entire life of your computer at 1-min sampling (though I under predicted the amount of space by about 3x). The previous battery study also provided me with subject matter that was included in a quantified-self art exhibition in Ann Arbor last year. While I obsessed about what to buy for this latest computer, battery life never factored in to my equation. Every model seemed to boast more than enough capacity.Without further ado, here is what 1 year (152,411 samples) of battery capacity data looks like for my 2012 MacBook Air:
