Battery Health

Simple cross-platform battery health checker for Windows, Linux, and macOS.

What This Script Shows

• Battery identifier (model/system battery id)
• Design capacity
• Full charge capacity
• Health percentage
• Optional values when available: current capacity, voltage, cycle count

Requirements

• Python 3.8+ installed
• No third-party packages required

This project uses only Python's standard library.

Beginner Setup

1. Open a terminal in this project folder: path\to\battery_health
2. Confirm Python is installed:

   python --version

3. Run the script:

   python battery_health.py

4. (Optional) Create and activate a virtual environment:

   python -m venv .venv
   .venv\Scripts\activate

Example Output

Battery: <identifier>
  Design Capacity:      <value> mWh
  Full Charge Capacity: <value> mWh
  Health:               <value>%
  Current Capacity:     <value> mWh
  Voltage:              <value> mV
  Cycle Count:          <value>

Running Tests

python -m unittest discover -s tests -p "test_*.py" -v

Platform Notes

• Windows:
  • Uses powercfg /batteryreport as the primary source.
  • Temporary report files are deleted automatically after parsing.
  • Optionally enriches output with live battery fields from Win32_Battery when Windows exposes them.
  • Falls back to wmic only on older systems where available.
• Linux:
  • Reads battery info from /sys/class/power_supply/BAT*.
• macOS:
  • Reads battery info using ioreg.

Troubleshooting

• No battery detected or unable to read battery information.:
  • Confirm the machine actually has a battery (desktops usually do not).
  • On Windows, run powercfg /batteryreport manually to confirm battery data is available.
  • Make sure Python is running with permission to execute system battery commands.
• python not recognized:
  • Install Python from https://www.python.org/downloads/ and ensure "Add Python to PATH" is enabled.

Safety

• The script does not install anything or modify system settings.
• Any temporary files generated for report parsing are safely cleaned up.