[MyL5] Battery life and dock

Hello, the battery of my Evergreen drains fastly. Even docked on a hub with power delivery (phone shows charging) the power drops by 1% every few minutes while I was only browsing, all switches are off. I also use the same hub with my laptop and it stays at 100% of charge.
What can I do to keep it fully charged in convergence mode ?

See a few comments here, regarding USB-A vs. -C when powering a dock and L5 together: [MyL5] Received my Librem 5 (Evergreen)

Related info: New Post: My First Week of Librem 5 Convergence and https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Frequently-Asked-Questions#21-how-long-will-be-the-battery-life-of-the-librem-5-evergreen

At what current? (It would be nice if the GUI showed you this somewhere! Anyone? Purism?)

To clarify your config … the hub is connected, via USB-C, to a USB-C power source and the phone is connected to the hub via USB-C to a port that supports power delivery (power passthrough?)?

What is the USB-C power source? Did it come with the hub or are you using the Librem 5’s power adapter?

What make and model of hub?

I have a similar problem with my hub. The phone will negotiate a much lower charge current (power) with the hub than it negotiates with its power adapter. So it takes much longer to charge when docked. It does charge however. So I can live with that.

Thanks for your answer, I’m using the VAVA USB C Hub 9-in-1 USB C Adapter with the CHOETECH 100W USB C Charger. I’m just surprised that it can charge my laptop but not the phone and it gets really hot too. I was wondering if I got a defective product, hope it works with future software updates.

I doubt (or just hopeless here) as looks like that hub you linked to uses VL100 (Power Delivery 2.0 up to 60 W) but I read that Librem 5 like to be served from PD3.0 specification source USB-C male connector and not from old type PD2.0 charging device (including hubs supporting PD2.0 pass-through):

Neither that unnecessary pumping of this Vava hub with 100W (although max. of 60W recommended) GaN charger will help there (as you described your usage scenario). But if original Librem 5 charger is used to power this hub you still might get max. of 19W on this hub PD2.0 male connector and this might turn out to be better option …, it is worth to be tried (I think, but not an expert).

By “shows charging” you mean “red light on”? Makes the little click noise when you plug the phone into the dock? Battery icon (on lock screen and at top right when unlocked) indicates charging? (Should be “all of the above”.)

Please post output from

cat /sys/class/power_supply/max170xx_battery/current_now

A negative number indicates discharging e.g. on my phone right now -660805 and the value is in uA (microamps), so that’s about 0.7A discharging.

Good charging for me is 1.6A and slow charging may be around 0.6A give or take.

Seemingly, it is normal for the charge current to drop asymptotically as you approach fully charged. So with the battery at, say, 20% it might be charging at 1.6A but with the battery at, say, 90% it might be charging at 0.4A give or take.

Please also post the output from

sudo cat /sys/kernel/debug/tps6598x/0-003f/customer_use

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Exactly, it’s “all of the above”

-876387

0x4c35445000000200

With the Librem 5 charger to power the hub as suggested by Quarnero, I get a positive current number 578321 and the battery indicator is increasing !
The phone is hot but I guess a hub PD3.0 would solve this issue. Thank you all for this useful information.

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If that’s the figure with the Librem 5 connected to the dock and with the dock having external power then something is definitely not working e.g. Librem 5 does not recognise and negotiate charging from the dock to the Librem 5.

On my dock, not all USB-C ports are created equal. That is, the power must come in via one specific USB-C port and the device to be charged (the Librem 5 in this case) must be connected to another specific USB-C port. Does that apply to your dock?

Your USB-C PD firmware in the Librem 5 is up to date. Tick.

Yes, one USB-C port « DC IN » and the USB-C male connector for data and charging.

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In order to continue to use Choetech PD 100W charger with Librem 5 (and current Hub combo) you might try to upgrade/extend it with this converter through another E-Marker USB-C to USB-C cable or even by 12V and/or 20V PDC003 5A cables. It is that I just guess that there is something unusual on how this particular Choetech charger controller (not known to me): “Identify automatically the voltage and current of the devices, including 100W, 87W, 45W, 30W, 18W, 15W” (negotiate it on its USB-C ports) between “available PD, QC and Apple 2.4” protocols. Perhaps you like to try out linked, relatively small investment, but cannot guarantee it will improve anything (20V negotiation should work with your laptop too).

And sorry for my 19W number above (should be written = max. of 7W) as I don’t have my Librem 5 yet, therefore thought original charger is 30W, but it isn’t:
UPLOAD_Screenshot_from_2021-03-24 16-17-17