UPERFECT X Mini lapdock works with Librem 5

[johan-bjareholt]

@irvinewade

You need more cat /sys/class/... to look at the actual current flow with the battery, rather than the option negotiated with the (potential) power source (over USB).

e.g. cat /sys/class/power_supply/max170xx_battery/current_now

It is negative, so it is discharging.

purism@johan-librem5 ~ $ cat /sys/class/power_supply/max170xx_battery/current_now
-145283

@Kyle_Rankin

I can’t speak for the battery icon part, but even though you are getting 500mA from the dock to the Librem 5, if the Librem 5 is currently using more power than that (which is quite possible when docked and doing things), then it could very well be discharging (it is using more than 500mA power, therefore it has to get that power from the battery).

Thanks for the tip. After some more investigation it seems like the dock is providing less power than the phone is consuming, so it’s technically true that the battery is discharging (at the same time as it is being charged).

When having the “Power” section open in Settings, it jumps for 4-5 hours expected battery life to 6-10 hours when I plug in the dock. I also found gnome-power-manager which clearly states that while the battery is in “discharge” mode, the “AC adapter” has “Online” set to “yes” when the dock gets plugged in. So I guess that phosh and the battery icon probably just looks at the battery “state” which is “discharging”, which was the only thing that confused me (also the fact that i saw 6-7 hours estimated battery life when plugged in the first few times when I looked at the battery stats, which is what I’d expect from a phone when it’s not plugged in…). I’d prefer if phosh looked at if the charger was “online” rather than if the battery is discharging, would make more sense to me.