This article starts a series of short posts describing some useful commands available in Android shell.
We’ll start with interacting with a system service responsible for providing information about device battery.
Using “dumpsys battery” we can get information about the device battery status.
$ adb shell dumpsys battery Current Battery Service state: AC powered: false USB powered: true Wireless powered: false status: 2 health: 2 present: true level: 100 scale: 100 voltage: 4240 temperature: 273 technology: Li-ion
First three lines show what charges are connected. To interpret the status and health values you can use corresponding constants in BatteryManager documentation. Here’s an extract from that doc. Values we got are highlighted.
[table id=1 /]
“scale” is the maximum value of “level”. Divide “temperature” by 10 to get value in Celsius.
We can make the system think that charger is disconnected with a command
$ adb shell dumpsys battery set usb 0
In Android 6 a new “unplug” command is available. It’s an equivalent to setting all the chargers (usb, ac, wireless) to 0.
$ adb shell dumpsys battery unplug
If you want to change battery level value, use “set level” command:
$ adb shell dumpsys battery set level 5
Also let’s set battery status to “discharging”:
$ adb shell dumpsys battery set status 3
At this moment our battery is in discharging state with level 5.
The first time you invoke one of “set” commands, device stops getting information from real hardware. Hence, do not forget to finish your process with “reset” command in order to get our device back to earth.
$ adb shell dumpsys battery reset
Now you have a good instrument to test how your app behaves in low battery conditions. Good luck!
Check out the next part of the series Android Shell Part 2: Activity Manager Client.
