Battery life estimation considered impossible?

[Martin Dengler]

In the course of updating[1] sugar/view/devices/battery.py to look like
Eben's new design[2], I wasn't able to come up with a satisfactory way
to calculate remaining battery life.

Can anyone opine as to whether it's possible/feasible right now to
estimate number of minutes of battery power remaining?

Can anyone do better than my naive algorithm[3]?

Martin

1. http://pastebin.be/10499

2. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs/Frame#06

3. minutes_left = battery_capacity_pct / 0.59. From [1]. The magic
constant is about 1.2 pct of battery capacity = 2 minutes of power;
this is what I've observed and consistent with other reported
capacities I've seen; but of course the approach is fatally flawed.
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