How to check the status of your PC battery on Windows

A simple Windows command allows you to find out the health status of your laptop battery and what the remaining autonomy of the accumulator

The lithium-ion batteries of smartphones and laptops do not have an infinite life. As it is now known, the accumulators that we find in our electronic devices (but also in electric cars) have a limited number of charge cycles, determined by their chemical and physical composition and their operation.

In short, no matter how good and shrewd we are, what we might call the “life expectancy” of batteries is marked from the moment they are produced. Sure, some tricks allow us to make the battery last longer, and be able to maintain their ability to store energy. There will come a time, however, in which the accumulated charge will be less and less, and so the autonomy of the smartphone or PC will gradually decrease. For this reason, it is essential to know the tools that the various operating systems provide to know the “health status” of the batteries and the residual charge cycles.

Windows 10, for example, provides a simple command that allows you to get data and in-depth information about the status of the battery. Thanks to the report that will be generated, you will be able to analyze the situation in detail and act accordingly.

How to generate the battery health report with Windows

To get the battery status report of a Windows PC you don’t need much technical knowledge. In fact, the operation is within the reach of practically anyone: just enter the right command and wait a few moments. To start the “check up” of the battery of your Windows laptop you need to open a Command Prompt window by right-clicking on the start menu, choosing “Run” and typing the string “cmd” in the “Open” field.

In the window that opens, type the string powercfg /batteryreport and press the “Enter” key on the keyboard. After a handful of seconds a second string will appear on the window alerting you to the creation of the report and the folder where you can find it. After opening it, just read the very first lines to find out what is the health status of the battery: in the section “Installed battery”, in fact, you will find the number of charge cycles of the battery, the maximum charge supported and the one that the battery still supports at the time you made the test.