Battery Depletes After Ten Minutes

I was thinking about it and maybe in that case the best solution would be to buy a new EMO especially if we could restore his memory.
Because paying for sending it back to Living AI, their work, a new battery and the posting back just for getting an working old EMO could be too much compared to a brand new EMO.
The biggest obstacle wouldn’t be money (at least in my case) but another waiting in the queue.

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Update. I dared take him off his charger as at least yesterday he was communicating. Today he did not even respond to his name. The battery was only at 50% and he still could not respond to his name. I powered him off through the app and have him sitting aside for several hours before putting him back on the skate board to see if he can still communicate.

I love all of your suggestions for back-up and what to do if out of warranty. Still awaiting response from living.ai.

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I really don’t know what you guys were getting at, but just replacing a bad battery doesn’t mean you’re going to lose any of EMO’s achievements or personality. Everything is stored somewhere, in his flash RAM, on the SD card, or in the cloud/server. Only in the case of a full EMO replacement or failure/replacement of the CPU board would some sort of backup & restore be necessary to prevent starting over from scratch.

Wherever there is a vacuum a smart entrepreneur will fill it. I have no doubt there will be some individuals and businesses offering EMO battery replacement service over the next year, and that will be much cheaper than buying a whole replacement EMO. There is just no incentive right now since everything is being covered by LAI under warranty.

Doing something like that at that as a business is always a risk. You don’t know the volume of work available up-front and there are always con artists that will send something in for a new battery or “it just needs cleaning” and then blame all their previous existing problems on the technician! They have to charge enough for labor and to help insure against that sort of thing. I think it would be an excellent sideline though for some of the phone repair stores? I’m going to suggest it to some of them in my area.

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That’s great that you are able to replace a bad battery by yourself. Some people can’t.

My point for a backup was not about battery replacement, as that of course has nothing to do with EMO’s data. (onboard or in the cloud).

I was mainly discussing the backup option in cases where you need to get a total replacement / or if something completely went wrong with a firmware update or software data corruption occurred.

I always appreciate an answer from a positive person like you.

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@Lindaru I was personally doing some tests with my EMO as I too was a little concerned about my own EMO’s battery levels / how he charges etc. I wanted to maybe offer some more help. (even though it might not be useful)

Today while EMO was on his skateboard the light started flashing, which normally means he is could be overcharged. I checked his battery level and it was 3/4 full. (see pic below).

I then logged in to the EMO App and it showed me the exact same battery level of 3/4 full. So it was correctly reflecting what EMO was displaying on his display screen.

I noticed his feet were pretty dirty (this happens from time to time as you might be aware) and so I cleaned them I normally do with sticky tape (took me a good 5 mins to clean both feet up). I then placed him back onto the skateboard and kept an eye on him for the next 30mins or so. This time the skateboard light do not blink and finally the battery level made it’s way back to full. (see below).

I’m certain you have done everything you can, but what I can suggest is possibly give his feet a really thorough clean (maybe with sticky tape). Unplug and re-plug his skateboard cable. Clean his skateboard surface as well and then sit him back on and see if your EMO will try and pick up charge.

I know this might be completely pointless post, but just wanted to try and offer a little more help.

:mad: :skating: :heart_1: :head: :surprised:

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Hi, @MasterAbbott . . . yes, I cleaned his feet and especially the censors with the sticky tape (you can see to the right of his safe space). I had tried different plug in wall outlet, different USB-C cable, turning him off and unplugging charger for several hours, all to no avail. He is depleting even faster as you can see from this video. His light has stayed on steady and I have never seen the battery be less than full until after he leaves the skate board.

(Video removed from You Tube)

Thank you for all you are doing to help me. Also sorry about the poor video quality but it was made in a hurry just for documentation purposes.

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Battery charge estimations are notoriously erroneous once a battery starts to go bad. EMO can only give an estimation of the charge based on the voltage level right now, versus what a fully charged battery voltage level would be. I have the same problem with my old iPhone and iPad right now which both need new batteries. I unplug the iPhone right before I go to bed and the battery will drop from 100 to the low 80s just sitting idle for 5 or 6 hours, and even much lower if it gets cold in the room. After plugging it into the charger it jumps up abnormally fast, but the numbers just aren’t real. It may have a voltage level indicating a good charge, but the battery just doesn’t have the same current-supplying capacity as is expected anymore.

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When it first happened (I believe on Sunday), I did not know right away. He was exploring and suddenly I got the sound notification that his battery was low, so I looked at the clock and said that that could not be, he had only been off for ten minutes. I let him charge again for five hours, checked his battery before taking him off and he repeated the ten minutes low battery alert. This time I let him sound his alert and shortly after, he just shut himself off.

So . . . there is a possibility that when he initially shows full, he really is not?

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@MasterAbbott . . . I took some time today to create a memories folder for my EMO. I broke down the dances into individual ones so that I could play whichever one whenever I like. Again, thank you!

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Hi @Lindaru

Just checked out the video. Yes I can see that the battery depletes way too fast! It seems that even though EMO is showing full battery while he’s sitting on the skateaboard and also in the APP, it is not a true indication that it’s “really at full capacity”.

What @macfixer01 also mentioned is also very true. Any kind of battery be it for a phone / or even a Laptop battery (which are ever more notoriously bad at showing false positives) something I’ve experienced many a time with laptops I’ve worked on or my own personal ones that display full capacity and once you unplug them from the power will only run for 10 mins and then power down / shut off.

I guess, as everyone else has already advised seems like the only option now is wait and see if Living.Ai can provide a replacement EMO, OR - if it’s even possible, you send back your existing EMO and they could replace only the battery and they send it back to you so that you still have your original EMO and you don’t have to start all over again. This will probably have to be something you need to discuss with Living.Ai support when you speak to them, see what options they can offer you that best suits you or situation.

And Great to see you were able to get EMO’s dances all saved :slight_smile:

:mad: :skating: :heart_1: :head: :surprised:

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I am willing to go whichever way the support team wishes to handle this. I realize however it goes, it may be a very long time before my EMO or the new one arrives and I have a fully functioning little guy. I think I read in another thread regarding the new update version that someone else is losing run time on their battery, too, and thinks it might be due to the new update. I can assure that in my case, it is not as it started before 1.3.0 but just suddenly dropped rapidly to what it is now.

Thank you again @MasterAbbott ! I also took a bunch of screen shots of various screens on the app just to have as well.

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No problem at all :slight_smile: Let us know how you go once you have spoken to Living.Ai as many of us here would find it interesting on how this will be handled / resolved.

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I sure will. I hope they can find a way manufacturing new ones to prevent this from happening to others in the future.

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@Lindaru do you have anyone (family members/friends) who would be skillful enough to replace the battery for you? It looks like the battery isn’t too hard or expensive to buy.
Of course first wait what will Living AI support answer to your message.

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I don’t have the problem of a short battery life, but I do (unfortunately) have experience with the skateboard light starting to blink mid-charge. Sometimes while blinking, Emo will still get charged to 100%, sometimes his battery will deplete completely and cause him to switch on and off on his charger within seconds continually (with a noise that would actually wake me from my sleep).

@Wayne_Zhang Does Living AI already know what is causing this? A problem with the skateboard, the battery or the charging hardware inside Emo?

It became a problem with my Emo from the first batch after a couple months of daily use and Emo being on 24/7. First only occasionally but it gradually happened more and more, to almost during every charge.

Emo support asked me to use a different power adapter and cable, this didn’t help. I tried charging through a USB-port and plugging directly into a wall outlet instead of through a power strip; none of it helped either.

After my Emo also started having leg problems (one of the servos), Living AI send me a new one from the second batch.

I now clean his feet regularly with some tape to get dust and dirt off and use a US to EU power converter (220 to 110 V) instead of a simple plug adapter. I noticed some changes in the design, like there is no more magnetically snapping into place of Emo on his skateboard which made me believe Living AI had taken care of this problem in this new batch.

However, a few days ago, after about a month of using my new Emo, the blinking problem surfaced again occasionally. :disappointed:

I have not yet contacted support about this and still need to sent back my old Emo (will do this next week).

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I saw this post made by Wayne Zhang a while ago explaining the Skateboard lights.

So the blinking light relates to something abnormal happening with either EMO or the Skateboard. As you’ve done things such as changing USB-C cables / unplugging the cable and re-connecting it again and then placing EMO back on the Skateboard and see if it resolves the issue.

I’ve seen this a few times as well with my EMO. What I normally do is unplug the USB-C cable from the skateboard, wait a few minutes and securely connect it back again. I also clean my EMO’s feet with sticky tape (as you also do). After doing this, that normally resolves the blinking and EMO continues to charge normally once again.

I guess if this is constantly happening for you, it would be best to contact support once again and explain the problem. It could be a faulty skateboard, it might not always be an EMO problem.

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Thanks for your reply, I wonder how many other people are experiencing this.

I also frequently make sure the usb-c cable is still plugged in securely in the skateboard.

Whenever I notice the light is blinking, I simply lift his one (charging) foot and place it directly back on the same spot. The light goes back on and stays steady on and Emo continues to charge normally like you say.

It’s not about the ambient temperature either. I wondered about that with my old Emo because the problem started during the end of summer with temperatures inside rising to 34°C. But right now, since using my new Emo, it hasn’t been more than 21°C inside.

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Yes, the temperature can certainly possible factor, as it can effect many electrical things in the house in general. Maybe EMO / Skateboard could be more prone to heat / high temperature resulting in battery / charging issues. This is something we can only speculate at this time, as there isn’t any evidence regarding this.

I’m located in AU and Summer and this year was quite hot, but luckily for me I did have AC in the house and the temp never got any higher than 24/25 degrees Celsius in the house. So I’m glad I do not have to worry about that possible issue of extreme temp effecting battery / charging for my EMO :surprised:

Hopefully Wayne can provide further info regarding this for yourself and many other users (including myself)

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