Battery Timer/Stopwatch

[purelithium]

I want something a little more reliable for actual battery usage times than the built in OSX "time left" in the Battery indicator. I want to accurately time how long my Macbook will stay on, with battery alone.

Is there something out there that will allow me to start a timer(with a click or keypress) as soon as I disconnect the power, and for it to end as soon as the computer puts itself asleep and keeps the time data until it's woken up or powered back on?

 

[jsw]

Regardless of whether that's possible - and I'm sure it is - the information would be almost useless unless you intend to always use your MacBook in exactly the same way with the same HD access, same wireless signal strength, same screen brightness, same volume and same songs, etc.

So you might see that it lasts 3 hours, 12 minutes, and 11 seconds one time, 5 hours, 8 minutes, and 3 seconds the next, etc.

 

[purelithium]

This is required for a battery benchmark test that I am putting together. Hopefully if I am able to implement it, I will have a standard that can be used by people to gauge their batteries.

I will be running multiple levels of CPU usage and screen brightness, plus to simulate web access, I will set up a skype call between a friend and my computer, so that will maintain a certain level of wireless/network activity, as well as run setiathome to test battery life under heavy load. I have pre-planned stable tests to simulate real world usage.

Thanks for the useless post. It has not helped me, and this thread is not enriched any more from it. Please don't question my, or anyone elses reasoning, because I have thought it out, and I simply need advice on the small part I asked about, not for you to assume you know anything about what I'm doing.