BatteryWatcher

Laptops offer a great deal of flexibility when it comes to computer activities, but there’s only so much you can do while on battery life. There’s a standard monitor tool Windows puts at your disposal, which is quite effective, but you might want to use third-party alternatives like BatteryWatcher in case you want to keep an eye on remote laptops.

A cool and practical thing about it is that it doesn’t take you through a setup process to make all of its features available, so you can just as well have it stored on a thumb drive along with other tools you need to use on the go. The health status is not put at risk, because registry entries are not modified in the process, but you do need .NET Framework to ensure functionality.

It minimizes to the tray area on launch, and it’s the place where it quietly sits at all times. The design is meant to display something which looks like a battery, updating its graphics accordingly. However, you need to go through a configuration step before it can properly start to read battery life.

The application isn’t really meant to be your average battery meter. It also wants to be of use to monitor remote laptops, but this isn’t really done in a way you would expect. In other words, an active Internet connection is not required to make it work, but you simply need to choose whether the current machine is the server or receiver, with little to no difference in the monitoring process.

Apart from the type of device, you also need to select a location on your computer for log files to be saved. In terms of monitoring details, you’re offered simple info regarding percentage on mouseover, without letting you know how much you can stay on battery before having to connect the charger.

All things considered, we can state that BatteryWatcher comes with good intentions, and aims to be a battery monitor tool for remote laptops, but doesn’t really come prepared with the right means to accomplish this task. The only difference is in the generated report based on the type of machine you specify, namely server or receiver.