Getting another Veer as backup: a few questions

[hangten10]

I have a black Veer and thinking about getting the panda Veer as a backup. Love the size and do not want to be forced to upsize if and when the first Veer dies.

I have a few questions.

1) It is 2013 and the Veer was made in 2011. The battery would be empty now and I read somewhere that Li-ion batteries like to stay charged instead of lying around empty. How severe is this effect if true? How bad will the battery capacity be in this backup phone that I obtain today? Should I charge it and keep charging it weekly or whatever or should I just keep it on the shelf until I need it? Would this be better/worse for the Pre 2 or Pre 3? At least I can replace the batteries in these devices. And these batteries are not charged either... Is this much of a concern?

2) My Palm Profile has my Veer and TouchPad so far. Will I be able to add a second Veer to it or should I create a new account?

Thanks.

[ananimus]

1) I recommend Googling about Li-ion batteries and their shelf life. There aren't a lot of hard and fast rules, but it's interesting and helpful stuff to read about. Especially when you compare to old Ni-Cd and newer Li-polymer. Neat geek facts to have handy.

To try to answer your question, I seem to recall that Li-ion indeed does not like being shelved. Double check me, but I believe Li-ion doesn't like being shevled fully charged. It certainly never likes being fully discharged. The optimum for storage was 50 - 60% (?). The usefulness doesn't drop off as dramatically as a battery that's being regularly cycled, but it does decay a bit. The dev that did the Dr. Battery app could probably say (who was that...?).

2) You can only have one webOS device on a profile that's not v3+ (anything but the Touchpad). So you'll have to get one Veer out before you can put the new one on. A recent write up if you plan to swap back and forth:
Swap your Palm Profile between multiple webOS 2.x phones (homebrew) | webOS Nation

Of course that's more info than necessary to just make the jump once. In that case you just remove the profile from the old Veer then go through First Use to sign in the new one.

[RumoredNow]

Originally Posted by hangten10

...thinking about getting the panda Veer as a backup...

I have a few questions...

1) ...How bad will the battery capacity be in this backup phone that I obtain today?

That depends. If you get a used one I think it's a) more of a gamble as to how the battery was treated and b) more likely you would get a report from the owner about the state of the battery...

If you get a Veer that has been in a sealed box it will mostly depend on how it was stored. Heat is the enemy here. There is almost no way to tell what sort of ambient temps the device has been stored at.

That said. I think I'd go with a "BNIB" purchase. At least you know it hasn't ever gone through a bunch of charge cycles. Charging/discharging a battery uses up the chemical process that the battery runs on. I'd expect a stored device to still have 95% Health or more for the battery.

As a comparison, my TouchPad was stored by a webOS user sealed in the box from the Fire Sale until I bought it last fall (2012). It had 95% Health when I first charged it. I have a Panda Veer that was also stored by a user and it came out of the box with 99% battery Health last summer. Both of these are holding pretty steady.

Spring of 2012 is when I got into webOS and I started with a Pre 2 used as a daily driver by someone on this board. The battery was at 95% Health when I got it and I saw some degradation with use so I put a Mugen 1400 in it.

Originally Posted by hangten10

Should I charge it and keep charging it weekly or whatever or should I just keep it on the shelf until I need it?

I try to top my batteries all the way up before powering off the device for storage. Then I check them once in a while and recharge to full when 20-30% capacity remains. Trying to keep a sealed battery device in the mid range of capacity would be a PITA. Ideal storage is charge to 50-60%, remove battery from device and store the battery in the freezer. LOL that's dedication.

Originally Posted by hangten10

Would this be better/worse for the Pre 2 or Pre 3? At least I can replace the batteries in these devices. And these batteries are not charged either... Is this much of a concern?

Stored Pre 2's would be worse off than a Veer as they were stored longer. Pre 3 would be about the same as a Veer. Again, for used ones, query the owner about battery condition. Yep, ease of replacement is a factor worth considering.

Originally Posted by hangten10

2) My Palm Profile has my Veer and TouchPad so far. Will I be able to add a second Veer to it or should I create a new account?

If you are going to put the new Veer in service you will need a second profile. If it ever becomes your daily driver you could always switch it to the "main" profile the TouchPad shares.

If it is a backup that will just see storage, maybe bypass activation for occasional WiFi use, install Preware and Apps via WOSQI. Then you could still monitor the charge state via Dr. Battery and not worry about building up a second profile...

Originally Posted by ananimus

1) I recommend Googling about Li-ion batteries and their shelf life. There aren't a lot of hard and fast rules, but it's interesting and helpful stuff to read about. Especially when you compare to old Ni-Cd and newer Li-polymer. Neat geek facts to have handy.

To try to answer your question, I seem to recall that Li-ion indeed does not like being shelved. Double check me, but I believe Li-ion doesn't like being shevled fully charged. It certainly never likes being fully discharged. The optimum for storage was 50 - 60% (?). The usefulness doesn't drop off as dramatically as a battery that's being regularly cycled, but it does decay a bit. The dev that did the Dr. Battery app could probably say (who was that...?).

somline=Dr. Battery. He's pretty sharp on the subject and fortunately he shares quite liberally with us on this forum.

Here's the best quick answer thread (Veer, Pre3 & TouchPad battery health) and somline shares a lot of great info there. Still, check out the Googlesphere as well...

Originally Posted by ananimus

2) You can only have one webOS device on a profile that's not v3+ (anything but the Touchpad). So you'll have to get one Veer out before you can put the new one on. A recent write up if you plan to swap back and forth:
Swap your Palm Profile between multiple webOS 2.x phones (homebrew) | webOS Nation

Of course that's more info than necessary to just make the jump once. In that case you just remove the profile from the old Veer then go through First Use to sign in the new one.

Yeah... swapping one profile between two phones is a PITA and I wouldn't do it for two different models, let alone two of the same model.