Can I Use Task Scheduler to Monitor My Computer’s Battery?

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If you like to keep a close eye on your laptop’s battery charge level, then you may be looking for a built-in way to help monitor it while you are busy working. Is there one or do you need a custom solution? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answer to a battery monitoring reader’s question.

Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites.

The Question

SuperUser reader MiHa wants to know how to create a task in Task Scheduler for battery level changes on his laptop:

I need to create a task in Task Scheduler based on battery level changes. For example, say my laptop’s battery drops from 67 percent to 66 percent charge remaining. How can I run a task based on this event? Does Windows log this at all? I was unable to find information on this anywhere.

How do you create a task in Task Scheduler for battery level changes?

The Answer

SuperUser contributor DavidPostill has the answer for us:

I Need to Create a Task in Task Scheduler Based on Battery Level Changes

Windows does not log this kind of information/details as events. You can, however, use something like the batch file below and create a custom event.

Battery.cmd

This batch file monitors the current battery percentage charge and creates a user defined event if the charge drops below a user defined threshold value.

Notes:

The eventcreate command works on Windows XP up to and including Windows 10. It requires administrator privileges to work.

Set _threshold as required.

If the battery falls below this value, an event with ID 999 will be generated in the APPLICATION event log with the description “Battery charge has dropped”.

Modify the eventcreate command as required for your situation.

Modify the timeout delay as required for your situation.

Example Output

My battery currently has a charge of 81 percent. I set the threshold to 82 percent. Here is what happens when I run Battery.cmd:

And here is the new entry in the Event Log:

EventCreate Syntax

Further Reading

An A-Z Index of the Windows CMD Command Line – An excellent reference for all things Windows command line related.

eventcreate – Create a custom event in the Windows Event Viewer.

schtasks – Create or edit a scheduled job/task. The job can be created on a local or remote computer.

wmic – Windows Management Instrumentation Command.