Google finally added support for a battery percentage indicator in the status bar of Android 4.4 KitKat although seem to have forgotten to add a way to enable it. No matter where you go in the settings you will not find the enable button for the battery status percentage although it is a very easy workaround that can be done in two different ways. One of the methods is as simple as installing an app and the other is via ADB commands. Either way you will get the percentage indicator without having to root your device. Of course currently the only device this is relevant to is the Google Nexus 5.
Enable Battery Percentage Method one (easiest)
This method is by far the easiest and recommended for novice Android users and is simply installing an app that was developed by XDA member kroegerama. How to enable the battery percentage via the app is as follows:
- Download the Battery Percentage App (Download Link)
- Install and Run the Battery percentage app
- Check “enable battery percentage”
- Reboot the device for changes to take effect.
Enable Battery Percentage Method two (via ADB)
If you either don’t trust third party apps or just don’t want another app added to your list taking up more space no matter how small it is you can use ADB to accomplish the task. If you don’t want to deal with command line then we recommend using the method above. This being said the ADB method is still pretty easy and is as follows:
- Download the latest Android SDK on your PC
- Connect your device to the computer via USB (Nexus 5 currently)
- Type “adb shell content insert –uri content://settings/system –bind name:s:status_bar_show_battery_percent –bind value:i:1”
- press enter then…
- Type “adb reboot” and press enter
- Once the device reboots changes will take effect.
Neither one of these ways are perfect as the batter percentage will show in white meaning that you won’t see the percentage until your battery drops below 50% so that you can see it behind the batter indicator. At any event it does give it to you and in most cases when the battery is below 50% is when you are really interested in the percentage anyway.
We can assume that this is a known bug that will be fixed in upcoming updates to the Android 4.4 KitKat OS. There are already talks of an update to Android 4.4.1 so we will see if Google makes this article obsolete with the update. Let us know how everything works for you as well as any issues you run into so we can be sure to help.