Microsoft will make it easier for you to monitor battery usage in Windows 11 

Want some good news? Battery usage in Windows 11 is getting more easily monitorable, as spotted in the recently-released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23506 for the Dev channel.

As spotted by Windows enthusiast @PhantomOfEarth, the Battery usage option within the Power settings of the Windows app has been updated and is now called Energy & Battery usage. This new option not only displays the total energy usage but also provides emissions data.

This feature is particularly useful for devices with batteries, such as laptops, as it allows users to conveniently switch between viewing energy usage per app and monitoring battery level.

https://twitter.com/PhantomOfEarth/status/1681775530276790274

With that being said, as the insider mentions, this may not roll out for all Dev insiders just yet without a few registry tweaks with third-party apps like ViVeTool, and it appears that the total energy/emission data is still unavailable and may be a placeholder. 

Though, if you still want to take this feature out for a spin, you may want to go to ViVeTool and use the command “vivetool /enable /id:44663396,44663406” which will enable both EmissionMonitor and HistoricalIntensityApi functionalities. 

Additionally, there are also two new energy recommendations on the Settings app to turn on the Dark Mode and dynamic refresh rate to conserve energy.

Speaking of Build 23506 for the Dev channel, Microsoft has rolled out several exciting features and performance enhancements. You might recall the introduction of 3D emoji and Microsoft’s AI-assistance tool, Copilot, in the previous build for this channel from last week. In this update, these features have been further refined and improved. 

Additionally, there are new additions, such as alerts for unsafe password copy-pasting and a password-less experience in Windows Hello for Business. 

What are your thoughts on battery usage in Windows 11 getting greener and greener? Let us know in the comments!