New release: Otii software 3.7

Otii software 3.7 introduces new features that address one of the most important and often guessed aspects of embedded development: figuring out how long your battery will really last. For engineers working on battery-powered devices, this update makes it easier to move from measuring your device’s performance to getting a battery life estimate you can trust.

New features highlights

Battery Profile Manager

Every battery life estimate is only as good as the discharge profile behind it. If that profile comes from a manufacturer’s datasheet — measured at their temperature and discharge rate, under their conditions — your estimate inherits all those assumptions too. Profiling batteries against your actual use case makes all the difference.

That’s exactly what Battery Profile Manager is built for. It gives you a dedicated space inside the Otii Desktop App to analyse and manage discharge profiles as you pick the right battery for your project and dial in your estimates. Profiles can be imported, exported, and deleted — including ones created in third-party tools, as long as the data matches the JSON format described here.

It also makes collaboration a whole lot easier. If your hardware team, a component supplier, or an external partner has already characterized a cell, that profile goes straight into your estimation workflow — no need to measure it all over again.

You can also compare two or more battery profiles side by side in a single view. Each profile displays its discharge curves across the full cycle: one showing open-circuit voltage (OCV) and one showing internal resistance (Ri).

For details, see the documentation.

Battery Life Estimator

Choosing the right battery means understanding how your device’s behaviour — sleep current, transmission bursts, wake-up cycles, and everything in between — lines up with how a battery actually discharges. Without a direct link between your power measurements and a real discharge profile, that decision defaults back to datasheet assumptions.

Battery Life Estimator closes that gap. Connect your device’s measured power consumption to a created or imported battery profile, and get runtime estimates in hours, days, months, or years — along with used capacity and a visual of battery voltage across the full discharge cycle.

But it’s not just about getting one number. The estimator lets you explore scenarios within the same project — swap battery profiles, adjust how often your device is active, tweak the battery pack configuration, or try batteries from different vendors. Every run is saved so you can compare results side by side. What you end up with isn’t a single answer, but a clear picture of what actually drives runtime and by how much.

That’s what makes it useful for picking the right battery in the first place — not just confirming the one you already chose.

For details, see the documentation.

Custom Monitor

Custom Monitor is built for real-time visibility. Rather than capturing data, it gives you live readings straight from your hardware — think of it as a multimeter built into your workflow. No recording session, no extra steps, just an immediate view of what your system is doing right now. It’s especially handy during bring-up and passive hardware checks, when you just need a quick look without committing to a full capture.

The previous monitor, found under the “All” tab, still shows the full list of fixed channels: Main current, Main voltage, Main power, ADC current, ADC voltage, Sense+, Sense−, VBUS, VDC, Temp, GPI1, and GPI2.

The new “Custom” tab lets you configure only the channels you need for your current validation, and displays them in a larger, clearer format that’s easy to scan at a glance. If you’re running multiple Otii instruments, you can combine channels from each into a single view.

To open the monitor, click the icon in the upper-right corner of the Otii Desktop App, or press Ctrl-M on Windows and Ubuntu, or ⌘-M on macOS.

For details, see the documentation.

Get started with Otii 3.7

If you already use Otii, you’ll see a prompt to update in the Otii Desktop App. To download the update yourself, go to the Otii download page. Installers are ready for Windows, Ubuntu, and macOS.

To use Battery Profile Manager and Battery Life Estimator, you’ll need a Battery Toolbox license. If you’d like to try these features before deciding, you can request a trial license here.