To the list of things that Microsoft really ought to build into Windows from the get go, may we add this neat little tray utility posted by a Reddit user. It consolidates the battery charge status of any devices connected over 2.4 GHz or Bluetooth without the need for individual apps or software.
Dubbed "Halo Battery" by its creator, Reddit user headvox, the tray utility was apparently created with the help of Anthropic's Claude AI model.
According to headvox, Halo Battery "shows the charge status of your 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth devices in one place right on your taskbar. Each device gets its own tray icon: a ring that shows the battery level, with a device pictogram inside. The ring goes amber, then red when the battery is low, and slowly 'breathes' green while charging. Hover over an icon to see the exact percentage."
Among other devices, Halo battery has been tested with the Razer BlackShark V2 Pro (2023), WLmouse Beast X Max, GameSir G7 Pro, 1MORE SonoFlow headphones and the Logitech G502 X Plus. Thanks to a very positive response from the PC community, there's a growing list of tested devices on Halo Battery's GitHub page.
Aside from the obvious ergonomic benefits of having the battery levels of all wireless devices so neatly consolidated with simple at-a-glance cues, there's also the minor matter of avoiding bloatware.
For instance, Halo Battery means you can track you Razer mouse's charge levels without having to install the Synapse app, which by many accounts means avoiding 800 MB's worth of background service memory footprint.
Dare I say it, but one Redditor's rather, er, acerbic comment sums up the implications of Halo Battery for Windows and Microsoft very neatly. "It's ****ing pathetic that a feature which should just exist as standard has to be implemented by a hobbyist ****ing around with Python vibecoding. Microsoft is incompetent beyond description." Well, quite.
Halo Battery is indeed exactly the sort of neat, simple but worthwhile quality-of-life feature that really ought to be in Windows from the get-go. As headvox says, "Windows shows battery for some Bluetooth devices, but only in Settings, not in the tray. Most 2.4 GHz dongle devices (like my Razer headset and WLmouse) don't report it to Windows at all; you need the vendor's app for that."
Of course, that hasn't prevented the Reddit hive mind from suggesting a few tweaks. Some users would like to see the battery level in percentage shown for each device without the need to hover, rather than just the illustrative ring around each icon. Others have suggested custom per-device audio alerts.
Anywho, if nothing else Halo Battery does also confirm that AI isn't all bad. As headvox says, most of the code was done by Claude. "To be clear, I built this with Claude (AI). I came up with the idea, tested it on my devices and pushed the design, but most of the code was written by Claude," headvox says.
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Source: PC Gamer