Much has been written about battery charging on the development board. Although the board’s controller circuit has built-in protection circuitry, we do recommend using batteries that also provide some level of overcurrent protection so that there is redundant protection in place. Batteries used with the development board must meet the specifications we’ve outlined – see the developer documentation and the printed text on the board’s battery holder. Following these guidelines is the safest; if you are unsure about whether the battery you are using meets the specifications, remove the battery when the board is not in use.

Still on the subject of batteries, charging now works with our 5.0 branch of the kernel; but the current status of the battery isn’t always correctly reported by the operating system. Despite this, the charging circuitry is always working, in order to make sure charging occurs properly. While the 5.0 branch brings this improvement, the 4.1x kernel has support for more of the Librem’s peripherals; so 5.0 is not quite ready for everyday use just yet.