First previewed at Embedded World in March, Nordic Semiconductor’s Fuel Gauge v2.0 is ready for production integration across rechargeable IoT products.

The release brings a level of battery intelligence previously reserved for premium consumer electronics directly into the IoT ecosystem, without additional hardware cost. For developers, this means actionable visibility into battery health – from design validation through to end-of-life field deployment – and a clear path to compliance with emerging battery-replacement legislation.

“Battery-heavy products like EVs, laptops and smartphones have had smart systems for tracking battery health for years,” said Geir Kjosavik, product director at Nordic Semiconductor (www.nordicsemi.com). “With Fuel Gauge v2.0, we’re bringing that same insight to any rechargeable IoT device, without adding extra costs.”

For Nordic’s nPM1300 and nPM1304 power management ICs, it is accessible through nRF Connect SDK version 3.4.0-rc2.

Monitoring battery health in deployed IoT devices has historically been one of the hardest problems in product development. Traditional fuel-gauge ICs rely on fixed models or coulomb counting, both of which drift over time and offer no visibility into long-term degradation. Without state-of-health data, manufacturers cannot predict when batteries need to be replaced. Additionally, by the time end users notice declining battery performance, the degradation is already well advanced and getting worse.

Fuel Gauge v2.0 addresses this directly. Building on the state-of-charge accuracy introduced in v1.0, it adds an adaptive model that continuously compares the original battery profile against actual field behaviour. This delivers an accurate state-of-health estimation correlated with charge cycle count to track long-term degradation trends. Plus, it maintains stable accuracy across the full product lifetime, even as batteries age. For devices that rely on multiple interchangeable battery packs, the algorithm tracks each pack’s state-of-health individually.

No dedicated fuel-gauge IC is required. It can deliver dedicated IC-level accuracy at a lower system cost, with reduced bill of materials complexity and zero power consumption during sleep. It simply uses the built-in voltage, temperature and current measurements from the nPM1300 or nPM1304, along with a smart, host-based algorithm.

Fuel Gauge v2.0 runs on any host MCU or wireless system-on-chip (SoC), including the nRF54 and nRF91 series, and non-Nordic hosts.

It integrates seamlessly with nRF Cloud powered by Memfault, Nordic’s cloud lifecycle services, eliminating the need for custom cloud infrastructure. Devices automatically report state-of-health, state-of-charge and battery performance metrics, providing engineering and operations teams with fleet-wide visibility from a single dashboard. Teams can identify anomalies early, optimise charging parameters, and use real-world field data to drive improvements in future hardware revisions.

This impacts the entire product lifecycle. Early detection of accelerating battery degradation allows manufacturers to notify users proactively when replacement is due, before performance noticeably declines. This reduces warranty costs, supports right-to-repair initiatives, and provides a clear path to compliance with the EU Batteries Regulation 2023/1542, which mandates that portable batteries be readily removable and replaceable by end users throughout the lifetime of a product.

Nordic Fuel Gauge v2.0 is available now through nPM PowerUP, accessible via nRF Connect for Desktop (www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-tools/nRF-Connect-for-Desktop), and by downloading nRF Connect SDK version 3.4.0-rc2. For more information, visit Nordic’s battery fuel gauge page at www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Fuel-Gauge.