I originally intended to do a really nice thread for this, but over 2 years have gone by and I've still not got around to it, maybe now others have done something similar, I haven't looked. certainly there was nothing I could find after extensive searches when it was developed. I am hoping other institutions will want to use it and develop it beyond its current state.
After implementing laptop loans in our library, student were saying "I hate it when I pick up a laptop, take it to a study zone, log in only to find the battery is almost flat". The cheaper laptops and netbooks we buy tend not to have battery charge indicator on, so another solution was required.
In response to this we have put screens on top of all our laptop trollies, showing the charge level of all laptops in the library, students seem to like them. They grab any laptop they want, check the number on the lid against the BattStats display... simple.
Laptop Charge Levels
It's a fairly simple PowerShell script that generates and XML file. If you are interested in implementing this at your institution I will happily send you a zip of the code, as long as you share any development you do back to the community.
Stuart
Universities at Medway