Waybar with dual battery indicators on the ThinkPad T480

The ThinkPad T480 has two battery modules — an internal one (BAT0) and an external one (BAT1) — but Waybar only shows one by default. Here’s how to display both.

Identifying the batteries

First, confirm which batteries the system recognizes:

ls /sys/class/power_supply/

On the T480 the output should be:

AC  BAT0  BAT1
  • BAT0 — internal battery
  • BAT1 — external battery (removable)

Waybar configuration

Waybar supports multiple instances of the same module using the #name suffix. Just add battery#bat2 to the bar and configure each instance with its respective bat.

In ~/.config/waybar/config.jsonc, add battery#bat2 to modules-right:

"modules-right": [
    // ...other modules...
    "battery",
    "battery#bat2",
],

Then configure both modules:

"battery": {
    "bat": "BAT0",
    "format": "{capacity}% {icon}",
    "format-discharging": "{icon}",
    "format-charging": "{icon}",
    "format-plugged": "",
    "format-icons": {
        "charging": ["󰢜", "󰂆", "󰂇", "󰂈", "󰢝", "󰂉", "󰢞", "󰂊", "󰂋", "󰂅"],
        "default": ["󰁺", "󰁻", "󰁼", "󰁽", "󰁾", "󰁿", "󰂀", "󰂁", "󰂂", "󰁹"],
    },
    "format-full": "󰂅",
    "tooltip-format-discharging": "{power:>1.0f}W↓ {capacity}%",
    "tooltip-format-charging": "{power:>1.0f}W↑ {capacity}%",
    "interval": 5,
    "states": {
        "warning": 20,
        "critical": 10,
    },
},
"battery#bat2": {
    "bat": "BAT1",
    "format": "{capacity}% {icon}",
    "format-discharging": "{icon}",
    "format-charging": "{icon}",
    "format-plugged": "",
    "format-icons": {
        "charging": ["󰢜", "󰂆", "󰂇", "󰂈", "󰢝", "󰂉", "󰢞", "󰂊", "󰂋", "󰂅"],
        "default": ["󰁺", "󰁻", "󰁼", "󰁽", "󰁾", "󰁿", "󰂀", "󰂁", "󰂂", "󰁹"],
    },
    "format-full": "󰂅",
    "tooltip-format-discharging": "{power:>1.0f}W↓ {capacity}%",
    "tooltip-format-charging": "{power:>1.0f}W↑ {capacity}%",
    "interval": 5,
    "states": {
        "warning": 20,
        "critical": 10,
    },
},

Applying the changes

Waybar doesn’t auto-reload on config save. Restart it:

# On Omarchy:
omarchy-restart-waybar

# Or manually:
killall waybar && waybar &

Context

This fix came from Omarchy issue #655, where the default config pointed to BAT1 and BAT2 — names that don’t exist on the T480. The actual batteries are BAT0 and BAT1.

Environment

  • ThinkPad T480
  • Arch Linux
  • Hyprland (Omarchy)
  • Waybar