Hardware assemblies, either embedded (100) or external (400), which use software (101 or 800) for processes (330 to 356) such as acquiring power-related values (342), principally by the use of a connector (132) that accesses a battery (134), in order for a processor (102) to calculate an optimized power signal (338), and then to configure an output (344) of a power supply (122) to deliver the power signal to a powered device (136).