diff --git a/powerline/segments/common.py b/powerline/segments/common.py
index e50615cc..4f8db199 100644
--- a/powerline/segments/common.py
+++ b/powerline/segments/common.py
@@ -558,16 +558,30 @@ try:
 	def _get_user(segment_info):
 		return psutil.Process(os.getpid()).username
 
-	def cpu_load_percent(pl, measure_interval=.5):
-		'''Return the average CPU load as a percentage.
+	class CPULoadPercentSegment(ThreadedSegment):
+		interval = 1
 
-		Requires the ``psutil`` module.
+		def update(self, old_cpu):
+			return psutil.cpu_percent(interval=None)
 
-		:param float measure_interval:
-			interval used to measure CPU load (in seconds)
-		'''
-		cpu_percent = int(psutil.cpu_percent(interval=measure_interval))
-		return '{0}%'.format(cpu_percent)
+		def run(self):
+			while not self.shutdown_event.is_set():
+				try:
+					self.update_value = psutil.cpu_percent(interval=self.interval)
+				except Exception as e:
+					self.exception('Exception while calculating cpu_percent: {0}', str(e))
+
+		def render(self, cpu_percent, format='{0:.0f}%', **kwargs):
+			return format.format(cpu_percent)
+
+	cpu_load_percent = with_docstring(CPULoadPercentSegment(),
+	'''Return the average CPU load as a percentage.
+
+	Requires the ``psutil`` module.
+
+	:param str format:
+		Output format. Accepts measured CPU load as the first argument.
+	''')
 except ImportError:
 	def _get_bytes(interface):  # NOQA
 		with open('/sys/class/net/{interface}/statistics/rx_bytes'.format(interface=interface), 'rb') as file_obj: