Battery Life on MacBook Pro 16.

[Pro85]

thanks for the replies.
it's normal?
thanks

 

[topcat001]

This might be obvious, but the health reported is lower with the battery health management feature enabled. So, please disable it before taking measurements.

 

[CheesePuff]

This might be obvious, but the health reported is lower with the battery health management feature enabled. So, please disable it before taking measurements.

Thats what I had thought too, but when I check coconutBattery with it on and off (quitting and reopening between) it shows the same design capacity.

 

[topcat001]

I see. A few (partial) cycles might be needed for the reading to update.

 

[iKel]

I have the base mode i7 16" I can literally go 1.5 days without a charge pretty unreal, wondering if the i9 is similar? 16"?

what are your settings? what did you run to reach 1.5 days? did you constantly use it? or using it a while then put to sleep then use it again?

I have my brand new base mode I7 16" with 32G RAM 1T ssd for about a week, as tested a couple times, with minimum usage ( safari browsing, occasionally opening video clips, no extensive heavy apps running), I only got around a little more than 5 hours. I have even disabled CPU turbo feature. no external device attached, I made sure it's using iGPU only.

I also tried resetting SMC too, but still not helpful.

the battery life doesn't seem to be great on my laptop, wondering if I should return it....

 

[kaans]

Try this: "sudo pmset -b gpuswitch 0" (To restore normal setting: "sudo pmset -a gpuswitch 2")

It disables the dGPU on battery, it's useless anyway - stupid irresponsible programs sometimes engage dGPU for no reason and drain the battery, an example is Pixelmator, without anything open, it just engages dGPU and drains battery

I get 7+ hours with Chrome (just Netflix and occasional browsing), Safari is buggy with Netflix

 

[Peter_W]

i9 32GB 5500M 8GB i get 3-6h of normal use (I do have a lot of chrome tabs open, though quite often with the great suspender extension working, anyways it's 2020 this should not drain battery like that...). TBH i think this is quite horrible for something that's supposed to last 11h. I have this machine for 2 weeks now was even worse at start.

 

[kaans]

The problem IMO is Apple's non existent OS innovation, we have nothing in terms of usability or advanced features, just a barebone OS, no customizability

So the issue here is the unnecessarily engaging dGPU, it drains the battery, if you disable dGPU on battery, it should last 8 hours easy with Chrome and full video playback - 10 hours for Safari, but Safari is bugged for me, there are weird flashes during video playback (repeating that Apple sucks, they can't even get their browser right)

1 trillion dollar suckage

Edit: What we need here is ECO settings, we should configure the OS to not use Turbo, how to use dGPU and so on ... (my 8 hour figure is with Turbo on, I don't use 3rd party tools to disable it)

 

[MacRS4]

i9 32GB 5500M 8GB i get 3-6h of normal use (I do have a lot of chrome tabs open, though quite often with the great suspender extension working, anyways it's 2020 this should not drain battery like that...). TBH i think this is quite horrible for something that's supposed to last 11h. I have this machine for 2 weeks now was even worse at start.

I switched to Microsoft Edge (stop laughing). It feels much like Chrome but isn't anything like as ruinous on my battery.

 

[George Dao]

The issue somehow is related to Battery Health Management. If I disable it, my full capacity is 8276. If I re-enable it, the capacity drops to below 7900.

 

[powerslave12r]

The issue somehow is related to Battery Health Management. If I disable it, my full capacity is 8276. If I re-enable it, the capacity drops to below 7900.

That just seems to indicate that battery management sets the max charging threshold to 7900mah which seems like a non-issue.

So have people in this thread been leaving battery management on or off?

 

[tonyr6]

I switched to Microsoft Edge (stop laughing). It feels much like Chrome but isn't anything like as ruinous on my battery.

I did the same thing. I don't know if this is good battery life but been browsing for a little over hour, listening to Apple Music on bluetooth speaker using the Edge browser and battery drained about 13%.

 

[diggi77]

Hi, has anyone seen any improvement with Big Sur? I‘ve done a clean install (with USB Stick) and now figuring out how much my battery will last. With Catalina I had 4-5 hrs max. My MacBook 16“ i9 16GB is from 2019 and has only 11 cycles (I have not been using it much since I bought it...). I am indeed very disappointed with the battery life....

Will see if it will improve after a few cycles and when indexing is done, but from what I can see from yesterday until now it‘s not very promising [current estimation is 6hrs]

 

[golfnut1982]

I did the same thing. I don't know if this is good battery life but been browsing for a little over hour, listening to Apple Music on bluetooth speaker using the Edge browser and battery drained about 13%.

Its good, I use it over Chrome too. BUT, Safari is best on a Mac.

 

[tonyr6]

But Safari does not have two of my must use extensions.

 

[Peter_W]

That just seems to indicate that battery management sets the max charging threshold to 7900mah which seems like a non-issue.

So have people in this thread been leaving battery management on or off?

I have it on as it makes sense to have it on, however my problem is predicted charging times (with or without battery management) are like 10h if battery is e.g. 50% which is absurd. Also my laptop only lasts around 4h. I'm quite sure by now my battery is just damaged... (device is only 2 m.o.).
And battery indeed charges super slowly...

 

[powerslave12r]

I have it on as it makes sense to have it on, however my problem is predicted charging times (with or without battery management) are like 10h if battery is e.g. 50% which is absurd. Also my laptop only lasts around 4h. I'm quite sure by now my battery is just damaged... (device is only 2 m.o.).
And battery indeed charges super slowly...

That's unfortunate. What do you plan to do?

 

[Peter_W]

i will return it for replacement, but as i WFH for now, that is not my top priority

 

[diggi77]

....noone tested their battery life with Big Sur so far?

 

[fel10]

 

[diggi77]

quick update: after the setting to stay on internal graphics card when on battery and disabling turbo boost (both to be found in the answers before) I‘m at +11hrs of battery life with Big Sur!

The funny thing is that it was always showing that I was on internal GPU (e.g in Activity Monitor), but the battery was still draining like hell....now after 1,5hrs of usage I am at 86%

Disabling Turbo boost makes some apps not to open as quickly as before, but that‘s still a good trade-off for the great battery life, and the performance is still great!

I know, as users we should not be bothered with such technical tweaks but that‘s the best workround for the time being. And in 4-5 years we will all be on Mx-Chips which means we will have battery life of +20hrs

 

[George Dao]

That just seems to indicate that battery management sets the max charging threshold to 7900mah which seems like a non-issue.

So have people in this thread been leaving battery management on or off?

If you spend most of time with power adapter, turn it on. Otherwise, disable it.

 

[Mattwhite93]

This is my current situation, and I think something is wrong with my battery. I bought the mac 6 months ago so do you think the support will replace my battery under warranty?

 

[RigSatMe]

View attachment 1671076

Why everybody uses CoconutBattery? Just enter command in Terminal: ioreg -l -w0 |grep Capacity

 

[Mattwhite93]

Why everybody uses CoconutBattery? Just enter command in Terminal: ioreg -l -w0 |grep Capacity

Well, coconut uses exactly the same command I guess, given that the output is identical