iPad Pro 2018 11" iPad Pro - Battery life concern

[pward]

I have a 2018 11" iPad Pro that's about 3.5 years old. It gets a few hours a day for basic stuff like browsing, email and Flipboard.

Recently I've noticed that I'm having to charge it more often than I used to. I charged it to 100% on Sunday evening. Since then Screen On time is less than 3 hours and the battery is down to 24%. Brightness is around 50%. Coconut Battery reckons the battery has had 475 cycles and is around 87% capacity.

Assuming this isn't normal/OK (please tell me if it is!) is there anything I can try to improve bayberry life? Or is it time for a new battery / new iPad?

 

[Digitalguy]

Cycles and capacity sound perfectly normal. Although 4 hours of screen on time sounds a bit low nonetheless. This may mean there that backgound tasks eat the battery while not in use. So you should check that. And concerning screen on time, he main thing you can to to improve battery life is lowering the brightness.

 

[BeatCrazy]

@pward

Totally normal. Batteries age. If it’s really annoying you, see if Apple will replace it for ~$100 and you’ll certainly get another 3.5 years.

 

[rui no onna]

Note that there can be a lot of system-level background tasks (e.g. iCloud syncing, Find My, HomeKit, etc) while on standby even if you disable Background App Refresh.

My newer iPads tend to use 5-10% every 24 hours on standby. Some of my older iPads (notably the Pro 9.7 & 10.5) can use 15-25% every 24 hours on standby.

Enabling low power mode or airplane mode can help reduce standby battery drain.

If you want to see how much onscreen time the iPad can really do, charge it to 90+% and just use it straight without going on standby.

@pward

Totally normal. Batteries age. If it’s really annoying you, see if Apple will replace it for ~$100 and you’ll certainly get another 3.5 years.

Problem there, since Apple replaces the entire iPad instead of just the battery, they usually won't do a "battery" replacement for $100 unless the iPad meets certain thresholds.

Considering Coconut Battery is reporting 87% health, it's practically guaranteed the OP's battery doesn't meet Apple's threshold for replacement.

 

[HDFan]

Have you checked battery settings to see which applications are using the most battery?

 

[FeliApple]

Yeah, it’s standby drain. Since you used it for 3 hours, it’s difficult to say exactly whether the standby drain is normal or too high, because I don’t know exactly how much it dropped while on standby only.

To test actual battery life, charge it to 100% and then use it normally for a while, without so much standby.

 

[FeliApple]

@pward

Totally normal. Batteries age. If it’s really annoying you, see if Apple will replace it for ~$100 and you’ll certainly get another 3.5 years.

I really don’t think it’s due to age. Battery health is largely irrelevant, even more so on iPads. Besides, even if it were relevant - which, again, it isn’t - 87% capacity and 475 cycles? That’s not degraded at all.

 

[pward]

Have you checked battery settings to see which applications are using the most battery?

Yep, and unsurprisingly it's the apps I use most - Safari, Flipboard, Email.

 

[pward]

Yeah, it’s standby drain. Since you used it for 3 hours, it’s difficult to say exactly whether the standby drain is normal or too high, because I don’t know exactly how much it dropped while on standby only.

To test actual battery life, charge it to 100% and then use it normally for a while, without so much standby.

Thanks but I don't think this is standby drain. Looking at the last 24 hours of battery usage, overnight battery drain is minimal.

 

[FeliApple]

Thanks but I don't think this is standby drain. Looking at the last 24 hours of battery usage, overnight battery drain is minimal.

Charge it to 100%, use it for a while, and upload a screenshot of the “last 24 hours“ screen if you like. The info we currently have is 3 days of standby, 3 hours of light use, 24% left. With that limited information, I’d be inclined to blame standby drain.

 

[rui no onna]

Charge it to 100%, use it for a while, and upload a screenshot of the “last 24 hours“ screen if you like. The info we currently have is 3 days of standby, 3 hours of light use, 24% left. With that limited information, I’d be inclined to blame standby drain.

Yep. And the thing is sometimes standby drain doesn't show up right away.

I've sometimes picked up an iPad that's been on standby for a long time and it would show 50% when first unlocked. Then all of a sudden, it would drop 10-20% within just 5 minutes of light use at low brightness and then afterwards it would go back to a more normal discharge rate for the given usage.

 

[FeliApple]

Yep. And the thing is sometimes standby drain doesn't show up right away.

I've sometimes picked up an iPad that's been on standby for a long time and it would show 50% when first unlocked. Then all of a sudden, it would drop 10-20% within just 5 minutes of light use at low brightness and then afterwards it would go back to a more normal discharge rate for the given usage.

Yeah, that’s happened to me too. My Air 5 the other day had 97%, I left it on standby for like a day, then I picked it up and it had 97%, but within one minute it had 95%. That drop rate is impossible from normal use.

 

[MarkC426]

Problem there, since Apple replaces the entire iPad instead of just the battery, they usually won't do a "battery" replacement for $100 unless the iPad meets certain thresholds.

Even if you pay $100 they won't replace the battery......?
What is the threshold?

 

[FeliApple]

Even if you pay $100 they won't replace the battery......?
What is the threshold?

Less than 80% capacity when calculated by Apple’s own software. This happens, like they said, because Apple replaces the whole device.

 

[rui no onna]

Less than 80% capacity when calculated by Apple’s own software. This happens, like they said, because Apple replaces the whole device.

And Apple's 80% is usually more like 50-60% Coconut/iMazing.

 

[FeliApple]

And Apple's 80% is usually more like 50-60% Coconut/iMazing.

Wow, that low? I knew it was lower, but I thought it was around 70%. Battery health on iPhones is a lot closer to Coconut, do you know if Apple’s software behaves like on iPads? Well, I reckon they just check the battery health on iPhones, but before that? How did it work?

 

[MarkC426]

And Apple's 80% is usually more like 50-60% Coconut/iMazing.

My current battery is 79.7% 540 cycles.
But runs great.

 

[kboller07]

I have a 2018 11" iPad Pro that's about 3.5 years old. It gets a few hours a day for basic stuff like browsing, email and Flipboard.

Recently I've noticed that I'm having to charge it more often than I used to. I charged it to 100% on Sunday evening. Since then Screen On time is less than 3 hours and the battery is down to 24%. Brightness is around 50%. Coconut Battery reckons the battery has had 475 cycles and is around 87% capacity.

Assuming this isn't normal/OK (please tell me if it is!) is there anything I can try to improve bayberry life? Or is it time for a new battery / new iPad?

Do you have it attached to a Magic Keyboard by any chance because when I do it drains much more battery while not in use.

 

[rui no onna]

Wow, that low? I knew it was lower, but I thought it was around 70%. Battery health on iPhones is a lot closer to Coconut, do you know if Apple’s software behaves like on iPads? Well, I reckon they just check the battery health on iPhones, but before that? How did it work?

Before that, they'd convince customers to buy new iPhones rather than replacing their batteries.

 

[pward]

Do you have it attached to a Magic Keyboard by any chance because when I do it drains much more battery while not in use.

No, not attached to a Magic Keyboard.

 

[pward]

Charge it to 100%, use it for a while, and upload a screenshot of the “last 24 hours“ screen if you like. The info we currently have is 3 days of standby, 3 hours of light use, 24% left. With that limited information, I’d be inclined to blame standby drain.

Think I may have resolved the problem. Charged it to 100%, manually closed all apps then did a forced restart. Used it for a while then left it overnight. 'Last 24 hours' battery screen below. Screen On time since completing charging is 89 minutes and battery is 81%. I will continue to monitor it.

 

[pward]

Thanks all for your thoughts and contributions - it is appreciated.

 

[FeliApple]

Think I may have resolved the problem. Charged it to 100%, manually closed all apps then did a forced restart. Used it for a while then left it overnight. 'Last 24 hours' battery screen below. Screen On time since completing charging is 89 minutes and battery is 81%. I will continue to monitor it. View attachment 2132017

There’s something... off. That screenshot shows no standby drain, but screen-on time is way, way too low. 1.5 hours 100-81%? Usage doesn’t seem heavy either. Extrapolating screen-on time the best I can, you’d get around 6 hours 45 minutes of screen-on time on a full charge. Is brightness too high? Do you have mail accounts on push? Maybe background app refresh on with a lot of apps? Like I said, the drain doesn’t seem to be a background thing, however, and as usage seems light, I can only think of very high brightness, because it seems to be dropping while you use it, way too quickly.

 

[pward]

There’s something... off. That screenshot shows no standby drain, but screen-on time is way, way too low. 1.5 hours 100-81%? Usage doesn’t seem heavy either. Extrapolating screen-on time the best I can, you’d get around 6 hours 45 minutes of screen-on time on a full charge. Is brightness too high? Do you have mail accounts on push? Maybe background app refresh on with a lot of apps? Like I said, the drain doesn’t seem to be a background thing, however, and as usage seems light, I can only think of very high brightness, because it seems to be dropping while you use it, way too quickly.

Thanks. I extrapolated total screen-on time to be around 7.5 hours (1.5 hours = 20% depletion so 1.5 hours x 5 for 100% depletion). Is that still too low in your opinion?

Brightness is around 50%, mail accounts do not use push and background app refresh is set to off for all apps.

 

[FeliApple]

Thanks. I extrapolated total screen-on time to be around 7.5 hours (1.5 hours = 20% depletion so 1.5 hours x 5 for 100% depletion). Is that still too low in your opinion?

Brightness is around 50%, mail accounts do not use push and background app refresh is set to off for all apps.

The 100-99% percentage point takes a lot longer (7 to 8 times longer) than the rest of the percentage points (99%-0%), which are linear. Extrapolating that percentage point directly would be a mistake, hence why my extrapolation is shorter.

Brightness isn’t so high so as to drop it to a sub 7-hour battery life, and the rest of the heavy settings are off. I still find it too low, especially considering that usage isn’t heavy, and like I said, the main battery drain culprit isn’t insanely high (brightness).