Apple Pencil's effect on iPad Pro battery?

[spiderman0616]

Not so for me on 12.1.3. I went to bed last night with the iPad at about 89% battery. This morning it was at 72%.

The difference between you and me is probably that I started at 100%, and usually it takes longer to from from 100 to 99 than, say, 78 to 77. I bet if I ran it down a bit tonight and did the same experiment, I'd see a power drop similar to yours.

So regardless, no fix in 12.1.3.

 

[Oliver.devine]

Ok folks. I have this problem too and I’ve figured some things out.

If you turn Bluetooth off, the pencil still remains topped up to 100%. But the iPad battery drain is much reduced. So I think this is something to do with Bluetooth.

Interestingly, if you don’t turn Bluetooth off, and instead just ‘forget’ the device, the Pencil actually becomes warm to the touch and the drain is even more drastic than when it is paired.

So it looks like they have some issue with putting the pencil/iPad Pro into Bluetooth deep sleep mode when idle.

 

[spiderman0616]

Ok folks. I have this problem too and I’ve figured some things out.

If you turn Bluetooth off, the pencil still remains topped up to 100%. But the iPad battery drain is much reduced. So I think this is something to do with Bluetooth.

Interestingly, if you don’t turn Bluetooth off, and instead just ‘forget’ the device, the Pencil actually becomes warm to the touch and the drain is even more drastic than when it is paired.

So it looks like they have some issue with putting the pencil/iPad Pro into Bluetooth deep sleep mode when idle.

I've read some things on the Apple support forums that suggest that iOS 12.2 beta builds have solved the issue. Won't believe it until I see it with my own eyes on my own iPad Pro, but there is reason to hope.

 

[DisraeliGears]

I’m wondering, with the touch capabilities available on Pencil 2, couldn’t Apple solve this by providing a hibernate touch gesture of some kind? Regardless my current case has an alternate Pencil spot, so I can use that when I’m worried about battery drain.

 

[danmart]

No user action should be required. In the Keynote mention was made of power management and how the magnetic links meant the pencil knew when it was docked.

This is a software issue and can be fixed, I’m sure.

 

[spiderman0616]

No user action should be required. In the Keynote mention was made of power management and how the magnetic links meant the pencil knew when it was docked.

This is a software issue and can be fixed, I’m sure.

I’ve been following this on Apple support forums and it looks like the last two betas of iOS 12.2 have resolved it. I really really hope that’s the case. I don’t like putting betas on mission critical machines, so I have not been tempted to try it for myself.

 

[lsrggr]

I’ve been following this on Apple support forums and it looks like the last two betas of iOS 12.2 have resolved it. I really really hope that’s the case. I don’t like putting betas on mission critical machines, so I have not been tempted to try it for myself.

The last beta version really resolves it, at least for me. Tested it for several nights with pencil attached now.

 

[spiderman0616]

The last beta version really resolves it, at least for me. Tested it for several nights with pencil attached now.

You’re the third person I’ve seen reporting that—great news!!!!

 

[MacDevil7334]

I’m not sure 12.2 resolves this fully. Finally got around to testing it last night with the latest public beta. My iPad’s battery dropped from 80% to 70% over 8 hours with the pencil attached and the pencil dropped from 100% to 91%. Seems like the same bug that was in earlier versions. I suppose it’s possible I didn’t have the pencil attached fully, but that seems unlikely. I will test again tonight.

 

[abn5x]

I´m also having the same issue, disabling BT solves the problem, and damn... I don´t want to update to 12.2 losing Jailbreak

 

[tps3443]

Maybe the iPad Pro 11's battery isn't as good as my iPad Pro 10.5"? Because with that, if I charge it to full and then just leave it sitting on a table for half a day, the battery will still be pretty close to 100%—not 85% as it has been with the iPad Pro 11".

I guess I can test it by charging the iPad Pro 11" to 100% and not attaching the pencil to it.

The iPad Pro 10.5” battery is slightly larger in capacity than the 11” iPad Pro.

I think it is, 7500MAH vs. like 8600MAH “I’m guessing from memory here” but close enough

Although, the iPad Pro 11” die shrink to 7NM should be more than make up for the difference, plus no home button either. The device is thinner, so they had to cut battery size a little, while still maintaining a better overall battery life.

 

[spiderman0616]

The iPad Pro 10.5” battery is slightly larger in capacity than the 11” iPad Pro.

I think it is, 7500MAH vs. like 8600MAH “I’m guessing from memory here” but close enough

Although, the iPad Pro 11” die shrink to 7NM should be more than make up for the difference, plus no home button either. The device is thinner, so they had to cut battery size a little, while still maintaining a better overall battery life.

This has nothing to do with the 11" iPad Pro's battery being better or worse. They're about the same in my experience. The whole issue is what happens when the Pencil is left attached to the iPad for 8-12 hours. I consistently see about a 10% drain on the iPad in 8 hours with the Pencil attached. The biggest drain seems to happen between 3 am and 6 am for some reason overnight with no apps claiming any of that usage in the battery usage screen.

The other phenomenon is that the Pencil stops allowing itself to be topped off, which would be fine if it just slowly drained or just stopped charging for a period of time and then charged itself again, but what it actually does is start draining itself out. In that same 8-12 hour period where the iPad loses 10% charge, the Pencil will lose 10-15% charge in my experience.

I've had a lot of people tell me that the 12.2 betas resolved this for the most part. I'm downloading it now and I'm pretty excited to just let it sit with the Pencil attached and see what the drain is like in the morning. Haven't been able to do that in months.

 

[tps3443]

That battery size in the Apple Pencil is about 85-100MAH. The battery in side of a iPad Pro 3rd gen is nearly 8,000MAH. So, you could probably recharge that Apple Pencil 2 about (100) times using the iPad Pro battery. Well, if you charged the pencil 3 times a day using one iPad, and drained the pencils battery by using it on another iPad. It would take you about a month to drain the iPads battery by charging only the Apple Pencil haha.

^ ^ All of this is rough estimates.
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This has nothing to do with the 11" iPad Pro's battery being better or worse. They're about the same in my experience. The whole issue is what happens when the Pencil is left attached to the iPad for 8-12 hours.

I know that. I was only quoting the post above me, the guy said. “””“Maybe the 10.5 Pro Pro battery is better than the 11””” battery.

I assume they are probably about the same in the end.

Obviously the Apple Pencil is going to use your battery, no matter how small it is.

The Apple Pencil 2 is what about 100MAH? So, that’s about almost 2% of your iPads charge, depending on your specific iPads exact battery MAH. Not all batteries are equal or exact.

So, one iPad Pro 11” could be 7,250mah another iPad Pro 11” could be 7,600MAH.

So, if you use your Apple Pencil 2 frequently. I’d expect up to a 8 or 10% battery drain with a lot of pencil usage.

 

[spiderman0616]

Issue is partially fixed for me in iOS 12.2. I charged the iPad to 100% after the update and then let it sit with the Pencil attached for the last 17 hours or so.

The good news: the Pencil has stayed charged and is still at 100%. The little lightning bolt icon next to the Pencil in the battery widget is still present too. Before 12.2, the charge icon would disappear after a certain amount of hours and then the Pencil would start discharging for some reason. So if it sat overnight, the iPad would drain rapidly, and the Pencil would go down to about 85% even stuck to the iPad. Sometimes it would also be warm to the touch. None of that stuff is happening anymore.

The bad news: in about 17 hours my iPad Pro’s battery went from 100% to 91%. This isn’t as drastic as it was before, but still a bit more excessive than I’d like. Honestly though, it’s improved enough where I will not be so fearful about having the Pencil attached for longer periods of time. I still won’t leave it attached when it’s sitting on my desk, which is where I use it the most. No need to have it just sitting there draining.

Also noticing when I look in the battery widget, there is not a steep drop in iPad battery between 3 and 6 am like there was before. It’s just a very slow, steady discharge. This tells me that this might be the kind of drain we can expect if we want to keep the Pencil attached to the iPad whenever not in use. What I think should happen though, is that the Pencil should be able to shut off if it’s just sitting there at 100% and not ask the iPad for charge constantly.

12.2 is a big improvement for this problem though—I’m not 100% happy with it, but it’s a good start.

 

[spiderman0616]

Just as an update to my update--

It appears that with the Pencil attached, I'm losing about 1% an hour in standby mode on my iPad Pro. I did a hard reboot on my iPad this morning and reattached the Pencil just to do a fresh test. From 7 am to 1 pm I went from 83% to 77%. There have still been no big spikes in iPad battery drain like there used to be, and the Pencil has stayed topped off at 100% charge.

So at the current rate, my iPad Pro battery with the Pencil attached is going to drain about 25% every 24 hours if the Pencil is always attached and always topping off. This still seems excessive to me, and I will probably continue my method of not leaving the Pencil attached when everything is just sitting on my desk, which is where I usually use the Pencil anyway.

If it turns out that this is about as fixed as this issue is going to get, it has at least slowed the drain down enough where I won't have too much of a problem with sticking the Pencil on the iPad when I leave and knowing it won't drain the battery TOO much, and I won't lose a whole lot if I leave it on overnight accidentally. Still too much fussing for my liking, but they did get a little of the way there with 12.2 at least.

 

[tekchic]

This annoyed me as well - I ended up getting a composition book-style case that has a pencil sleeve on the back of it. My battery usage behaved MUCH better once I stopped keeping the Pencil connected 24x7. Now I only keep the Pencil connected when I'm charging my iPad overnight. It shouldn't drain at the rate it does, but now my iPad is back to having a great battery life again as long as I keep the Pencil in the sleeve.

 

[MacDevil7334]

Really boggles my mind that this behavior hasn’t been fixed yet (or that it’s intended behavior, which would boggle it even more). It really should be fixable through a software update. I’m guessing the pencil battery is draining because it’s sensors are active for some reason. That causes the iPad to then try to recharge it, draining the iPad’s battery in the process. Both can be fixed. First, update the software to have the pencil’s sensors turn off whenever it is attached to the iPad. It is literally impossible to use the pencil when it is charging so there is no need for the sensors to be on. This will drastically slow the rate of the pencil’s battery drain. Then, update the iPad’s software to not try to constantly keep the pencil charged to 100%. Maybe only engage charging when the battery drops below 90% or 95%. This would save the iPad’s battery since it wouldn’t be constantly topping off the pencil.

Obviously I’m just speculating as to what is causing the battery drain. But this really seems like something that can be fixed. I can’t believe the hardware team came up with a simple, ingenious way to both charge and store the pencil with the iPad. But, we can’t use it because a software bug causes the iPad’s battery to drain really quickly when we do. Kind of defeats the purpose. Oh well, maybe it will be fixed with the next update.