Battery life for 13" and 15" Macbook Pro

[titleistman18]

Did I just find the showings of an OS battery bug?

I unplugged my laptop, charged fully through the night, and it shows it at 100%. But it also shows that the tMBP only has 3h11m remaining... but that it's been on battery for 4h53m. This should be reset at 0 min...

 

[ubercool]

I really don't understand it, but my battery life is fantastic with the new 15. Coconut Battery showed me 105% design capacity and it feels like it. I am getting about 13-15 hours of light use out of this thing (Learning and working with PDF, occasional search in safari, some streaming..). That being said, I have my brightness at around 40%.

I don't refer to the estimate, because the first one or two hours it always shows 20 hours left (which seems to be there maximum it can show). This is after 4 days of use and without any resets mentioned in this thread.

I love jokers like you who throw these ridiculous stats into the mix just to screw us up. At 40%, Battery Monitor shows 6:45 time remaining and I would be lucky to get that. There is simply no way you can get 13-15 hours with this seriously reduced-in-size battery. At a more reasonable 80%, it's already dropped to 6:06.

 

[thesaint024]

I love jokers like you who throw these ridiculous stats into the mix just to screw us up. At 40%, Battery Monitor shows 6:45 time remaining and I would be lucky to get that. There is simply no way you can get 13-15 hours with this seriously reduced-in-size battery. At a more reasonable 80%, it's already dropped to 6:06.

That is quite possible mathematically. 76 wh battery divided by 14 hours means you need to run at 5.x watts to achieve it. With light use it's quite possible. Hard to avoid the occasional heavy load, but who are we to say what he's running. 5.x watts is normal light browsing range.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

My estimate is down to 9:35. I've been on battery for exactly 3 hours, and have 68% remaining. Current usage is 958 mAH!

I have the same apps open as before (Fantastical 2, Safari, Polymail, Slack, Messages), and screen brightness has been at about 35%. But I have 7-8 tabs open. Is that the difference?

 

[tjleonard]

I'm on my 7th cycle, second one after the Sierra reinstall. This morning I woke up, unplugged, and see 20 hours as estimated time remaining! Obviously not accurate, but I've been on battery for 54 minutes and am only down to 96%. I've had Safari, Fantastical 2, Polymail, Slack, 2Do, and Messages open, and power consumption has been at about 250-350 mAH.

This seems even better than my first cycle after reinstalling Sierra.

The one thing I haven't done yet is the suggestion posted earlier in the thread for reducing the battery drain that happens while sleeping. Because of the holiday, over the past few days my MBP has been in sleep mode a lot. Seems like it loses way more battery than it should in sleep, so I wasn't able to get a good read on actual battery life while working on the first cycle after the Sierra reinstall. I'm pretty sure it was better than before the reinstall, but every time I put the computer to sleep it would lose a big chunk.

I can't see a downside to the fix that was suggested, so I'll do that now.

I'd love to hear reports from others that have reinstalled Sierra. What kind of real-world battery life are you getting now?

Also, has anyone tried the "battery drain while sleeping" fix? (i.e. sudo pmset -b standbydelay 3600)

P.S. I did not migrate data when I first set up my MBP, and reinstalling Sierra seems to have helped tremendously for me. So I'd suggest that anyone having battery issues do this, regardless of whether they migrated data.

I'm glad you decided to do the reinstall of Sierra. I felt like i was trying to talk people into it before people started posting more success! The funny thing is, I really only did it to make Apple support happy and the fact that it made the battery life A LOT better made me realize with 100% certainty it's software related. The people that say the problem is the drive not being big enough are being hard headed and not giving it a chance...as the proof is the people that have shared success. It can't be hardware if 10 people own the same MacBook, 7 people are getting great results and 3 are not...it's obviously not hardware.

 

[Balaamsdonkey]

My estimate is down to 9:35. I've been on battery for exactly 3 hours, and have 68% remaining. Current usage is 958 mAH!

I have the same apps open as before (Fantastical 2, Safari, Polymail, Slack, Messages), and screen brightness has been at about 35%. But I have 7-8 tabs open. Is that the difference?

What sites? Are you running Ublock and/or Ghostery?

 

[tjleonard]

What sites? Are you running Ublock and/or Ghostery?

How does Ghostery / ublock do for battery? I use AdGuard but not married to either...which one is the best in your opinion?

 

[Balaamsdonkey]

How does Ghostery / ublock do for battery? I use AdGuard but not married to either...which one is the best in your opinion?

Ads and trackers eat up power by using excessive CPU and/or RAM. I mentioned them as they are the more popular ones.

 

[tjleonard]

Ads and trackers eat up power by using excessive CPU and/or RAM. I mentioned them as they are the more popular ones.

Yep, I am always looking at the better, more efficient ad / tracker blockers. That's the only reason I ask.

 

[viljamip]

deleted

 

[mercedes27]

So I have my MacBook 13 with Touchbar and first 2 cycles - 8:05 and 8:45h. Safari, VLC player, Email, 50% brightness and no keyboard backlight. Also BT off, just wi-fi on.
To me - this is pretty OK result.
My config is base 2,9GHz i5.

 

[titleistman18]

So...using the battery for about 30 minutes with lightweight internet browsing should it at 9h11m. Restarted it, nothing open, and is steadily showing 3h46m despite not having anything running or use.

I don't understand....

 

[thesaint024]

So...using the battery for about 30 minutes with lightweight internet browsing should it at 9h11m. Restarted it, nothing open, and is steadily showing 3h46m despite not having anything running or use.

I don't understand....

It's simple. The time estimates don't mean anything because they extrapolate whatever process you have JUST been running. Since restarting on battery power is pretty demanding on power, the time estimate thinks you will be restarting constantly until your battery runs down. Don't use time estimates ever. % battery much better indicator. If you want to talk about your battery life in time, you will need to do some rundown testing, not read time estimates.

 

[elvin_hu]

I've just reinstalled my Sierra and the battery is showing 4:30 at 100%... but it seems that the spotlight is indexing everything right now so we'll see how it goes.

Now it shows 6:04.

Let's wait until I finish my second cycle

 

[badlydrawnboy]

Okay, I'm nearing the end of my 2nd cycle after reinstalling Sierra. I've been on battery for 6:30 and have 19% left. That suggests I'd get about 8 hours. I'm going to have to plug in because I'm planning on watching a movie later.

My next step is to try the solution proposed earlier to shorten hibernate mode; my computer was sleeping at several points throughout the day, and I noticed battery drain during those times.

Still, this met the claim of "all day battery life". It would have lasted for a full day of work outside the house or a cross-country flight (including time in the boarding lounge before), which is all I really need.

I think I'm probably going to keep it. TouchID with 1Password is fantastic, and the difference between 8 hours and 10 hours of battery isn't worth giving that up. (The difference between 6 and 8 definitely would have been.)

 

[xspin]

Mine was too, until I reinstalled Sierra.

I did the reinstall. Don't think it did anything. Maybe I should do a full wipe or wait until an upgrade?

 

[chabig]

I love jokers like you who throw these ridiculous stats into the mix just to screw us up. At 40%, Battery Monitor shows 6:45 time remaining and I would be lucky to get that. There is simply no way you can get 13-15 hours with this seriously reduced-in-size battery. At a more reasonable 80%, it's already dropped to 6:06.

Last night I left my 13" MacBook Pro on with the screen set not to go dark or sleep. The machine stayed powered for 15 hours. When I use the machine, the battery menu shows a max of about 6 hours remaining. I think the new Intel CPUs are so good at throttling based on load that it's impossible to specify a battery time. It really depends on what you're doing with the machine.

 

[danieleilertsen]

I am having many problems with my macbook pro 15 with touchbar (Best spec).

1. Everytime I "log on" the display flickers. Found out it goes away if I turn off filevault.

2. When watching a movie, connected to a tv via hdmi adapter I got from apple, the picture goes away (it turns completely black on the tv) every couple of minutes. The black screen lasts about a half a second before showing the normal movie picture thats running. Tried different files. Happens every time.

3. The battery life is crazy short. Been using safari, on 100 prosent battery from start, and now 20 minutes later we are down to 73 %. 2 hours and 55 minutes left. Come on!

4. When I try to move a file in finder the track pad is not able to move it. Its like the track pad doesn't recognize my left finger when i am holdning it down.

Tried reinstalling sierra.

 

[tjleonard]

I did the reinstall. Don't think it did anything. Maybe I should do a full wipe or wait until an upgrade?

What apps are you running? Any odd ones that run in the background? Can you post a screen shot of Activity Monitor, on the energy tab, arranged by energy impact?

 

[xspin]

What apps are you running? Any odd ones that run in the background? Can you post a screen shot of Activity Monitor, on the energy tab, arranged by energy impact?

see below. nothing absurd I don't think? I just lost 20% in one hour.

 

[tjleonard]

see below. nothing absurd I don't think? I just lost 20% in one hour.

Not that I see. I force quit the adobe programs. I also do not use Spotify and Chrome. I know Chrome can be bad (the next version is supposed to be a lot better), but in your situation it doesn't look like a problem.

When you reinstalled Sierra, did you connect to wifi so it could download a new copy instead of using the one it already had?

 

[thesaint024]

see below. nothing absurd I don't think? I just lost 20% in one hour.

To add to @tjleonard, Adobe, Chrome, and Safari are the likely problems. And remember, it really depends on what sites you are visiting. The power draw varies greatly. Spotify actually runs ok for me, and probably isn't a problem. What is your screen brightness at? Next step, if you choose to accept the assignment, is to run Coconut Battery as you go to websites and see which draw power. I know it sounds crazy, but that is really what killed it for me. Not suggesting you change your browsing behavior, but just knowledge of what kind of sites load trash is helpful. Also, like I always say, yes this is something Apple should have been good about out of the box, and up to you if you want to chase it down. I think it is totally within your right to say BS.

 

[xspin]

To add to @tjleonard, Adobe, Chrome, and Safari are the likely problems. And remember, it really depends on what sites you are visiting. The power draw varies greatly. Spotify actually runs ok for me, and probably isn't a problem. What is your screen brightness at? Next step, if you choose to accept the assignment, is to run Coconut Battery as you go to websites and see which draw power. I know it sounds crazy, but that is really what killed it for me. Not suggesting you change your browsing behavior, but just knowledge of what kind of sites load trash is helpful. Also, like I always say, yes this is something Apple should have been good about out of the box, and up to you if you want to chase it down. I think it is totally within your right to say BS.

thanks so much for your input. I'm on one click below 50% screen brightness and one click above 0 keyboard brightness. I already have coconut battery downloaded so I'll keep a lookout on it.
[doublepost=1480216812][/doublepost]

Not that I see. I force quit the adobe programs. I also do not use Spotify and Chrome. I know Chrome can be bad (the next version is supposed to be a lot better), but in your situation it doesn't look like a problem.

When you reinstalled Sierra, did you connect to wifi so it could download a new copy instead of using the one it already had?

interesting. yeah I've heard that about chrome so only limit my chrome usage to sites that need it (random modules in Amex, a hotel booking site. Also, in regards to the re-installI didn't see the wifi as an option? was it an option or you had to manually connect to wifi somehow? I definitely never touched the wifi before installation.

 

[tjleonard]

thanks so much for your input. I'm on one click below 50% screen brightness and one click above 0 keyboard brightness. I already have coconut battery downloaded so I'll keep a lookout on it.
[doublepost=1480216812][/doublepost]
interesting. yeah I've heard that about chrome so only limit my chrome usage to sites that need it (random modules in Amex, a hotel booking site. Also, in regards to the re-installI didn't see the wifi as an option? was it an option or you had to manually connect to wifi somehow? I definitely never touched the wifi before installation.

Click the wifi symbol at the top right and then select the one you want it to connect to. I know mine was not connected when I started, I had to click the SSID I wanted to connect to and enter the password.

 

[xspin]

Click the wifi symbol at the top right and then select the one you want it to connect to. I know mine was not connected when I started, I had to click the SSID I wanted to connect to and enter the password.

I did everything at home so I definitely had to be connected, right?
[doublepost=1480218323][/doublepost]

Click the wifi symbol at the top right and then select the one you want it to connect to. I know mine was not connected when I started, I had to click the SSID I wanted to connect to and enter the password.

I'm at home and I just pretended to try to re-install Sierra and it showed connected to my usual network the whole time which would indicate to me it was before