Battery life for 13" and 15" Macbook Pro

[badlydrawnboy]

I still think something is wonky with software. I have exactly the same set of apps open as I've had the past few days (Safari, Polymail, Slack, Messages, Fantastical 2, 2Do). Just a couple of tabs in Safari (this is one), no ad blocker and only 1Password for extensions. Brightness between 30-40%.

Without changing anything, power consumption can range from 250-950 mAH. Why? For example, right now as I type this message I have Safari open with only this tab and Netflix in another tab (no video playing, just the home page). Safari energy usage is all over the place, from 6-30 energy impact. Power consumption is fluctuating a lot too, but averaging 600 mAH. That doesn't make any sense to me. I'm doing next to nothing.

 

[happyslayer]

So I went ahead and backed up my stuff the hard way (dragging everything I care about to a USB drive) then booted my 13" TB base model into Recovery Mode, did a full Disk Utility erase and then reinstalled Sierra from the Internet. So far it seems to be working better; it is definitely using less power--per Coconut Battery--and the remaining time on the Mac battery estimate (I know this varies wildly) actually says 9.5 hours and the most it ever said previously, at any time was 6 hours. So I will now use it on battery until death and let you know. I'm also running Battery Logger to keep track of the time.

 

[thesaint024]

I still think something is wonky with software. I have exactly the same set of apps open as I've had the past few days (Safari, Polymail, Slack, Messages, Fantastical 2, 2Do). Just a couple of tabs in Safari (this is one), no ad blocker and only 1Password for extensions. Brightness between 30-40%.

Without changing anything, power consumption can range from 250-950 mAH. Why? For example, right now as I type this message I have Safari open with only this tab and Netflix in another tab (no video playing, just the home page). Safari energy usage is all over the place, from 6-30 energy impact. Power consumption is fluctuating a lot too, but averaging 600 mAH. That doesn't make any sense to me. I'm doing next to nothing.

Don't know if you saw this other thread I started, link below. Might help with Safari. I found that MacRumors was sucking all kinds of resources. It has calmed down a bit after ghostery. 30 watts is incredible though. Hard to believe Safari is doing that. Macrumors was at most doing 5-6 watts on me. When I have Netflix idle in a tab, it draws close to nothing, but I haven't tested pre-ghostery. It might be killing some power sucking trackers or ads. Just throwing darts again.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mbp-16-and-safari-battery-drain-ghostery.2017703/#post-23982066

 

[tjleonard]

Battery life is crazy now...I do believe someone could get 12-15 hours...As an example, I have been browsing the internet only (MacRumors, Google News, Verge, Gizmodo, MMA Fighting, and several other websites) for the past 1 hour 2 minutes and have only used 6% battery (from 100% to 94%). The estimation is another 13 hours 41 minutes, currently using 3.2 watts.

 

[kwandrews]

my 15" was wildly fluctuating with its battery estimated time and %. Sometimes it would work very well (8-11 hours all the time). Then the last couple of days, I'd lose about 20% PER HOUR with noting but Safari running (with ad blockers, etc. on), all spotlight done, etc.

I just re-imaged, something I usually do out of habit anyway but didn't do with this Mac. After re-imaging to 10.12.1 (external USB3 drive with disk util to wipe drive prior), it looks to be behaving a bit better. I've been on battery now for 30 minutes. I'm at 98% and estimated 8:43. Photos agent keeps popping up as using "significant" resources (odd, since I haven't touched Photos yet). I'll keep an eye on everything and see how it goes. Now time for more installs of software and setting up additional profiles., etc.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

Don't know if you saw this other thread I started, link below. Might help with Safari. I found that MacRumors was sucking all kinds of resources. It has calmed down a bit after ghostery. 30 watts is incredible though. Hard to believe Safari is doing that. Macrumors was at most doing 5-6 watts on me. When I have Netflix idle in a tab, it draws close to nothing, but I haven't tested pre-ghostery. It might be killing some power sucking trackers or ads. Just throwing darts again.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mbp-16-and-safari-battery-drain-ghostery.2017703/#post-23982066

Thanks, I'll check that out. To be clear, the 6-30 range was not watts, it was net energy impact score from the energy tab in Activity Monitor. The watt usage ranges from 2.5-7. The mAH ranges from 250-950. It's really all over the map, that's the issue.

For example, just after the last charge and writing my most recent post, I'd used the battery for about 30 min before watching a Netflix show. It said 6:56 remaining before I started the show. After watching it, the estimate now says 8:58 remaining!

The usage really fluctuates way more than with previous Macbooks I've had, which is why the battery is so hard to predict.

tjleonard, estimates aside, what is the actual battery life you've been getting after the reinstall? As I reported, I went from 6-6.5 to 8, which is a big difference, but I'm definitely not getting >10.

 

[JohnnyGo]

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?

You are the second poster that mentions brightness @30-35%. I think that matters.

From all the posts I read, my best guess is that:
- SMC reset is more gimmick than solution
- Sierra reinstall is a must
- Screen brightness (30-40% vs 60-70%) adds 1-2 hours in battery life

Let us know how your new run ended (standby+usage time) and run it again.

Can't wait for my tMBP to arrive !!!

 

[NoWayBehind]

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.

Thanks, and yes I was not trolling.

I checked Coconut Battery and with PDF Expert running it showed only 4 watts usage. Throw in my occasional Safari usage which brings the average up to 5 watts and we are at the runtime I stated. I also closed all apps when I stopped using them. This was just for testing purposes and to proof 10 hours is definitely possible with this machine and 3 hour comments may be a bit over the top (maybe just as mine is with 13-15 hours). It simply all depends on how you use the machine.

All in all I am still positively surprised, and I didn't even come close with my prior Windows machines, also in very light to light usage.

 

[David58117]

I have the non-tb 13", and one thing I noticed with coconut battery, is that it seems to be that more watts are being used during the first 10% or so coming off of a full charge, but that once I get bellow 90% or so, it seems to lower quite a bit.

I don't see any processes running that would cause it, and nothing is syncing or indexing that I see - but it seems to be true for the last few charges.

I'm curious if others notice this as well.

 

[Karnicopia]

I'm getting about 9 hours or so web browsing on a 13" TB. I agree that this has a lot to do with brightness settings at least that's when I noticed the biggest changes, I turned the keyboard and display to about 75% and turned off auto brightness. I also changed my mail to look for updates every 5 minutes because that was taking significant power for some reason.

I do think overall though there is likely just a lot of junk running in the background on these things when you are first setting up like spotlight indexing, photo synching if you have large library or in my case it could have been synching my email which is fairly significant. At first I was burning 20%/hour almost no matter what I did, now I'm getting about 10%/ hour on light tasks and about 15-20%/ hour when I'm really pushing it and I don't think that is all brightness setting related. Overall I can live with the battery life, I know how to make it last if I need to.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

I have the non-tb 13", and one thing I noticed with coconut battery, is that it seems to be that more watts are being used during the first 10% or so coming off of a full charge, but that once I get bellow 90% or so, it seems to lower quite a bit.

I don't see any processes running that would cause it, and nothing is syncing or indexing that I see - but it seems to be true for the last few charges.

I'm curious if others notice this as well.

Yes, I have noticed that too. mAH tends to be 500+ right after coming off battery, but can then drop to 250-300 mAH after 30-60 minutes, or sooner.

However, as I mentioned, for me the energy consumption is really erratic and doesn't always make sense.

 

[marcel500]

Battery life is crazy now...I do believe someone could get 12-15 hours...As an example, I have been browsing the internet only (MacRumors, Google News, Verge, Gizmodo, MMA Fighting, and several other websites) for the past 1 hour 2 minutes and have only used 6% battery (from 100% to 94%). The estimation is another 13 hours 41 minutes, currently using 3.2 watts.

12-15 hours? At no point I believe what you are saying. Every review out there is complaining about the battery life and u are trying to tell us the exact opposite? Nonesense.

 

[JohnnyGo]

I'm getting about 9 hours or so web browsing on a 13" TB. I agree that this has a lot to do with brightness settings at least that's when I noticed the biggest changes, I turned the keyboard and display to about 75% and turned off auto brightness. I also changed my mail to look for updates every 5 minutes because that was taking significant power for some reason.

I do think overall though there is likely just a lot of junk running in the background on these things when you are first setting up like spotlight indexing, photo synching if you have large library or in my case it could have been synching my email which is fairly significant. At first I was burning 20%/hour almost no matter what I did, now I'm getting about 10%/ hour on light tasks and about 15-20%/ hour when I'm really pushing it and I don't think that is all brightness setting related. Overall I can live with the battery life, I know how to make it last if I need to.

Just to be clear: are you getting 9h of battery life web surfing only with 75% brightness? Only major setup change was to email (fetch vs push) ? Do you use icloud or gmail or exchange for your email ?

 

[Karnicopia]

Just to be clear: are you getting 9h of battery life web surfing only with 75% brightness? Only major setup change was to email (fetch vs push) ? Do you use icloud or gmail or exchange for your email ?

Yep, I turned off the auto brightness on the display (read here that this was causing people battery issues but I typically don't like displays to change brightness anyway) and set my display to 75% and I also set my keyboard to about 50% and I turned off the setting where the display gets darker on battery. I use outlook for my email but I just use the mail application in OS X for it. For some reason the email was a big one for me as the mail app was the 2nd-3rd highest power usage even though I was barely using it so I'm thinking it could have been running something in the background there. I'm also using Safari for my browsing.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

I know I must be missing something obvious, but where/how do you turn off or adjust the keyboard backlight?

 

[Karnicopia]

I know I must be missing something obvious, but where/how do you turn off or adjust the keyboard backlight?

It's in the touch bar, so if you click on the little arrow next to the screen brightness it will expand to the full settings touch bar and the keyboard -+ brightness keys are the 5 and 6th icons from the left. There's probably a function key or shortcut as well but I've been using this way to adjust it.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

It's in the toucher, so if you click on the little arrow next to the screen brightness it will expand to the full touch bar, keyboard -+ keys are the 5 and 6th icons from the left.

Great, thanks. I turned it off, because I know how to type and never really look at the keyboard anyhow. Hopefully that will save some power (it was turned up pretty high). I have screen brightness set to 30-40% depending on what I'm doing. I can't even imagine 100%—thing is so bright it's like staring at a light bulb.

 

[lobo1978]

Serious, objective and technical review of new MacBook Pro 2016 Touchbar at Notebookcheck: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-...Hz-i5-Touch-Bar-Notebook-Review.185639.0.html

Spoiler:
9.5 hrs -- longer than previous MacBook in the same test.

 

[WB94]

My battery life is all over the place. No consistency at all. 13" TB, 2.9 i5, 16GB RAM, 512GB.

1st cycle: 6 hours 21 minutes
2nd cycle: 5 hours 22 minutes
3rd cycle: 9 hours 6 minutes
4th cycle: 2 hours 12 minutes

Just completed the 4th cycle, all I had open was Safari with between 4 and 6 tabs at 50% brightness and no backlit keys. Very worrying. Will post here after my next few cycles.

 

[JohnnyGo]

Serious, objective and technical review of new MacBook Pro 2016 Touchbar at Notebookcheck: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-...Hz-i5-Touch-Bar-Notebook-Review.185639.0.html

Spoiler:
9.5 hrs -- longer than previous MacBook in the same test.

Thanks for the link.

If I understood correctly most if not all of their tests were done under Win10/bootcamp, including the battery test. Is that right?

If so, it somewhat validates some fears there is something going on with Sierra or the standard install on the new MacBooks. Hopefully there's a fix in the works by Apple.

 

[thesaint024]

Great, thanks. I turned it off, because I know how to type and never really look at the keyboard anyhow. Hopefully that will save some power (it was turned up pretty high). I have screen brightness set to 30-40% depending on what I'm doing. I can't even imagine 100%—thing is so bright it's like staring at a light bulb.

Little embarrassed to say I didn't know how to do that either. Thanks for asking the question for some of us.
[doublepost=1480275164][/doublepost]

My battery life is all over the place. No consistency at all. 13" TB, 2.9 i5, 16GB RAM, 512GB.

1st cycle: 6 hours 21 minutes
2nd cycle: 5 hours 22 minutes
3rd cycle: 9 hours 6 minutes
4th cycle: 2 hours 12 minutes

Just completed the 4th cycle, all I had open was Safari with between 4 and 6 tabs at 50% brightness and no backlit keys. Very worrying. Will post here after my next few cycles.

I can tell without you even mentioning it that you are using time estimates and not real world tests. This information is not helpful and doesn't tell you anything about the battery life.

 

[WB94]

I can tell without you even mentioning it that you are using time estimates and not real world tests. This information is not helpful and doesn't tell you anything about the battery life.

Not at all. The times I got were from using a stopwatch on my phone as I know the estimates are far from accurate.

 

[thesaint024]

Not at all. The times I got were from using a stopwatch on my phone as I know the estimates are far from accurate.

You literally had one full rundown test at 9+ hours and another at 2+ hours? Were you doing calculations for NASA? Any other details you could provide?

 

[tjleonard]

12-15 hours? At no point I believe what you are saying. Every review out there is complaining about the battery life and u are trying to tell us the exact opposite? Nonesense.

I am, I have seen it along with others on this forum. Go reinstall Sierra and give it a shot yourself.
[doublepost=1480276664][/doublepost]

Thanks, I'll check that out. To be clear, the 6-30 range was not watts, it was net energy impact score from the energy tab in Activity Monitor. The watt usage ranges from 2.5-7. The mAH ranges from 250-950. It's really all over the map, that's the issue.

For example, just after the last charge and writing my most recent post, I'd used the battery for about 30 min before watching a Netflix show. It said 6:56 remaining before I started the show. After watching it, the estimate now says 8:58 remaining!

The usage really fluctuates way more than with previous Macbooks I've had, which is why the battery is so hard to predict.

tjleonard, estimates aside, what is the actual battery life you've been getting after the reinstall? As I reported, I went from 6-6.5 to 8, which is a big difference, but I'm definitely not getting >10.

I haven't done a full battery to only web browsing or playing a video. I did 9 hours at 50% brightness, Jump desktop to 3 servers, safari with 4-6 tabs, downloading 2 500mb files, and a few other things.

Web browsing only, I feel like I could see 12 hours.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

I can tell you that battery life really is all over the place. The first hour of use on this cycle my battery went from 100% to 96%. But then in the subsequent 40 minutes (which included about two hours of sleep), it went from 96% to 79%. The only thing I did is change my brightness from 30-35% to 50-55%. That is a huge difference.

I think what others have said before is true: these things are just way more sensitive to minor changes in power consumption. Is it possible to get 10 hours as Apple advertised? Probably. Is it likely in normal use? Probably not.