Battery life for 13" and 15" Macbook Pro

[b_scott]

Still too high, so just luck, that it dropped 4W. Though it takes a minute for the power consumption to settle after a reboot and make sure it's really on the Intel.

how can you tell which it's using?

 

[kwandrews]

I've been looking at the apps running more. Yesterday I stated that most non-Apple apps, especially Office 2016 & Skype for Business, are dreadful drains on the battery. This is still true. However, as noted elsewhere, so is Safari and that should NOT be the case. I have to believe that it will be fixed for that browser. I've been on battery the last 2:39 minutes and it's actually doing pretty well in my personal profile (not business with Office 2016).

Safari shows an average energy impact of 11.1 (too high for a browser, just was at MR and a couple of news sites without watching videos). While using Safari, I saw my battery drain fairly fast...from about 78% to start down to 67%. I've tried Chrome and FireFox...both are bad for battery. Then, I tried Opera. I haven't seriously looked at it for years. Wow!

The avg for it over the past 45-60 min has been 1.78 and doing the same stuff as I did in Safari! Opera v41 has built in adblocker and has a built in battery saving mode while on battery power. Not sure how it works, but it sure seems to! Right now I'm sitting at 63.2% with an time est of 4:05. Total est watts in CB is 12.8w. With Safari, I was routinely seeing 20+.

Now I'm testing Apple Mail vs. Spark and I'm finding some savings there too. I have to think the MS will fix Office eventually. I can't replace it yet. I need the integrated presence of Skype in Outlook and the ability to add Skype video meetings to my calendar invites, view shared corporate calendars, etc.

I guess the bottom line is there are many apps that don't play nice with the TB MBP's for some reason...why? No idea. They are fine with 12" MBr and 13" "escape edition" of the 2016 MBP. There must some tweaks Apple can make in the OS for the TB versions as well.

UPDATE: the watts are still <13w in total running opera. It's handling things a lot better. I'm still holding off final judgement, but so far, so good. It also has a built in free VPN with unlimited data. Nice feature. Also, if you enable advanced settings, you can allow or disallow the use of the dGPU. The ad blocker is effective as well and no plugin to maintain separately. It plays nice with 1Password as well. I just wish this version was enabled for TB, but I'm sure that will come.

This one switch up has given me hope so far. I just may stick it out a bit longer....maybe.

 

[macintoshmac]

Then, I tried Opera. I haven't seriously looked at it for years. Wow!

I guess the bottom line is there are many apps that don't play nice with the TB MBP's for some reason...why? No idea. They are fine with 12" MBr and 13" "escape edition" of the 2016 MBP. There must some tweaks Apple can make in the OS for the TB versions as well.

Now I gotta try Opera and yes after so so so many years..

About TB MacBooks, I think the software was released prematurely. Software doesn't seem too optimised for it just yet and hence the drain. Maybe. But yes, even I need Office apps and Outlook. How is Spark vs Outlook, do report!

 

[kwandrews]

Now I gotta try Opera and yes after so so so many years..

About TB MacBooks, I think the software was released prematurely. Software doesn't seem too optimised for it just yet and hence the drain. Maybe. But yes, even I need Office apps and Outlook. How is Spark vs Outlook, do report!

It cannot replace it for corporate use. Personal use, yes. I'm using it now as a replacement for Apple Mail. I tried it with Exchange and it synced wonderfully well...no issues. It just leaves you without the integrated calendar. Ok, so I did try Fantastical2 (also better on battery than Outlook by far) and it was great in many ways. We live on Skype at work and not being able to setup Skype meetings from within the calendar is a showstopper. Also, in email/calendar, you can't see Skype presence and they don't pull over contact card data from the corp server. So, for now, Outlook 2016 is still king for business....but days are numbered. When we fully switch to Office 365, I'm curious how it will run in Opera/Safari. I have access to it all now with the exception of email and Skype are not moved yet....I see light at the nd of the tunnel.

 

[macintoshmac]

It cannot replace it for corporate use. Personal use, yes. I'm using it now as a replacement for Apple Mail. I tried it with Exchange and it synced wonderfully well...no issues. It just leaves you without the integrated calendar. Ok, so I did try Fantastical2 (also better on battery than Outlook by far) and it was great in many ways. We live on Skype at work and not being able to setup Skype meetings from within the calendar is a showstopper. Also, in email/calendar, you can't see Skype presence and they don't pull over contact card data from the corp server. So, for now, Outlook 2016 is still king for business....but days are numbered. When we fully switch to Office 365, I'm curious how it will run in Opera/Safari. I have access to it all now with the exception of email and Skype are not moved yet....I see light at the nd of the tunnel.

Good thing for me is I do not use the integrated calendar at all. I use it primarily for emails. Outlook open as a tab in Safari will eat about 500MB after a point of time. Outlook app by comparison starts with under 100, and after sufficiently long use, goes up to about 260MB. However, the app keeps the CPU use at 100 percent, for god knows what reason.

I have never tried Fantastical because I never really needed a "pro" calendar app. I will see Spark. Used to love CloudMagic till they went paid and that too such amounts of annual subscription.

 

[kwandrews]

Good thing for me is I do not use the integrated calendar at all. I use it primarily for emails. Outlook open as a tab in Safari will eat about 500MB after a point of time. Outlook app by comparison starts with under 100, and after sufficiently long use, goes up to about 260MB. However, the app keeps the CPU use at 100 percent, for god knows what reason.

I have never tried Fantastical because I never really needed a "pro" calendar app. I will see Spark. Used to love CloudMagic till they went paid and that too such amounts of annual subscription.

That makes sense. OOOOH.....new thing discovered in Opera. Pop-out video is awesome! Love it for YouTube so far, that alone sells me on it over Safari. Watching a YouTube video now as a pop-out and total system watts is listing at 16.3....much better, that would be over 30 in the past.

 

[Queen6]

YES, I noticed that too! LOL. Took my 15" to another site today for a meeting. Was only supposed to be a 2 hour meeting. No need to worry about battery, right? Got there with 100% charge. Running Cisco AnyConnect VPN, Outlook 2016 and Skype for Business for a portion of the online meeting (about 70 minutes). Screen brightness at 65%, backlight key = 0. When I left 2 hours later I was at 22% remaining! When I had the 13" "escape edition" base model, I was at a conference with it, using it this way all day. Maybe 6-7 hours of actual use. Got back to hotel and was still over 40% left on battery.

I went to the 15" for better processing power for my off work things, but this battery isn't going to be usable for what I need it to do to make money. Sure, I Could carry the charger, but there isn't always an outlet nearby. I took my Anker 20,100 USB C battery pack just in case. Of course, it can't really charge the 15" when it's in use...but it could the 12 & 13"...so that was worthless. Have to carry a brick with the 15" if you are on battery for about 3 hours max for light use. What the?

Just the brutal reality of Apple depreciating the battery capacity, as once you start actually using the computer it has far less power reserves to call on. For me this compromise was too much of a retrograde step for the sake of the aesthetic. Personally I would gladly trade the 3mm (1/8") reduction in thickness for additional battery capacity. I backed out of being 100% dependant on Apple for my work related computing solutions some time ago for multiple reasons. Resultantly I now have a great deal more flexibility in the choice of hardware. I used to see a solid 8+ hours on my 2014 13" rMBP, I now get a solid 10+ on my Surface Book, 12+ at a stretch on battery, which is significantly greater than the 2016 MBP`s can achieve or likely ever will.

Apple wants to appeal ever more to the mass consumer market, not niche sectors that have specific computing needs. This directly results in ever thinner & lighter devices, for some this directly results in compromised hardware. From Apple`s perspective devices like the iPad are simpler to design, produce and market combined with greater margins. Apple are clearly applying the same logic to the Mac; pre-engineered in-house only upgrades, with evermore elevated margins and simplified design. This thread and others with similar context only serve to reinforce this paradigm.

The answer is becoming fairly binary, the modern Mac either works for you, or it does not. Apple will continue to head towards the mid ground, albeit very well executed. Apple is now all about selling an image which they execute impeccably, the only real question is do you buy into it...

Q-6

 

[macintoshmac]

There was a time these guys had hit a very sweet spot in terms of battery and performance. But their quest is what fuels them and that quest is probably going to burn them if they don't see that customers are getting disgruntled because it is no more working for them, it is just a visually pleasing device and they can't trust it while on the move. Thinner and lighter is **** if you got to carry 800g worth of chargers and battery packs along with it.

On the other hand, I think, the iMac will resurface as seeing that they are killing the battery life of MacBooks so bad, people would rather get the iMac and be done with. You get the MacBook to take it along with you, and that is something they are making slowly and slowly impossible to do.

 

[Jamieblufc]

Of those who've had a theirs a little while, how long have you noticed it taken for spotlight to index everything and stop eating away at the battery?

Uploaded some of my files, only 30GB worth and 40% battery showing 1:12hr remaining with spotlight eating a whole load of it. I know it'll settle down eventually though (I hope). Am doing a battery re-calibration, still on first cycle out of box of fully charging it and keeping it plugged in for 2 hours after 100% then running it dead. So far its been left over 6hrs dead and going to charge 100% again. Hope this has some positive in some way

 

[LilBethan]

My MacBook is constantly waking whilst in sleep mode with the lid closed.
It keeps saying this is the reason
localhost kernel[0]: (AppleTopCaseHIDEventDriver) [HID] [ATC] AppleDeviceManagementHIDEventService:rocessWakeReason Wake reason: Host (0x01)

Anyone know what this is and how I can stop it?

 

[PyBeck]

As a few pages back, some guys talked about NVRAM reset, it just did that and power consumption is now down. I already had to reset SMC a few days back, as i had audio stuttering in iTunes and the Mac arrived with SIP off.

Let's see if it was the reset or just the reboot.

No luck, it worked for a while and after i used VMware Fusion, the AMD is now still on, despite reporting the Intel. So i guess it's a graphics driver bug and we have to wait for a fix.

 

[Queen6]

My MacBook is constantly waking whilst in sleep mode with the lid closed.
It keeps saying this is the reason
localhost kernel[0]: (AppleTopCaseHIDEventDriver) [HID] [ATC] AppleDeviceManagementHIDEventService:rocessWakeReason Wake reason: Host (0x01)

Anyone know what this is and how I can stop it?

Do you have any Bluetooth peripherals connected? Chances are they maybe waking up the OS.

Q-6

 

[SamVilde]

Diagnostic question: It seems like (from lack of complaints here) the nTB version has smooth consistent battery life. Aside from 'larger battery' and 'less demanding processor', there must be some other difference in how the nTB vs TB machines are operating, because we're not hearing about spikes in power usage or erratic battery life variation within one person's machine (i.e. e.g. Tuesday I got 7 hours but Wednesday I got only 3). We're not hearing about Safari having a negative impact on the nTB, so it's not just battery size and easier processor.

My low-tech guess is that the fix will lie somewhere in that difference. Does anyone know what that operational difference might be? Don't say 'larger battery' and 'less demanding processor'. That can account for longer battery life but not more consistent battery life.

 

[Roller]

I have a 13" with TB on order and the delivery date has been moved up by a week to Dec. 9. Normally I'd be thrilled, but this is the first time I'm apprehensive about unboxing and starting to use an Apple device. As I said before, I'd be OK with 9 hours of battery life, but I don't want to have to reinstall the OS or baby it to get that. I find it hard to believe that Apple would advertise up to 10 hours of iTunes movie playback if it could only do, say, 5 or 6 hours, so I'm hoping that there's a firmware or OS upgrade in the works. It's also possible that people who are experiencing poor battery performance are a small minority, though I doubt that. So at this point I'm going to wait and see what happens when my computer arrives.

 

[LilBethan]

Do you have any Bluetooth peripherals connected? Chances are they maybe waking up the OS.

Q-6

I've got nothing connected to it. All my energy saving settings are correct to

 

[Jamieblufc]

I have a 13" with TB on order and the delivery date has been moved up by a week to Dec. 9. Normally I'd be thrilled, but this is the first time I'm apprehensive about unboxing and starting to use an Apple device. As I said before, I'd be OK with 9 hours of battery life, but I don't want to have to reinstall the OS or baby it to get that. I find it hard to believe that Apple would advertise up to 10 hours of iTunes movie playback if it could only do, say, 5 or 6 hours, so I'm hoping that there's a firmware or OS upgrade in the works. It's also possible that people who are experiencing poor battery performance are a small minority, though I doubt that. So at this point I'm going to wait and see what happens when my computer arrives.

Reinstalling MacOS from unboxing would be the right thing to do anyway, factory builds usually contain a few bugs where as fresh install is the most up to date. Ive done that, SMC reset. Spotlight takes up most of my battery at the moment while its indexing things but i hope it'll settle down so i can get 7/8 hours out of one charge

 

[Queen6]

I've got nothing connected to it. All my energy saving settings are correct to

HID is Human Interface Device so can be a BT peripheral, including speakers & phones. Try the MBP on a different router as Mac`s can be finicky with some brands. You can investigate in Terminal with:

cat /var/log/system.log | grep -i "wake reason"

Although I suspect you already know this command, some have found a solution by reducing the time to hibernation with the following Terminal command:

sudo pmset -b standbydelay 3600

Personally I prefer to solve the issue when possible, as this is more of a work around, also note this for on battery power ("b" swap to "a" for all) timing is in seconds.

I have wrote a fair bit on the subject on the MacBook forum so maybe worth a search and see what some others offered as solutions.

Q-6

 

[The Martian]

I've got nothing connected to it. All my energy saving settings are correct to

I personally think we will see a macOS update that will address battery life the same way that WatchOS 3.1 addressed battery life on the Apple Watch. My Apple Watch Series 2 went from needing charged daily to being able to go almost 3 days without needing charged and this was all with just an OS update.

I am wondering if they will find some tweak to extend the battery life in macOS.

 

[fokmik]

guys, plz !! help me/us, who else having an older generation MBP 15", with latest Sierra....is Sierra making the battery last shorter? and not the new late 2016 MBP? i mean on my late 2013 15" MBP, i was having 8-8.20 min usage with safari for example in EL CAP, now im having around 6.30 min...with my new MBP i have around the same 6-7 hours...so i wonder IF THE PROBLEM IS NOT SOFTWARE. please anyone else with an older MBP can confirm that the battery usage is less since Sierra?

 

[badlydrawnboy]

For those that have been around since the first few pages of this thread, and have already done Sierra reinstall: curious what kind of real-world battery life you're seeing now? As reported I saw increase from 6-6.5 to 8-8.5 for the first two cycles post Sierra reinstall, but on my last (third) cycle, the battery drained more quickly... perhaps 7.5 hours, despite no change in use.

I really do hope Apple can help with an OS update. If I can get 8.5 hours reliably, I'd be happy, and this does at least seem possible given that I was getting close to this after the Sierra reinstall.

 

[chabig]

Reinstalling MacOS from unboxing would be the right thing to do anyway, factory builds usually contain a few bugs where as fresh install is the most up to date. Ive done that, SMC reset. Spotlight takes up most of my battery at the moment while its indexing things but i hope it'll settle down so i can get 7/8 hours out of one charge

If there have been any operating system updates since the machine was manufactured, it will automatically offer to update during setup.

 

[Jamieblufc]

If there have been any operating system updates since the machine was manufactured, it will automatically offer to update during setup.

I had to originally set up from factory build and didn't get this option so i don't think there has been one?

 

[chabig]

I had to originally set up from factory build and didn't get this option so i don't think there has been one?

The current OS is 10.12.1, so if you're on that you're good.

 

[thesaint024]

I've been looking at the apps running more. Yesterday I stated that most non-Apple apps, especially Office 2016 & Skype for Business, are dreadful drains on the battery. This is still true. However, as noted elsewhere, so is Safari and that should NOT be the case. I have to believe that it will be fixed for that browser. I've been on battery the last 2:39 minutes and it's actually doing pretty well in my personal profile (not business with Office 2016).

Safari shows an average energy impact of 11.1 (too high for a browser, just was at MR and a couple of news sites without watching videos). While using Safari, I saw my battery drain fairly fast...from about 78% to start down to 67%. I've tried Chrome and FireFox...both are bad for battery. Then, I tried Opera. I haven't seriously looked at it for years. Wow!

The avg for it over the past 45-60 min has been 1.78 and doing the same stuff as I did in Safari! Opera v41 has built in adblocker and has a built in battery saving mode while on battery power. Not sure how it works, but it sure seems to! Right now I'm sitting at 63.2% with an time est of 4:05. Total est watts in CB is 12.8w. With Safari, I was routinely seeing 20+.

Now I'm testing Apple Mail vs. Spark and I'm finding some savings there too. I have to think the MS will fix Office eventually. I can't replace it yet. I need the integrated presence of Skype in Outlook and the ability to add Skype video meetings to my calendar invites, view shared corporate calendars, etc.

I guess the bottom line is there are many apps that don't play nice with the TB MBP's for some reason...why? No idea. They are fine with 12" MBr and 13" "escape edition" of the 2016 MBP. There must some tweaks Apple can make in the OS for the TB versions as well.

UPDATE: the watts are still <13w in total running opera. It's handling things a lot better. I'm still holding off final judgement, but so far, so good. It also has a built in free VPN with unlimited data. Nice feature. Also, if you enable advanced settings, you can allow or disallow the use of the dGPU. The ad blocker is effective as well and no plugin to maintain separately. It plays nice with 1Password as well. I just wish this version was enabled for TB, but I'm sure that will come.

This one switch up has given me hope so far. I just may stick it out a bit longer....maybe.

My Opera results are inconclusive. Straight browsing may be a bit better, but flash video is definitely worse. I'm going to test further, but so far, Safari/Ghostery is the best combination for me. There appears to be a 13"/15" variance on how the CPU and programs interact. Thanks for the tip, I'll see if anything changes.

 

[JohnnyGo]

I personally think we will see a macOS update that will address battery life the same way that WatchOS 3.1 addressed battery life on the Apple Watch. My Apple Watch Series 2 went from needing charged daily to being able to go almost 3 days without needing charged and this was all with just an OS update.

I am wondering if they will find some tweak to extend the battery life in macOS.

Same hope here. My ️ S2 is at 78% after 8 hours of use. Hopefully I can get my MacBook to have at least 20% after 8 hours of daily use (On/Off/Standby).