How's your battery health?

[Andysapple]

I just noticed my battery health is 98% after almost five months. The thing is, I almost only just it fort desktop use, meaning I have a charger connected 90% of the time. I only have 23 cycles. Is this normal, I feel like the battery barely have used.

I have optimized charging turned on.

 

[leons]

It is best for your battery to NOT leave it plugged in for 24 hours so the electrons can move. There are several ways to assure this (or remind you to do it manually), including firmware tools. The easiest way I found is an app that computes daily minimum unplug recommendations, Better Battery 2 in the App Store.

 

[otherguy5]

How do you find the battery health percentage? Are you talking about the state of charge or charge capacity (located in"About this Mac" > "System Report" > "Power")?

 

[leons]

How do you find the battery health percentage? Are you talking about the state of charge or charge capacity (located in"About this Mac" > "System Report" > "Power")?

About this Mac" > "System Report" > "Power", then look at "Health Information, "Maximum Capacity"

 

[jdb8167]

I just noticed my battery health is 98% after almost five months. The thing is, I almost only just it fort desktop use, meaning I have a charger connected 90% of the time. I only have 23 cycles. Is this normal, I feel like the battery barely have used.

I have optimized charging turned on.

Mine is the same age and shows about 97% with 30 cycles. It’s normal. The batteries are rated for 1000 cycles to about 80% capacity. If it doesn’t last that long I’m pretty sure that Apple will replace it as defective.

I’m also using my MBA docked most of the time and relying on Apple’s new Optimized battery charging to keep the battery healthy. It’s working great holding at around 80% most of the time.

 

[Toutou]

PLEASE, EVERYONE do NOT stress over single digit changes of that value, it's imprecise. Sometimes it even goes up, or drops a few percent at once. Battery chemistry is complicated.

 

[Mike Boreham]

PLEASE, EVERYONE do NOT stress over single digit changes of that value, it's imprecise. Sometimes it even goes up, or drops a few percent at once. Battery chemistry is complicated.

I'm sure this is good advice and why Apple gives my M1 MBA 100% health in the Battery Pref Pane > Battery Health and in SI > Power, when ioreg -w 0 -f -r -c AppleSmartBattery (also used by Better Battery 2 and Coconut) gives 95% after five months and 24 cycles.

My capacity history supports what you say about daily fluctuations but I seem to have lost over 3% on one day between March 7th and March 8th. This looks like a clear change outside the daily fluctuations. Any thoughts?

 

[MBAir2010]

my battery life is INCREADIBLE!

 

[Mike Boreham]

I just noticed my battery health is 98% after almost five months.

Mine is the same age and shows about 97% with 30 cycles.

Curious that System Information is giving you 98% and 97%, when my M1 MBA which gives only 95% from the system's ioreg data, gives me 100% in the Battery Pref Pane and in System Information.

I believe (consistent with TouTou's point) that Apple doesn't want users to see and react to fluctuating data so presents a heavily averaged number. I expect my Apple number to come down relatively sharply at some point when that step change in my max capacity works through the averaging.

 

[jdb8167]

Curious that System Information is giving you 98% and 97%, when my M1 MBA which gives only 95% from the system's ioreg data, gives 100% in the Battery Pref Pane and in System Information.

I believe (consistent with TouTou's point) that Apple doesn't want users to be see and react to fluctuating data so presents a heavily averaged number.

I wrote some shell scripts that get the data from the ioreg command line tool.

 

[Mike Boreham]

I wrote some shell scripts that get the data from the ioreg command line tool.

Yes thanks I remember the thread...I think it was a bit beyond my skill set to use them, but I can manage to extract the "AppleRawMaxCapacity" number after putting ioreg -w 0 -f -r -c AppleSmartBattery in Terminal.

 

[jdb8167]

Yes thanks I remember the thread...I think it was a bit beyond my skill set to use them, but I can manage to extract the "AppleRawMaxCapacity" number after putting ioreg -w 0 -f -r -c AppleSmartBattery in Terminal.

I should update my scripts to look for the bitwise command line tool and skip the power calculation if it isn’t found. Then the scripts just use command line tools that are already installed.

 

[Leon1das]

100% here after 3 months with MBP M1.

Constantly plugged in when on BUT with AlDente installed to prevent overcharhing.

Settings in AlDente: 60%. When battery is charged to 60%, charger powers Mac directly and skips the battery...

 

[Jackorias]

Had my M1 MBP since release. I'm using optimised charging but it does come on and off the charger fairly often. Battery life is so, so good.

 

[spiderman0616]

I mostly ONLY use my MBA M1 for personal use. I have another MacBook I use for work, so it's usually work MacBook during the day and personal MacBook at night and on weekends when I need a big screen to do things. That being said, I charge my M1 model only about once or twice a week since getting it. Just checked the battery health, and it's still at 100%. I've had this thing since shortly after they launched, so I figure it's been long enough to get good data.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I have had my M1 MBA 142 days and my battery health (with 21 cycles) is 100%. I have been using AlDente.

 

[Mike Boreham]

If quoting percentage battery health we need to state if it is the Apple number in the Battery pref pane (and System Info) or the number from the third party utilities which is based on the true current max charge level from ioreg.
Since I got mine in November my Apple number has been 100% the whole time, but the ioreg number has been down to 94%, but currently back up to 96% after 31 cycles.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I have had my M1 MBA 142 days and my battery health (with 21 cycles) is 100%. I have been using AlDente.

Yep, pretty happy with my M1 and AlDente. Compared to my 2017 MBP which dropped fairly quickly out of the gate - but was still 94%? After 29 months - yeah, it definitely seems that keeping the battery at 70-80% has a pretty noticeable affect on maintaining capacity.

I always had read that 40-80% was optimal but I didn’t think it would have that big of an effect. Now, I try to keep all my devices between that range. I used to be be of those who left their devices plugged in all the time. (Even doing this, after 2 years, my devices were rarely under 92% capacity).

 

[usagora]

PLEASE, EVERYONE do NOT stress over single digit changes of that value, it's imprecise. Sometimes it even goes up, or drops a few percent at once. Battery chemistry is complicated.

For real! I've never understood the obsession about battery health, whether Mac or iPhone. Just use your device, don't plug it into an unapproved charger, don't leave the phone or computer in extreme temperatures, and charge as needed. I'm pretty sure Apple has the iPhone and Mac designed to optimize battery life without us having to obsess about it.

 

[BigMcGuire]

For real! I've never understood the obsession about battery health, whether Mac or iPhone. Just use your device, don't plug it into an unapproved charger, don't leave the computer in extreme temperatures, and charge as needed. I'm pretty sure Apple has the iPhone and Mac designed to optimize battery life without us having to obsess about it.

I do think that it was a mistake for Apple to put battery health on its devices. I really do. That said, batteries are a huge hobby of mine - I love looking at them - and I don’t stress out about them but I love talking about them all day . But yeah, I think a lot of people (here on Macrumors) freak out about a few % points when in reality, even I probably couldn’t tell the difference if I tried (in a blindfold test).

 

[BigMcGuire]

I can’t speak for anyone else but optimized battery charging works great for me. I keep my M1 MacBook Air in clamshell on a charger most of the time. For the last several versions of Big Sur I get charging held at about 80% very consistently. I’m in no way saying your solution isn’t optimal but I don’t need anything besides what Apple provides with Big Sur.

My current battery status:

View attachment 1775109 View attachment 1775110

This is surprising to me. I can only conclude that Optimized Charging works as it should on M1 Macs - I've seen several other members post the same thing as you. I could never get it to work on my Intel MBP despite it being plugged in 100% of the time. I use AlDente now so <shrug> I haven't tested it on my M1 MBP but maybe the latest few versions of Big Sur actually work.

Really cool to see. I'm not usually a fan of 3rd party programs, especially 3rd party programs I have to pay a subscription for (if I don't have to).

Thanks for the info!

 

[Mike Boreham]

This is surprising to me. I can only conclude that Optimized Charging works as it should on M1 Macs

As we have discussed in other threads, Apple's Optimised Charging has not worked on my M1 MBA. I used it for some 12 weeks plugged in and only saw one brief dip to 80%. Its a mystery! Been using AlDente since Feb.

 

[BigMcGuire]

As we have discussed in other threads, Apple's Optimised Charging has not worked on my M1 MBA. I used it for some 12 weeks plugged in and only saw one brief dip to 80%. Its a mystery! Been using AlDente since Feb.

Yeah, I'll stick with AlDente for now. Compared to my last 2 MBPs, the battery capacity is holding better than ever. I love it.

I'm running my M1 MBP connected to a 4k monitor with 2 hard drives plugged in (via USB C dock) - running off of a 15,000 mAh RavPower battery (usb c) (and have for the last few hours). Battery is at 87%. I'm going nuts about how little power this system sips.

Love the control Al-Dente gives.

 

[Apple_Robert]

For those with an Intel Mac that AlDente Pro doesn't support ( like my 2017 MacBook), the app "Better Battery 2" also limits charging and tells you how long you need to keep the Mac on battery each day, to optimize battery life.

 

[leons]

For those with an Intel Mac that AlDente Pro doesn't support ( like my 2017 MacBook), the app "Better Battery 2" also limits charging and tells you how long you need to keep the Mac on battery each day, to optimize battery life.

Does it actually limit, or only warn you when to unplug?