MacBook Pro "13, 2020, full battery capacity issues?

[randyleytan]

Alright, I know what you're going to say: "Another post about battery issues". Yes.

So I got my MacBook Pro around 3 weeks ago almost. Since then, I have varied when it comes to its use especially plugged in or not. At first, I charged it to 100% and unplugged it but then began to just use it plugged in and disconnecting it whenever I needed to. The issue now is that it's full charge capacity has decreased a good amount in just 3 weeks. Now, I know I shouldn't be stressing about this and that it is OCD, but I can't just get a Mac whenever I want and want to take care of it (it's my first Mac too).

It currently has 96.8% of its original charge capacity (around 4939 out of 5103) but this varies, according to coconutbattery. It was at 97+ just a couple of days ago. I heard that this is common for batteries and that they will stabilize but I don't know. What I did notice is that de-activating the "Battery Health Management" thing allows it to reach around 99% of its capacity, but this only happened once. The "Full Charge Capacity" is different from the percentage shown on the menu bar as well (I don't know if that is normal).

I have also reset the SMC a couple of times but nothing. I have considered just using it till it is discharged and then fully charging it again and leave it plugged in for a while. I know you don't need to do this calibration anymore but for some people, it has been the answer.

I am attaching screenshots.

 

[iRun26.2]

On a different thread I’ve read that you should never discharge the battery to 0% as that will shorten the long term health of the battery.

 

[randyleytan]

On a different thread I’ve read that you should never discharge the battery to 0% as that will shorten the long term health of the battery.

Yeah, I've heard that too which is why I am hesitant. What I plan on doing right now is using it till it reaches around 85% or so, turn battery health management off, and see if that does anything.

 

[coffeeplease]

What I did notice is that de-activating the "Battery Health Management" thing allows it to reach around 99% of its capacity, but this only happened once.

You could test this by toggling it on/off and seeing if the full charge capacity in coconutBattery changes. I am doubting that Apple is purposely reporting a lower full charge capacity with the feature turned on in order to preserve battery health. Perhaps it's learning that the MBP always plugged in and avoids the real 100% battery charge while continuing to show 100% charged to the user, but this is far fetched.
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I've had my 13" MBP for roughly 15 days now. It shipped with 5138 mAh, peeked at 5176 mAh (3 days later), and has now been on a steady drop to 5093 mAh. Like you, I had it plugged in most of the time or unplugged at 90-100% battery. Just recently, I started using AlDente to limit the maximum charge while plugged in, going to see what happens after a few weeks.

 

[randyleytan]

You could test this by toggling it on/off and seeing if the full charge capacity in coconutBattery changes. I am doubting that Apple is purposely reporting a lower full charge capacity with the feature turned on in order to preserve battery health. Perhaps it's learning that the MBP always plugged in and avoids the real 100% battery charge while continuing to show 100% charged to the user, but this is far fetched.
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I've had my 13" MBP for roughly 15 days now. It shipped with 5138 mAh, peeked at 5176 mAh (3 days later), and has now been on a steady drop to 5093 mAh. Like you, I had it plugged in most of the time or unplugged at 90-100% battery. Just recently, I started using AlDente to limit the maximum charge while plugged in, going to see what happens after a few weeks.

Do let me know how that goes!

 

[coffeeplease]

You could test this by toggling it on/off and seeing if the full charge capacity in coconutBattery changes. I am doubting that Apple is purposely reporting a lower full charge capacity with the feature turned on in order to preserve battery health. Perhaps it's learning that the MBP always plugged in and avoids the real 100% battery charge while continuing to show 100% charged to the user, but this is far fetched.

Kind of a tangent, but I've looked into this more and landed on Apple's support page about the battery health management feature. There's a small note:

When battery health management is turned on, your battery's maximum charging capacity might be limited. Although the feature is designed to improve your battery's lifespan, the limited maximum capacity might update your battery status menu to indicate a need for service.

The part about the battery status menu indicating a need for service suggests to me that Apple is limiting the maximum charge to some value under the real maximum charge. The need for service usually happens once the capacity drops to 80% as far as I know. The way it's worded sounds like it doesn't actually need to be serviced if it's being caused by this feature. Gah, I wish Apple was clearer on what this feature does in the first place.

 

[randyleytan]

Kind of a tangent, but I've looked into this more and landed on Apple's support page about the battery health management feature. There's a small note:

The part about the battery status menu indicating a need for service suggests to me that Apple is limiting the maximum charge to some value under the real maximum charge. The need for service usually happens once the capacity drops to 80% as far as I know. The way it's worded sounds like it doesn't actually need to be serviced if it's being caused by this feature. Gah, I wish Apple was clearer on what this feature does in the first place.

Yeah I saw that link actually. Well, guess what. Last night (here) I did what I mentioned, let it discharge to around 84-85, and then plug it in without the health management thing and now it is at 99.1. It's so unclear from Apple's side.

 

[coffeeplease]

Yeah I saw that link actually. Well, guess what. Last night (here) I did what I mentioned, let it discharge to around 84-85, and then plug it in without the health management thing and now it is at 99.1. It's so unclear from Apple's side.

I suggest continue using it but occasionally off of charger with the battery management turned off to see if it stays at 99+ capacity. I wonder if other users with the feature turned on has any data to provide.

 

[someoneoutthere]

Over the years, I have seen the max. design capacity fluctuate especially on a hot day, continuous heavy usage, and when the device is running warmer than the usual. While I cannot speak for how the battery and all sorts of sensors in our devices talk to each other, I strongly believe that you should not be worrying about small fluctuations. There may be certain thermal limitations to safely charging your battery under certain circumstances. I have used iStat Menus back in the day doing crazier things - also give that a shot if you want - but I no longer find it necessary to install it on my current one.
I suggest that you continue using your device the way that you normally do - at the end of the day, you cannot control the value that shows up there (there may be so many circumstances and variables that kick into play calculating those numbers) and there is no need to obsess over those small fluctuations.
Cheers!

 

[UBS28]

Mine is now at 95%. WTF. Yet my iPhone 11 Pro Max is still at 100%.

 

[randyleytan]

Mine is now at 95%. WTF. Yet my iPhone 11 Pro Max is still at 100%.

Same, but mine is now at 99.2 since I turned Health Management off.

 

[coffeeplease]

Mine is now at 95%. WTF. Yet my iPhone 11 Pro Max is still at 100%.

How do use your MBP? Mostly on charger?

 

[khalitzy]

Got my 16” last december, it was never 100% capacity out of the box.. more like 99.7%. It sat there for a couple of days then the plummeting started. 98 to 97 and so on. It was 95% a couple of weeks later and stayed there for a month or two. I had started countless threads about it here and on reddit, but it really never made me feel better about this whole situation as no one really convinced me of anything. Today it was 93% after it had been 95% for a couple of months as I said, so I thought why not calibrate the battery and reset the SMC for the idk how many times, right? After doing so, the health is now 91%. Lowest it’s been :/. I have no idea how under 71 cycles the battery seemingly degraded 9 whole percents. It makes no sense. On older 15”, around 300 cycles the battery still held 95% of its design capacity... this makes the 91% of the 16” with 71 cycles look laughable at best. But oh well. Just ranting.


Oh and I to the AASP last february and they just brushed it off after running some diagnostics on it, and told me it was normal. Oh well. So all in all, I have yet to know why this is happening and if it’s normal or not.. I’ve seen other 16” go as low as 82% with similar cycle count so it’s worrying tbh.

 

[randyleytan]

Got my 16” last december, it was never 100% capacity out of the box.. more like 99.7%. It sat there for a couple of days then the plummeting started. 98 to 97 and so on. It was 95% a couple of weeks later and stayed there for a month or two. I had started countless threads about it here and on reddit, but it really never made me feel better about this whole situation as no one really convinced me of anything. Today it was 93% after it had been 95% for a couple of months as I said, so I thought why not calibrate the battery and reset the SMC for the idk how many times, right? After doing so, the health is now 91%. Lowest it’s been :/. I have no idea how under 71 cycles the battery seemingly degraded 9 whole percents. It makes no sense. On older 15”, around 300 cycles the battery still held 95% of its design capacity... this makes the 91% of the 16” with 71 cycles look laughable at best. But oh well. Just ranting.


Oh and I to the AASP last february and they just brushed it off after running some diagnostics on it, and told me it was normal. Oh well. So all in all, I have yet to know why this is happening and if it’s normal or not.. I’ve seen other 16” go as low as 82% with similar cycle count so it’s worrying tbh.

Do you have the Battery Health Management on? If so, have you tried turning that off and using it like that instead?

 

[BigMcGuire]

Don’t worry about the design capacity fluctuating. My wife’s 2017 MBP and my 2017 MBP is doing the same thing. Between 90% and 96% depending on percentage charged.

I’m a huge battery hobbyist and I’ve spent a long time watching my batteries thanks to coconutBattery - I have excel spreadsheets of data that goes back years.

My iOS devices usually stay pretty consistent but my 2017 MBP went from 100% to 96% capacity within a handful of months of ownership. It hit 93% after a year. However, with this battery health management feature, it’s gone back up to 96% but I noticed that if I limit my charging to 55% then the capacity can fluctuate between 90%-93%-96%.

I started noticing capacity significantly fluctuating with the latest Mac OS update and the “Battery Health Management” feature.

I wouldn’t worry about it. My wife’s MBP is far more used than mine and hers now fluctuates from 87%-92%. Too bad we didn’t get the battery health management feature sooner.

 

[Jassbag]

Yeah I saw that link actually. Well, guess what. Last night (here) I did what I mentioned, let it discharge to around 84-85, and then plug it in without the health management thing and now it is at 99.1. It's so unclear from Apple's side.

This is definitely the Battery health management feature kicking in. I've been shocked seeing the battery health of my MBP 2020 falling 2% everyday. The reason is Battery health management is noticing that my usage pattern is mostly plugged-in to charger with an external monitor on, causing a quite high temperature raise. What the feature essentially does is limiting the amount of maximum charge (in software) in order to prevent deterioration from continued exposure to high temperatures while fully charged. Pretty smart.

What's weird, is that they haven't updated the battery status software of macOS to be aware of that feature and let the user know that it's active or at least, do not display any "Battery may need service" message.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Yeah my wife is seeing the same thing on her 2017 MBP --- capacity dropping. She doesn't use any charge limiting software like I do, so while I keep my charge at 55-85%, my capacity is staying more consistent - but her capacity is wildly changing from 70-90%. First time I've seen this.

 

[Kraizelburg]

Hi all, from my experience battery capacity readings are just not accurate nor very reliable, mine fluctuate as well a lot depending on the day and usage.

Has anyone seen big battery drain while on sleep mode? Last night mine went from 94% to 71% in just one night with no power nap, no notifications and find my Mac off.

 

[Jassbag]

To anyone tested disabling the Battery health management feature and then re-enabling it: How much time did it take to re-learn the charging/usage patterns and start limiting full charge capacity again?

 

[Joseph093]

Hey I have a question.

How did u display this screen? I know I can see it from System Information but I want the same screen as you please can u help?

 

[theSeb]

It’s an app called coconutBattery. Be careful though. Worrying about battery health will quickly become an obsession

 

[oklhost]

Same here with MBP 13" M1. As theSeb said, it can quickly become an obsession, thats pretty true. But meanwhile, when you try to sell your Mac, people will often ask about that numbers and drop the resell price. When I look at coconut, I'm really wondering why my iOS devices look much better. I really hate those MacBook batteries. I deal with this issues since 2009, makes no difference how I use the MacBook. This one I use more on battery, my previous 2017 MBP got a battery replacement after 1,5 years, another 1,5 years later the replacement battery was also down between 85-90%. That machine was heavily used on wall plug. For me, it seems there isn't really a difference if you use it on battery or with wall plug, the MacBook batteries seem somehow ******. I really love my Macs, but the batteries... hm..