2020 MBP 13" Battery Health Down 7% in two months

[donleon]

I'm alarmed at my battery health stat and charge capacity. I keep this sucker plugged in almost all the time and yet I'm going down a % every ~2 weeks? Is this a joke? AND these batteries aren't replaceable?

Is this normal behavior? Have you noticed this too? Thanks.

Been using the laptop since mid-June.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Down 7% is very unusual especially for a very new laptop. Apple guarantees that these laptops will maintain 80%+ of their design capacity after 2? years I believe.

Do realize that these apps that you use to monitor battery capacity are not going to be viewed as official by Apple. coconutBattery is probably the most accurate I've used on my 2017 MBP.

The latest Mac OS will reduce capacity especially if you leave your laptop in all the time - I've seen this with my 2017 MBP (and my wife's 2017 MBP).

Do note that leaving your laptop plugged in all the time is actually bad for it. Exercising the cells is a good thing - which is what Apple's latest battery management feature does - will cycle your battery up and down a bit while its plugged in. If you have this option off, turn it on, especially if you're plugged in all the time.

Also note, battery wear is not linear. You can drop a lot in a few months, then hold steady for 5 months, etc.

https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries - Highly recommend reading this when you have time.


From coconutBattery: --- Note the capacity actually growing as I've started using Charge Limiter recently.

 

[donleon]

Thank you @BigMcGuire. Not sure if it's 1 or 2 years for a warranty claim on battery, but if it continues to deteriorate I will bring it in. Charge capacity is the same in System Information > Power, which Apple would look to. I do believe I have charger limiter on as I've seen it drop in charge while on battery. I also don't leave it plugged in at night. We'll see.

 

[BigMcGuire]

The posts about the MBP 16 battery degradation have me concerned. I can't believe how some of these new laptop batteries are falling... My 2015 MBA held its capacity for 4 years and I had it plugged in most of its life.

One would hope battery technology would get better, not worse.

 

[Yuhan Sun]

My MBP 16 has 88% capacity after 90 cycles. When I bring it to apple authorized manufacture store, they said the battery cannot be replaced.

 

[MrSpock75]

I have checked today the battery health of my less than 3 months old 2020 MacBook Pro 13" and capacity is down to

93% after just 26 cycles- that is insane !!!

This cannot be normal, or ???
Compared to my 2018 iPad 13" which is now nearly 600 days old, has just 97 cycles and battery is 101% based on coconutBattery.

How are your stats on 2020 MacBook Pros?
Is your battery going to die as fast as well?

 

[chabig]

I weigh 180 pounds and lost two pounds this week. At that rate I should weigh 76 pounds by this time next year!

Battery health is like that. It isn’t something you should watch or worry about. It’s not precise and it’s not linear.

 

[BigMcGuire]

My MBP 16 has 88% capacity after 90 cycles. When I bring it to apple authorized manufacture store, they said the battery cannot be replaced.

Battery can be replaced but it's super expensive and difficult. I think on the later models it requires a whole top end replacement. Outside of Apple, I don't think anyone else can do it easily.

I have checked today the battery health of my less than 3 months old 2020 MacBook Pro 13" and capacity is down to

93% after just 26 cycles- that is insane !!!

This cannot be normal, or ???
Compared to my 2018 iPad 13" which is now nearly 600 days old, has just 97 cycles and battery is 101% based on coconutBattery.

How are your stats on 2020 MacBook Pros?
Is your battery going to die as fast as well?

My wife's 2017 MBP has been going nuts on the capacity with coconutBattery. She has the same laptop that I do. And while my capacity has gone from 90-96%, I watched hers go from 70% back up to 86%. I don't know what's going on but this latest Mac OS version has the capacity varying wildly.

When you mentioned your 2018 iPad 13' --- I assume you mean MBP?

Some batteries come way above design capacity. I've had some at 108%. I've had some come from the factory at 96% and stay that way for years. <shrug>.

Like @chabig said - wear isn't like water coming out of a glass. It can drop a lot some months, stay solid for half a year, etc.

Something is definitely up with the latest Mac OS tho.

 

[Broko Fankone]

Try doing a couple of complete (or almost) cycles, like down to 1-2% battery and then back up to 100%. For me, capacity was hovering a lot around 3-4% loss after 20-something cycles, but then after 3 complete cycles it is showing 100% almost all the time for a week now. I'm not sure how accurate it is, but if you hover your capacity over the same percentages or keep it plugged at 100% most of the time, calibration will start going off and statistic will be far less accurate. I try to do one full cycle weekly now, just to keep the chemistry flowing every now and then. But if the information is correct, there has been no real capacity loss at all after 2-3 months of usage. I should say most of my usage has been with a charge limiter set around 50-60%, connected to a power source almost all of the time. I think if I had stayed at 100% during this time there would have been actual capacity loss.

The coconut (or other app) statistics are not very reliable though. I am also feeling weirdness with them and notice a difference of current charge % between what macOS and coconut is showing almost always. It seems to level out when the battery starts draining. Sometimes i've charged the mac to seemingly 100% and coconut says it's 95 or 96%. This is without battery health, so it seemed weird. Now I'm using both battery health and the charge limiter (AlDente) at the same time.

 

[MrSpock75]

I normally tend to use my battery pretty heavy by draining it down to 10% or even less, but for good reason if I want no power cord or simply have no power near by

Besides the loss of 7%, I am already wondering about the 26 cycles - this also seams like a lot to me in that short time compared to my other devices which I use in the same way.

But let's see what Big Sur will do here for me - I have installed the public beta last week, so maybe with the new battery management it will get better by time.

In case it continue loosing capacity over the next few months, it should be no problem as well.
As far as I know and read, Apple will still replace the battery for free in case more than 20% capacity loss within the first year - Battery warranty information: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204054

 

[robvas]

It’s bad for the battery to run lower than 10%

 

[Codeline]

Mine is lower too

 

[popjunkie]

Mine's at 93.9% after 2 months with 32 cycles. Coconut Battery and iStat Menus read the same result.

That seems very low for a 2 month old laptop.

 

[MrSpock75]

Mine's at 93.9% after 2 months with 32 cycles. Coconut Battery and iStat Menus read the same result.

That seems very low for a 2 month old laptop.

Exactly my point and feeling as well ...

 

[BigMcGuire]

This is astounding. I'm curious whether the degradation will continue. With the latest Mac OS my wife's 2017 MBP capacity went from 92% to 70% and back up to 80%. I don't know if it has anything to do with the battery health features or not... my MBP - I use charge limiter - and my capacity is pretty solid at 96% and has been for the last year. Initially it dropped to 90% and back to 95% (now 96%).

If I had a 2020 MBP and saw this capacity loss it would be discouraging. That said, I would be watching it closely because Apple says they'll replace it at 80% if under 2 years I think.

 

[ascender]

Is this having a noticeable negative impact on actual battery life?

 

[BigMcGuire]

Is this having a noticeable negative impact on actual battery life?

That's what I asked my wife when coconutBattery reported her capacity at 70% -- she said no.

That was a big "hmmm" moment for me. I wonder if this is not the battery health feature reducing capacity significantly for health? <Shrug>.

Great question for the 2020'ers.

 

[ascender]

I guess the reason I asked is that I've seen people obsess over battery health, cycles, percentages etc but when it comes down to actual real life usage, there might not be any impact. So I'm not sure if its an actual problem?

I was also wondering about the battery health feature and if this is just a symptom of that - the timing could suggest it is?

 

[ignatius345]

I've seen a pretty serious decline too, on a 2020 MacBook Air. By comparison my old 11" MacBook Air still shows a slower, steadier decrease in capacity, even on a much older battery.

I can't say for certain how many hours exactly I get off a charge, because I'm usually always at home these days and never far from AC power. I don't leave it charging all the time, and I don't let it drop way down to 10% or anything either. I'd guess most of the time it's sitting between 30% and 100%.

I get that it doesn't make sense to obsess over this, but on the other hand this seems pretty over the top. If CoconutBattery is to be believed, my battery is wearing out much faster than other batteries in the same kind of machine.

 

[antipodean]

I uninstalled coconut battery just to stop myself obsessing over this. (Nothing against the app, which is great at what it does.)

My take on this is that the battery management changes made to Catalina have rendered the battery capacity reading at best variable and at worst downright misleading. The experience I have had with a 3-month old 2020 13" MBP normally left plugged in, is that battery capacity readings dropped much more sharply than I expected. Down to 94% with only 10 cycles. However, a weekend away from home where I ran off battery more (still no lower than about 50%), and the reported battery capacity went back up to around 100% of the design capacity.

The Apple write-up on the battery management feature is somewhat vague about what is really going on. I suspect that the OS reduces reported battery capacity to prevent charging all the way to 100%. Meanwhile, the actual chemical battery capacity is where you would expect it to be in a nearly-new machine (around 100%). Short of Apple deciding to publish more details on this topic, I'm not sure that there is anything to be done.

 

[ignatius345]

Has anybody written to the Coconut Battery developer about this?

 

[StockDC2]

Lol people are only looking at battery count and not the age of the battery itself. If you have a 2016 MB with 10 cycles, yes, you're full charge capacity is going to be a lot less than a 2020 MB with 10 cycles.

 

[CalMin]

My advice to everyone is to stop obsessing over these stats. They aren't meaningful and don't translate to real-world experience of using your laptop for a bit then plugging it in, then using it some more, plugging it back in etc.

At some point in the life of the laptop, you will start to notice that your battery life sucks. Then you replace the battery and go back to using it. These monitoring apps cause unnecessary anxiety - I used to stress about it too, so I uninstalled it.

Since the laptop is new, if OP has experienced a noticeable drop in the amount of daily use that he/she can get from the battery, then he/she should just take it to an Apple store and tell them that and get it fixed.

 

[ignatius345]

Lol people are only looking at battery count and not the age of the battery itself. If you have a 2016 MB with 10 cycles, yes, you're full charge capacity is going to be a lot less than a 2020 MB with 10 cycles.

Notice the part where people are talking about 2020 model machines, as in the title of the thread?

 

[Fred Zed]

Battery care or lack of causes degradation. Charging to 100% and or letting it get below 40% and or keeping it on charger all the time all contribute to rapid battery wear.