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It's nothing you should be concerned about. You can't control the life of the battery, which is a consumable item. There is no precise measurement for battery health. It only matters for Apple's warranty, which states:
"Your battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 1000 complete charge cycles. The one-year warranty includes replacement coverage for a defective battery."
"Your battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 1000 complete charge cycles. The one-year warranty includes replacement coverage for a defective battery."
Batteries - Service and Recycling
Learn about battery service and recycling for Apple devices. All rechargeable batteries need to be serviced eventually.
www.apple.com
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That's something he certainly should be concerned about. How should you ever come close to 1000 charges when approaching 90% after just 50 cycles? That's an awful degeneration of health but unfortunately matches with several more complaints about poor battery quality in the recent MacBook. Search google and the other threads, one of them is here: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-the-mbp-16-battery-health-situation.2229122/
By comparison: My MBP 2015 with a 2019 battery still has 97% (~8500mAh) after 84 cycles. My previous 2013 Air and 2010 MBP had similar longevity.
Yes, he can't do much on his own. But it's definitely not good.
By comparison: My MBP 2015 with a 2019 battery still has 97% (~8500mAh) after 84 cycles. My previous 2013 Air and 2010 MBP had similar longevity.
Yes, he can't do much on his own. But it's definitely not good.
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DJ Rob
macrumors member
Do you have "Battery Health Monitoring" turned on?
With BHM turned on, I find my 2020 Intel MBP 13" begins to increase cycle counts and battery life percentage starts to drop (it went from 100% to 93% in a matter of days). Turing BHM off, after a few days, my health percent goes back to 100%. I think the battery life percent impact is an artifact of how the BHM works and not necessarily a true indicator of the remaining service life of the battery. Curious if others have come to the same conclusion.
I use my MBP in clamshell mode nearly 100% of the time- especially now with WFH and am conflicted on using BHM. The psychological hit of seeing the cycle counts climb and life percent decrease is disturbing, but if it really does result in extending the useful life of the battery, then it should just be ignored(?). My last computer was a Late 2013 MBP 13" and it also was clamshelled most of the time. After 7 years of duty, it had 25 cycles and 97% battery life as reported by iStat Menus. That might be satisfying to see, but the battery was probably trashed... It would be nice if Apple could build in a way to bypass the battery on demand for clamshell users.
With BHM turned on, I find my 2020 Intel MBP 13" begins to increase cycle counts and battery life percentage starts to drop (it went from 100% to 93% in a matter of days). Turing BHM off, after a few days, my health percent goes back to 100%. I think the battery life percent impact is an artifact of how the BHM works and not necessarily a true indicator of the remaining service life of the battery. Curious if others have come to the same conclusion.
I use my MBP in clamshell mode nearly 100% of the time- especially now with WFH and am conflicted on using BHM. The psychological hit of seeing the cycle counts climb and life percent decrease is disturbing, but if it really does result in extending the useful life of the battery, then it should just be ignored(?). My last computer was a Late 2013 MBP 13" and it also was clamshelled most of the time. After 7 years of duty, it had 25 cycles and 97% battery life as reported by iStat Menus. That might be satisfying to see, but the battery was probably trashed... It would be nice if Apple could build in a way to bypass the battery on demand for clamshell users.
agraden
macrumors newbie
I'm at 83% after 78 cycles with not a lot of use. Should I be concerned?It's nothing you should be concerned about. You can't control the life of the battery, which is a consumable item. There is no precise measurement for battery health. It only matters for Apple's warranty.
"Your battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 1000 complete charge cycles. The one-year warranty includes replacement coverage for a defective battery."
Batteries - Service and Recycling
Learn about battery service and recycling for Apple devices. All rechargeable batteries need to be serviced eventually.www.apple.com
When I got my MacBook pro m1 it was 100% from day one, when I go tmy MacBook Air M1 a few weeks later that started with 98 with one cycle within a few days that went to 100% so I dont think the app is very accurate!
If it drops below 80% in under a thousand cycles, take it to Apple for a free battery replacement under warranty.
It's not linear, so you can't extrapolate into the future. It might stay at 90% for the next 700 cycles. Nobody knows.
Mike Slayer
macrumors member
I have a 2020 13" MBP four port model I bought in I think May or June of last year or. It has 216 cycles and is at 91% which is has been at since last summer after 50-100 cycles. I wouldn't worry about it until you really start to notice the battery charge not giving you the uptime you had before or need. The rate my battery cycles are building I might be approaching 1000 cycles in 3-5 year's total. It just depends on how the total capacity holds up over time. It doesn't bother me since my upgrade cycle I planned on is 3-5 year's. I don't plan to trade in my old MBP just keep it around and repair if needed. I am excited to see a what Apple silicon has in store for us after the complete transition. I prefer smaller laptop's so what ever replaces the 13" MBP is what I will get in the 3-5 year window. Don't worry just use and enjoy your MBP.
throAU
macrumors G4
I've done an experiment and I am convinced that the battery health reading is getting messed with by smart charging, as a way for apple to limit the charging system to a specific figure.
My 2020 MBA battery health had dropped to 82% after 89 cycles in the past year; it spends most of its time on AC.
I've started using it on battery every day and the health has bumped back up to 85% in 2-3 days. It did take a week of using on battery regularly for it to start to shift though, but now it is shifting at that speed. I'll report back further progress.
The short version:
My 2020 MBA battery health had dropped to 82% after 89 cycles in the past year; it spends most of its time on AC.
I've started using it on battery every day and the health has bumped back up to 85% in 2-3 days. It did take a week of using on battery regularly for it to start to shift though, but now it is shifting at that speed. I'll report back further progress.
The short version:
- If you run on AC macOS will gradually shift your "battery health" (aka max charge) down toward 80% to conserve battery longevity. this doesn't mean your battery is dying, its just a mechanism that Apple is using within macOS to stop the OS charging it as much - rather than re-writing a heap of code, they're just tweaking existing behaviour my messing with the reported battery health figure (which is used as a baseline to calculate max charge) to get the same net result - as far as apple is concerned end users shouldn't be looking at the exact percentages anyway. on that point we can agree to disagree, but it looks like what they're doing.
- If you start running on battery again, macOS smart charging will start giving you back more max charge via increasing the "battery health" reported to the OS.
- trying to artificially limit max charge to 80% with third party apps is likely a waste of time - macOS is now already doing it, as/when required based on your usage pattern
- stop worrying so much about the battery health figure dropping alarmingly.
- use the battery if you need it, don't worry too much about running on AC all the time either - the battery charge level will be adjusted up/down by macOS depending on your usage patterns
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throAU
macrumors G4
No, as per my above post. that's about what I was at. Use the thing on battery and it will recover. As above, macOS is limiting charge similar to al-dente by just messing with the reported battery health to limit the charging.
cyber_chase
macrumors newbie
Hey it looks like we are in the similair situation. My MBP 2019 is on 83% health after only 85 cycles. Did you confirm your theory? I noticed that my battery drains fast when not charging and I'm wondering if thats because they reduced my max capacity.
throAU
macrumors G4
I'm pretty convinced. I've handed the 2020 intel Air off to the GF, will check it a bit later. Her usage pattern is entirely different to mine, and its probably done as many cycles again in the past few months with her.
throAU
macrumors G4
You say that, but the battery life I've seen between two Macs I had plugged in for 99% of their life has been different:
2011 15" machine still had > 90 percent battery after 4 years and ~300 cycles
2020 intel air had 82 percent after 12 MONTHS and <100 cycles
Apple is either shipping way crappier batteries, or on the later intel machines with "optimised charging" it is limiting the charge by messing with the battery health reading which is perhaps used by the charging software on intel Macs to regulate when it stops charging the battery.
My bet is on the second one... because battery tech hasn't gone backwards to be degree that my two machines above would indicate (which, if anything had the 2020 air used on battery a little more frequently than the 2011 15").
Plus... the later model machines have improved battery management that the 2011 machine was not touted as having.
So again, my bet is that on the 2020 intel machines, apple is using the battery health reading to indirectly lie to the macOS charging software on those machines to get them to charge less when infrequently discharged, like al-dente, etc. do.
On the newer M1 based machines they perhaps have a different way or different hardware in the machine to regulate charge without needing to lie to macOS' charging driver via messing with the battery health reading.
Furthermore, on my M1-Pro, which I've had for around 6 months now, the battery health is 100%. It's used the same way I used the 2020 Air which was 82 percent after under 100 cycles in 12 months (M1-Pro has 30 cycles - 2/3 the discharge cycles over 1/2 the time - but that's because the battery life is so damn good).
edit:
how could I forget. I also have a 13" Pro 2015 machine with battery life just under 90 percent that has been used plugged in most of its life as per the 2011 and 2020 machines above.
Additionally - recently apple specifically mention on their site that battery management may show lower battery life than expected and that under 80% with the feature turned on is not necessarily a dead battery
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FreakinEurekan
macrumors G3
*Within the warranty period or AppleCare+ coverage period, don’t forget that detail!
TinyMito
macrumors 6502a
Most likely to do with temperature, Intel Macbook Pro is hot or warm as always. I have both MacBook Pro 2020 Intel and 2021 M1 Pro here. Intel is just... hot mess to run.
throAU
macrumors G4
Thing is, temperature kills batteries.
The hottest machine I have ever had, the 2011 15" machine had battery health way better than my 2020 MacBook Air.
If any machine should have had the battery health killed by heat, it would be the 15"
Apple even mention that the optimised battery charging will result in maybe lower than expected battery health readings on their website.
About battery health management in Mac laptops – Apple Support (AU)
Mac laptop computers with an Intel processor use battery health management, a feature designed to improve the lifespan of your computer's battery.
Yah, there are a lot of anecdotes on these forums that pre-2016, the Mac batteries were hardier in this regard that there was no issue having them plugged in 24/7. Typical correlation between cycles and battery health.
With the late-2016 MBP refresh (touchbar, butterfly keyboard), they seemed to have switched battery mfgs/types, that degraded much worse when plugged in consistently. You saw tons of stories like this where laptops plugged in most of the time would have low cycle counts but much lower battery health. These issues are what got Apple to put in the "battery health management" feature in macOS that would try to keep charge levels ~80% until you needed it...
throAU
macrumors G4
Yeah, and this is why I believe that the 2016-2020 intel machines actually deliberately reduce the "battery health" READING via software in order to prevent the Mac from over-charging the battery as they lack hardware in the M1 onward based machines that does the same thing without messing with the battery health reading in the OS.
i.e., as an example my 2020 machine's battery is probably in reality above 95%, but macOS has observed that it is regularly on AC and thus trended down the health reading in order to prevent the OS from charging it further than required in order to make it last longer than if it was constantly charged above 80%.
The fact that apple state that the battery health reading may show lower if management is enabled tends to indicate something like this is going on with the 2016+ intel machines as well.
i.e., on these machines, if battery health is enabled the reading is no longer accurate.
throAU
macrumors G4
I'll try to get back onto my old 2020 air (the gf has it) - it doesn't have any battery management software installed on it so i'll need to manually calculate the battery capacity on it vs. what it was originally.
cyber_chase
macrumors newbie
Slightly off topic, but I went from the 2020 i5 Air to a 2021 M1 Air. The battery life is easily double, but a side benefit is that I haven't put very many battery cycles on it because I just don't have to charge it very often. So, I expect it to last quite a bit longer than the Intel Air's battery, which was racking up cycles like crazy over the year or so I had it.