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Other Battery health

T

tonybarnaby

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 3, 2017
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I checked my battery health for the first time in a few months today. It still says 100% on my December 2017 8+. Same thing for my wife’s launch x. I don’t see how this is possible. There are people down to 92-89% with the same phones. My wife especially uses her phone really heavily. It’s just not possible for a lithium ion battery to remain at 100% for 8+ months. Even just sitting on a shelf it would have lost some capacity.

I know batteries don’t come with exactly the specified mah, but this is kind of odd to me. I’m wondering if the battery health algorithm works in real time, or is it like the regular battery meter where you will stay at 100% for 30+ minutes of usage before it hits 99%.

I see a lot of people posting that their battery health is lower than they would like. I feel like mine is too high and there is no way the battery health info is worth much. My wife alone probably has 250-275 cycles and still shows 100%? Hard to believe, when Apple claims an iPhone is rated to maintain 80% after 500 cycles. I know it doesn’t fall in a linear fashion, but this is still not giving me much faith in the info it’s providing. If my wife’s phone was at 94% and mine was at 96%, I would believe that. Both at 100% is just impossible, yet here we are.
 
First thing you can do is plug your phone into a Mac with Coconut Battery installed. This will tell you the real-time health and cycle count of your device.

With that being said, if you take care of your battery, you can easily go hundreds of cycles without losing any health. My 8 Plus is now 4 months old (replacement) with 200 cycles and is still at 101% capacity. Its possible your battery came with more than a 100% capacity which is completely normal, thus you are still at 100% because whatever extra you had to begin with has now been consumed.

As to your 100% for 30+ minutes. Thats because the battery meter is not linear for the first 5%. The battery meter will not start moving until the phone's battery is actually at 95%. It works like this:

100% Reported = 95-100% actual.
50% Reported = 47.5% actual.
10% Reported = 9.5% actual.
1% Reported = 1% actual.

The reason it does this is because the phone stops charging once the battery itself hits 100% (not the meter). It will then discharge until it hits 97% (actual, not meter) and will then begin to recharge. By making the phone meter not move until it hits 95% actual, it prevents consumers from freaking out why their phone is discharging while its plugged in. Its just easier to use the above "formula".
 
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Yeah, my launch-day X shows 100%. Plugged it into Coconut Battery and it is 99.3% health over 147 charge cycles. Was very surprised with that as I was sure the iOS battery health was dead wrong.
 
My October 2017 8 Plus shows 100% within the Battery health beta option. But coconut battery shows 98.2% . That seems alright to me.

Screen Shot 2018-08-12 at 18.07.31.png
 
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My launch day 8 went to 97, 96, then 95 within 3ish months. It's still at 95 months later, so it shook out ok in the end.
 
Apple shows the following messages in Battery Health, depending on your iPhone's capability to handle apps at peak performance:

100%: Your battery is currently supporting normal peak performance.
95%: This iPhone has experienced an unexpected shutdown because the battery was unable to deliver the necessary peak power. Performance management has been applied to help prevent this from happening again. Disable…
79% or less: Your battery's health is significantly degraded. An Apple Authorized Service Provider can replace the battery to restore full performance and capacity. More about service options…
Unknown: This iPhone is unable to determine battery health. An Apple Authorized Service Provider can service the battery. More about service options…
 
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Mlrollin91 said:
First thing you can do is plug your phone into a Mac with Coconut Battery installed. This will tell you the real-time health and cycle count of your device.

With that being said, if you take care of your battery, you can easily go hundreds of cycles without losing any health. My 8 Plus is now 4 months old (replacement) with 200 cycles and is still at 101% capacity. Its possible your battery came with more than a 100% capacity which is completely normal, thus you are still at 100% because whatever extra you had to begin with has now been consumed.

As to your 100% for 30+ minutes. Thats because the battery meter is not linear for the first 5%. The battery meter will not start moving until the phone's battery is actually at 95%. It works like this:

100% Reported = 95-100% actual.
50% Reported = 47.5% actual.
10% Reported = 9.5% actual.
1% Reported = 1% actual.

The reason it does this is because the phone stops charging once the battery itself hits 100% (not the meter). It will then discharge until it hits 97% (actual, not meter) and will then begin to recharge. By making the phone meter not move until it hits 95% actual, it prevents consumers from freaking out why their phone is discharging while its plugged in. Its just easier to use the above "formula".
Click to expand...
Just beautiful. (Tears up). So beautiful. Great post!
 
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tonybarnaby said:
If it worked it would be great. I have some doubts on how accurate it is.
Click to expand...
Completely agree - thats why I still completely rely on Coconut battery. Even Coconut is more accurate than Apple's diagnostics for Mac. My MacBook was reporting 90% battery life, Coconut was reporting 90% battery life. Apple's diagnostic was reporting 95%. Even going into the Mac's system services showed that it was 90%. Their testing is deeply flawed.

I believe it stems from this. Apple has had a tendency to use two week averages to determine battery life. So, if the battery was just starting to decay, or fail, it would not be picked up by the diagnostic because it had not been in the "failing" zone for two weeks. I believe iOS now does the same thing. Its reporting a 2 week average of health, not real time.
 
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Mlrollin91 said:
Completely agree - thats why I still completely rely on Coconut battery. Even Coconut is more accurate than Apple's diagnostics for Mac. My MacBook was reporting 90% battery life, Coconut was reporting 90% battery life. Apple's diagnostic was reporting 95%. Even going into the Mac's system services showed that it was 90%. Their testing is deeply flawed.

I believe it stems from this. Apple has had a tendency to use two week averages to determine battery life. So, if the battery was just starting to decay, or fail, it would not be picked up by the diagnostic because it had not been in the "failing" zone for two weeks. I believe iOS now does the same thing. Its reporting a 2 week average of health, not real time.
Click to expand...
The real time battery meter is not accurate(as you have stated) and it appears the health tab is also flawed. What I don’t get is that I’ve seen people claim to have a well used 7+ at 100%, yet plenty of people have a launch x or 8 plus that are around 90%. Battery chemistry alone makes it nearly impossible any 7+ could be at 100%. A lithium ion battery will lose several percent in 6 months on a shelf, but my launch x and my 8 plus from December both show 100%. Makes me wonder if there’s some variance here. I’ve also seen people say their health % went UP after doing an update. Self-repairing batteries are here!
 
tonybarnaby said:
The real time battery meter is not accurate(as you have stated) and it appears the health tab is also flawed. What I don’t get is that I’ve seen people claim to have a well used 7+ at 100%, yet plenty of people have a launch x or 8 plus that are around 90%. Battery chemistry alone makes it nearly impossible any 7+ could be at 100%. A lithium ion battery will lose several percent in 6 months on a shelf, but my launch x and my 8 plus from December both show 100%. Makes me wonder if there’s some variance here. I’ve also seen people say their health % went UP after doing an update. Self-repairing batteries are here!
Click to expand...
Thats actually not true. A battery sitting on the shelf will not lose health if it stored using the proper procedure. I had a MacBook Pro that had 1000 cycles on it, the battery was nearly 5 years old and still retained 98% of the health. A well maintained battery can go years without losing health. Coconut battery is the only accurate way to read a battery because it is real-time.
 
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MacFather said:
Apple replaced my 6s battery three weeks ago and the battery health is already down at 96%. Any suggestions?

View attachment 798935
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Do not worry. Monitor it consistently for a few months. My 6s+ started out below design capacity at 96%. It stayed that way for almost 2 years and 230 cycles. Battery drain isn’t linear like a tank of gas. It can actually increase design capacity during the first 150 cycles. My 8+ has gone up 100mAh.
 
Based on my experiences, I don't think Battery health on ios is very accurate. For example, i purchase the iphone 8 Plus 1 month ago and the battery health level has already dropped to 98% however my 4 year old iphone 6 plus still shows 89%
 
akash.nu said:
My October 2017 8 Plus shows 100% within the Battery health beta option. But coconut battery shows 98.2% . That seems alright to me.

View attachment 775596
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Actually, you're reading that wrong and good news for you. 98.2% is the current charge level. If you look at the design capacity v. maximum capacity, you'll see that your battery came above capacity. The 100% seems to be accurate.
 
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stexie said:
Based on my experiences, I don't think Battery health on ios is very accurate. For example, i purchase the iphone 8 Plus 1 month ago and the battery health level has already dropped to 98% however my 4 year old iphone 6 plus still shows 89%
Click to expand...
Part of it is really that capacity readings are essentially estimates and the rate that a battery chemically ages and gets used up can also be different for different devices at different times.
 
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