Battery on TB 13

[Jker]

So I've had mine now for a few days, heard of the tales of poor battery. Today was the first day I had to seriously use it the whole day out, with no battery. Got just under 6 hours on it using only Chrome, Word and iTunes. Kinda sucks because on the non touchbar model, I was getting easily 8 hours + if not more.

I haven't tried the SMC reset because tbh I don't really know anything about it all. I also don't want to reinstall OSX as that would mean reinstalling everything.

Any other reasonable suggestions chaps?

 

[GBlansten]

So I've had mine now for a few days, heard of the tales of poor battery. Today was the first day I had to seriously use it the whole day out, with no battery. Got just under 6 hours on it using only Chrome, Word and iTunes. Kinda sucks because on the non touchbar model, I was getting easily 8 hours + if not more.

I haven't tried the SMC reset because tbh I don't really know anything about it all. I also don't want to reinstall OSX as that would mean reinstalling everything.

Any other reasonable suggestions chaps?

Don't use Chrome on the Mac.

 

[Mac128guy]

Don't use Chrome on the Mac.

No longer true with Chrome 53 which dramatically improved battery efficiency. I find the current Chrome and Safari to be about the same on battery life (although I still use Safari on my MacBook Pro more due to its cool touchbar features).

 

[thesaint024]

So I've had mine now for a few days, heard of the tales of poor battery. Today was the first day I had to seriously use it the whole day out, with no battery. Got just under 6 hours on it using only Chrome, Word and iTunes. Kinda sucks because on the non touchbar model, I was getting easily 8 hours + if not more.

I haven't tried the SMC reset because tbh I don't really know anything about it all. I also don't want to reinstall OSX as that would mean reinstalling everything.

Any other reasonable suggestions chaps?

Reinstall OS does not mean reinstalling everything. See "that other" battery thread.
[doublepost=1480221364][/doublepost]

No longer true with Chrome 53 which dramatically improved battery efficiency. I find the current Chrome and Safari to be about the same on battery life (although I still use Safari on my MacBook Pro more due to its cool touchbar features).

I didn't know that, but I've reported that Chrome is doing better on battery than Safari for me. I chalked it up to the different sites I have open for both browsers. I might have to go back to it full time. Before I do that, I wonder if anyone else could corroborate your bold statement.

 

[GBlansten]

No longer true with Chrome 53 which dramatically improved battery efficiency. I find the current Chrome and Safari to be about the same on battery life (although I still use Safari on my MacBook Pro more due to its cool touchbar features).

Thanks for the update. Previously it was atrocious. I'll check it out.

 

[Balaamsdonkey]

We seriously need a merged stickies thread for the battery conversations.

How does one "bat-signal" the mods for that?

 

[thesaint024]

We seriously need a merged stickies thread for the battery conversations.

How does one "bat-signal" the mods for that?

I was wishing that when I first joined. Then I saw that there was a sticky for Touchbar discussion and knew that the criteria was hopeless. Touchbar?

 

[garyleecn]

chrome is battery killer on Mac... just stay away from it and see if it improves.

I just unplugged my power source, you know what, it says exactly 9:59 left, and I'm using safari lol

 

[Balaamsdonkey]

I was wishing that when I first joined. Then I saw that there was a sticky for Touchbar discussion and knew that the criteria was hopeless. Touchbar?

I actually noticed that after I posted this.

 

[Mac128guy]

I might have to go back to it full time. Before I do that, I wonder if anyone else could corroborate your bold statement.

Not really my statement, it's Google's. They did a major overhaul on Chrome this year to improve battery life and performance and they say that the new Chrome 53 uses 33% less power on a Mac.

I'm finding that to be totally true with Chrome and Safari roughly the same on battery drain now. I run the Coconut Battery app so I'm able to monitor battery usage real time on my 13" Pro w/touchbar and both seem to draw similar watts in usage. A few have pointed out similar experiences on this thread but I'd definitely love to hear from others who have compared the two in real world usage.

https://9to5mac.com/2016/09/06/google-chrome-mac-battery-performance/

 

[cityboy-100]

I've had mine a few days, haven't given it a full run through a battery yet, but already it seems like the battery life is shorter than it should be. Shorter than 2013 13".

 

[thesaint024]

Not really my statement, it's Google's. They did a major overhaul on Chrome this year to improve battery life and performance and they say that the new Chrome 53 uses 33% less power on a Mac.

I'm finding that to be totally true with Chrome and Safari roughly the same on battery drain now. I run the Coconut Battery app so I'm able to monitor battery usage real time on my 13" Pro w/touchbar and both seem to draw similar watts in usage. A few have pointed out similar experiences on this thread but I'd definitely love to hear from others who have compared the two in real world usage.

https://9to5mac.com/2016/09/06/google-chrome-mac-battery-performance/

So I just ran Chrome again, only one MacRumors tab, and it was destroying battery life. I suddenly went up to 14 or so watts of usage. The only difference I can think of is that I use Ghostery on Safari and nothing (so far) on Chrome. Either I'm doing something wrong, or maybe Chrome is really susceptible to ads/tracking and needs comparable software to have decent power usage. Any thoughts? Any ad blockers you use for Chrome?

 

[aioriya]

I bought a maxed out 13' tb model and I've been using it for about a week. With light use, I've been consistently getting around 5-6.5 hours when mainly browsing. They claim 10 hours wireless web but my battery has never lasted this long. How has apple added a smaller battery on the touch bar model and managed to claim the same battery life?

 

[skids929]

So I've had mine now for a few days, heard of the tales of poor battery. Today was the first day I had to seriously use it the whole day out, with no battery. Got just under 6 hours on it using only Chrome, Word and iTunes. Kinda sucks because on the non touchbar model, I was getting easily 8 hours + if not more.

I haven't tried the SMC reset because tbh I don't really know anything about it all. I also don't want to reinstall OSX as that would mean reinstalling everything.

Any other reasonable suggestions chaps?

Is keyboard backlighting on? Is Siri still alive? If so kill her....Is Autobright still on? Turn those off and it will help as well.

 

[Mac128guy]

So I just ran Chrome again, only one MacRumors tab, and it was destroying battery life. I suddenly went up to 14 or so watts of usage. The only difference I can think of is that I use Ghostery on Safari and nothing (so far) on Chrome. Either I'm doing something wrong, or maybe Chrome is really susceptible to ads/tracking and needs comparable software to have decent power usage. Any thoughts? Any ad blockers you use for Chrome?

AdBlock Plus, Disconnect and uBlock Origin running simultaneously on Chrome for me. Watts do spike up on both Safari and Chrome to 12-14 watts when you are initially loading a page (to be expected) but then it settles back quickly to roughly 6-7 watts on average for me for both, and when scrolling can go as low as 3 watts in a dark environment (with auto-brightness on).

 

[Brookzy]

Is keyboard backlighting on? Is Siri still alive? If so kill her....Is Autobright still on? Turn those off and it will help as well.

Genuine question: why would disabling Siri help? It is not always listening like it is on some iOS devices.

 

[skids929]

Genuine question: why would disabling Siri help? It is not always listening like it is on some iOS devices.

I have no proof that it draws down, because I did all three of these things at one time. I was told it does hide and you can't pick it up in activity monitor using resources. Probably rubbish, but nonetheless I don't need and don't want to risk my battery life over Siri.

 

[thesaint024]

AdBlock Plus, Disconnect and uBlock Origin running simultaneously on Chrome for me. Watts do spike up on both Safari and Chrome to 12-14 watts when you are initially loading a page (to be expected) but then it settles back quickly to roughly 6-7 watts on average for me for both, and when scrolling can go as low as 3 watts in a dark environment (with auto-brightness on).

Done. Added Adblock and Ublock. Will run for a while to see how it goes. So far, instantly helpful on power. BTW, insane number of ads/trackers on this site - 23 to 33! Thanks.

 

[aioriya]

I'm gonna try recalibrating the battery, I found this article on how to do it: https://www.lifewire.com/calibrate-macbook-air-battery-2260856

Will post an update once its done and I've been working after the calibration, maybe it'll help.

 

[garyleecn]

Done. Added Adblock and Ublock. Will run for a while to see how it goes. So far, instantly helpful on power. BTW, insane number of ads/trackers on this site - 23 to 33! Thanks.

ublock seems to be unavailable to download anymore.. care to share how you added it?
thanks

 

[thesaint024]

ublock seems to be unavailable to download anymore.. care to share how you added it?
thanks

Chrome store under extensions. Ublock seems more effective than adblock in initial observations.

 

[cityboy-100]

I bought a maxed out 13' tb model and I've been using it for about a week. With light use, I've been consistently getting around 5-6.5 hours when mainly browsing. They claim 10 hours wireless web but my battery has never lasted this long. How has apple added a smaller battery on the touch bar model and managed to claim the same battery life?

I think I'm experiencing about the same life with a maxed-out 13" 4-port. There's basically no way this model has 10 hours with the higher-end configs. I wonder if RAM is the culprit. Do the higher-clocked processors consume more energy?

 

[drxcm]

I'm getting about the same (5.5-6) consistently on my tb13 with 16gb / 512 doing wireless browsing, email with Spotify playing. No other apps open. Brightness around 60%.

Pretty disappointing...

 

[dgdosen]

I went into an Apple store (Seattle) and I told a salesperson I liked the 13" form factor but was worried about short battery life on the TB models.

The reply was they didn't know what I was talking about... So does anyone on this thread have actual feedback from Apple?

 

[garyleecn]

Chrome store under extensions. Ublock seems more effective than adblock in initial observations.

ok... I thought you were using safari..