Battery really bad!

[ryantbfh]

I love my macbook retina, but I'm so dissapointed with the battery life. NEVER have I gotten over 6 hours and I always am on 60% brightness. I notice I lose a few percent battery every 10 minutes. My Macbook Pro Retina had way better battery, I've noticed I'm plugging this in 2-3 times a day because it get's so low.

I know lots of people's batteries are bad, is this an actual fault or just what I can expect for the next 3 years?

 

[Dark Void]

Is Chrome your internet browser?

 

[fluidedge]

I've been using mine since about 11am this morning (it's now 3pm) and it says I still have 6:45h remaining...

You might have a dud. Do more benchmarking and if you really think there's something wrong take it to the genius bar. Also don't have battery analysers running all the time, it's like using the battery test on a duracell, it affects the battery too! Minimize the amount of unused open applications you have open and reduce the screen brightness and keyboard backlight (turn the backlight off if you can touch type and it's day time!) little things all add up.

 

[Fuzzball84]

I'm on my second rMB (returned my first after being unsure) and so far my battery life this past week has been impressive (around 8-11 hours). I have 1.1 256 GB version and typically use for email, safari (youtube etc) and iTunes. Im actually treating it more like my iPad as Im only using this machine for personal things... so I use it on and off mostly in the evenings but carry it in my bag during the day.

I typically have screen brightness between 50-75%... I find the battery life is strongly related to display brightness. Combination of high screen brightness and high processor usage could be causing your low runtime. if not, maybe you should get apple to run some diagnostics on your machine?

 

[Mindinversion]

I'd try a PRAM reset and a battery calibration [drain the battery to 0% from full and then recharge]

There may be something more comprehensive to do regarding battery calibration, but it's never been such an issue for me to have had to extensively research. For additional reference, I'd suggest a Google search.

.. (what, you'd rather I suggest Bing????)

 

[rajivhifi]

I have the same issue as well. This is my secondary laptop and don't use it for any processor heavy work. Just the regular email and safari with about 5-6 tabs open. And with this I'm lucky if I get around 4-5 hours a day. If I have to move away from the laptop for about half hour I need to switch it off and turn it back on, or else the battery drops 5-10%. I also need to turn off the laptop overnight lest the battery drains a large percent in the meantime. This is a new behavior for me coming from my MBA which was more like an iPad, and am not happy with this changed behavior. I'm thinking I may need to visit the genius bar.

 

[Queen6]

Battery runtime is predominantly related to your usage and what applications are ope and in use. First thing I would "ditch" is a the third party monitoring maps, all they are doing is constantly polling the sensors therefore consuming even more power power.

My own 1.2 MacBook I see 7-8 hours use.

General tips for extending Mac portables runtime on Bty

1. uBlock Safari extension
2. System Preferences - Accessibility - reduce transparency
3. System Preferences - Dock - deselect "Animate Opening Applications"
4. System Preferences - Dock - Minimise Windows using "Scale Efect"
5. System Preferences - Dock - deselect "Magnification"
6. Chrome users, switch to Chrome Canary as is far more optimised for OS Xl, less resource intensive
7. VLC users, switch to Movist, less resource intensive
8. Close applications, when not in use, you can deselect "Close windows when quitting an app" in System Preferences - General to bring them back to the same state when opened and or check the application has APP Nap if so ignore it.
9. Those that require AV, use ClamXav and set up sentry & scanning intelligently
10. Skip Flash period
11. Turn off Bluetooth/WiFi if not needed

In general OS X is very energy efficient, however small things all add up

Q-6

 

[Queen6]

I have the same issue as well. This is my secondary laptop and don't use it for any processor heavy work. Just the regular email and safari with about 5-6 tabs open. And with this I'm lucky if I get around 4-5 hours a day. If I have to move away from the laptop for about half hour I need to switch it off and turn it back on, or else the battery drops 5-10%. I also need to turn off the laptop overnight lest the battery drains a large percent in the meantime. This is a new behavior for me coming from my MBA which was more like an iPad, and am not happy with this changed behavior. I'm thinking I may need to visit the genius bar.

What you are describing is not normal behaviour, If I leave my rMB in standby the drop in battery percentage is negligible. As I have multiple Mac`s so the rMB can and does see several days in standby at a time; currently 84%, 60.5 hours on battery, some of this time the rMB will have been up and running, obviously the majority in standby.

I would start by looking at what is running in the background, as clearly something is consuming power be it in standby or up and running.

Q-6

 

[rajivhifi]

What you are describing is not normal behaviour, If I leave my rMB in standby the drop in battery percentage is negligible. As I have multiple Mac`s so the rMB can and does see several days in standby at a time; currently 84%, 60.5 hours on battery, some of this time the rMB will have been up and running, obviously the majority in standby.

I would start by looking at what is running in the background, as clearly something is consuming power be it in standby or up and running.

Q-6

Thanks for your reply. I reset the Pram per the post above and right now seeing 6:55 hrs with 80% battery. Hopefully that solves the issue. If not, off to the genius bar.

 

[mgpg89]

Battery runtime is predominantly related to your usage and what applications are ope and in use. First thing I would "ditch" is a the third party monitoring maps, all they are doing is constantly polling the sensors therefore consuming even more power power.

My own 1.2 MacBook I see 7-8 hours use.

General tips for extending Mac portables runtime on Bty

1. uBlock Safari extension
2. System Preferences - Accessibility - reduce transparency
3. System Preferences - Dock - deselect "Animate Opening Applications"
4. System Preferences - Dock - Minimise Windows using "Scale Efect"
5. System Preferences - Dock - deselect "Magnification"
6. Chrome users, switch to Chrome Canary as is far more optimised for OS Xl, less resource intensive
7. VLC users, switch to Movist, less resource intensive
8. Close applications, when not in use, you can deselect "Close windows when quitting an app" in System Preferences - General to bring them back to the same state when opened and or check the application has APP Nap if so ignore it.
9. Those that require AV, use ClamXav and set up sentry & scanning intelligently
10. Skip Flash period
11. Turn off Bluetooth/WiFi if not needed

In general OS X is very energy efficient, however small things all add up

Q-6

Thanks for the Movist recommendation!
Just bought it, definitely seems like a step up from VLC...

 

[Queen6]

Thanks for the Movist recommendation!
Just bought it, definitely seems like a step up from VLC...

Movist is definitely easier on resources, and although not as full featured as VLC, is not very far off at all, for playback. I still have VLC on my 15" rMBP, for the 13" rMBP & 12" rMB I solely use Movist as these are far more likely to be off mains supply for extended periods of time.

Q-6

 

[johannnn]

Battery runtime is predominantly related to your usage and what applications are ope and in use. First thing I would "ditch" is a the third party monitoring maps, all they are doing is constantly polling the sensors therefore consuming even more power power.

My own 1.2 MacBook I see 7-8 hours use.

General tips for extending Mac portables runtime on Bty

1. uBlock Safari extension
2. System Preferences - Accessibility - reduce transparency
3. System Preferences - Dock - deselect "Animate Opening Applications"
4. System Preferences - Dock - Minimise Windows using "Scale Efect"
5. System Preferences - Dock - deselect "Magnification"
6. Chrome users, switch to Chrome Canary as is far more optimised for OS Xl, less resource intensive
7. VLC users, switch to Movist, less resource intensive
8. Close applications, when not in use, you can deselect "Close windows when quitting an app" in System Preferences - General to bring them back to the same state when opened and or check the application has APP Nap if so ignore it.
9. Those that require AV, use ClamXav and set up sentry & scanning intelligently
10. Skip Flash period
11. Turn off Bluetooth/WiFi if not needed

In general OS X is very energy efficient, however small things all add up

Q-6

Agree with all you said. On my new rMBP 15", it took a few weeks until I noticed that bluetooth was on by default.
Also, I'd like to add that people should be careful with their torrent usage. I'm all for seeding, but constantly connecting to all those peers kills the battery.

 

[Fuzzball84]

Agree with all you said. On my new rMBP 15", it took a few weeks until I noticed that bluetooth was on by default.
Also, I'd like to add that people should be careful with their torrent usage. I'm all for seeding, but constantly connecting to all those peers kills the battery.

One of the first things I do on a new mac/ios device is check the bluetooth status, if I don't need its the first thing to switch off.

I noticed for a while that my iPhone would have bluetooth activated after every update?? annoying but now that i have apple watch I keep it on during the day. Surprising how efficient bluetooth is these days... only knocks a few percentage off my iPhone during the day and since I check my iPhone less with having the apple watch, its actually improved my overall iPhone battery runtimes lol