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phobos60

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 30, 2020
42
7
Hello!

Is this normal for a 5 month old Macbook Pro M1?
I didn’t use much of the battery in the first few months.
Status information:
Cycle counter: 30
Condition: Normal
Maximum capacity: 96%


Thanks.
 
It's normal. Mine is from November and I have 51 cycles on it. I use it a lot as a desktop machine and limit charge to 50% using AlDente when not using it on battery for a longer time. This causes the battery calibration to be a little off. My health is jumping between 96 and 99% depending on my recent battery usage pattern. Running it from 100% to 20% and then charging back up to 100% a couple of times restores calibration and health goes up.

Don't worry about it as long as you don't have any issues with actual battery life!
 
Hello!

Is this normal for a 5 month old Macbook Pro M1?
I didn’t use much of the battery in the first few months.
Status information:
Cycle counter: 30
Condition: Normal
Maximum capacity: 96%


Thanks.
Is 96% the number reported as the Battery Health in the Battery Pref pane, or the actual data extracted by ioreg which is used by the third party utilities?

The actual data number goes up and down daily which is why Apple supply the Pref Pane number which is a damped averaged number to stop people worrying about a fluctuating number.

Here is what my ioreg value has done since Feb. Machine was new in Nov but I didn't start recording until end of Feb. Started at 98.1%. Dropped to 94.5%, recovered to 97.3%. Currently at 96.6% after 36 cycles.

Note that in early March my machine was less than four months old with about 20 cycles and at 94.5%....worse than yours. OTOH my Apple Battery Health pref pane number is still 100%.

I have used AlDente since mid Feb, since I never saw Apple Battery optimisation work on my MBA in the first two months.

Screenshot 2021-06-15 at 14.22.28.png
 
Last edited:
The actual data number goes up and down daily which is why Apple supply the Pref Pane number which is a damped averaged number to stop people worrying about a fluctuating number.

Here is what my ioreg value has done since Feb. Machine was new in Nov but I didn't start recording until end of Feb. Started at 98.1%. Dropped to 94.5%, recovered to 97.3%. Currently at 96.6% after 36 cycles.

Note that in early March my machine was less than four months old with about 20 cycles and at 94.5%....worse than yours. OTOH my Apple Battery Health pref pane number is still 100%.

I have used AlDente since mid Feb, since I never saw Apple Battery optimisation work on my MBA in the first two months.

View attachment 1793550

Another month and now 40 cycles and the battery recovery continues! I have been using AlDente since mid Feb but make no claim on its behalf. Main point is that my graph confirms that looking at an individual battery health number from ioreg reported by the third party utilities is probably misleading.

Screenshot 2021-07-19 at 10.09.42.png
 
Personally, I wouldn't be terribly concerned about a 4-5% drop in reported battery life with the M1 Macs. I was able to use my M1 MBP on a cross-country trip (Anchorage to Jacksonville, roughly 15 hours including layovers) without even bringing a charger in my carry-on. In fact, I didn't even charge my Mac until two days after arriving in Florida, because the battery life was just that good. With that being said, I also see a discrepancy in battery life reporting betwen SystemPrefs and Coconut Battery (100% in SysPrefs, 97.8% in Coconut Battery). The biggest thing is that I haven't noticed any significant changes in battery life while using this Mac, so I think the reporting is just off in some areas.
 
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