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macOS Catalina 10.15.5 Beta Includes Battery Health Management Feature for Macs

oneMadRssn said:
Which is it? Is it in the BIOS, or does it require clunky utilities installed on top of Windows as in the screen shots? Either way, sounds wonderful.
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It can be both. The software can modify the same value as the BIOS, like modifying the NVRAM within macOS.

oneMadRssn said:
Oh, the BIOS is very user-friendly and convenient. I can see why so many people were aware of this feature and knew how to use it. </s>
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I don't really have a dog in this fight, as I use macOS and Windows, but Apple isn't immune to poorly discoverable features and/or BIOS-like configuration settings. For example, who would think that in order to boot from a USB drive you would have to enter recovery mode, go to the Utilities menu, open the Startup Security Utility, and enable booting from external media. One could easily argue that this isn't user friendly or convenient either (especially since recovery mode is prominently a page of recovery options instead of configuration options). In both situations, the option is one that isn't necessarily common to change, but it's there if you need it. Both have sane defaults for their user base.


Anyway, it's great to have the feature available in whichever operating system you choose to use!
 
Reminds me when I'd take out the battery in my 17" Powerbook when it was going to be connected to the power for long periods 😄
 
Freyqq said:
Maybe the T2 chip? Not sure why it would need much advanced hardware, as it just is telling the battery not to charge to 100%
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I don't think it's related to T2 chip since it also applies to 2016-2017 non-touchbar Macbook Pros like mine which do not have T2 chip but have TB3 ports. I would speculate it's something related with USB-C Power Delivery, or maybe TB controller. But it probably also requires some additional things since Macbook (2015+) is not included even though it is also USB-C PD compatible.
 
edwrap said:
Good on them for finally adding this.

For those with older MacBooks with MagSafe, you can cover up two of the center pins with a thin strip of paper to force the laptop into holding a battery charge level. I keep an always plugged in MacBook Air around 40% with this trick.
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Yes, I only cover the middle pin with TESA stripe.

magsafe.png

magsafe2.jpg

My 2015 15" battery got replaced 321 days ago (under replacement program for this specific model)

Using this trick & 99% clamshell mode my battery is still at 104% (according to coconut battery)
I keep the state of charge between 40-50%

history.png

If Apple could finally implement this in software, I could upgrade to a model beyond 2015 ;)
 
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filchermcurr said:
For example, who would think that in order to boot from a USB drive you would have to enter recovery mode, go to the Utilities menu, open the Startup Security Utility, and enable booting from external media. One could easily argue that this isn't user friendly or convenient either (especially since recovery mode is prominently a page of recovery options instead of configuration options). In both situations, the option is one that isn't necessarily common to change, but it's there if you need it. Both have sane defaults for their user base.
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I don't think that's correct. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202796

The quick way to do it is hold Option during bootup, and it gives you a menu to choose which drive to boot from.

Or the more easily discoverable way but with more steps is to select the Startup Disk in user preferences.
 
DinkThifferent said:
And your point is ?
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The point is, that people use such features on hardware which is much better than current Apple hardware. Lenovo, Dell and HP have very nice laptops. My MBA alternative is the Lenovo Ideapad 710s (YouTube review). At the time I bought it, it had a better screen (Full HD matte) than the MBA, a better processor (Kaby Lake i5-7200U) with an iGPU which can decode VP9 and H.265 in hardware, and much more...
 
oneMadRssn said:
I don't think that's correct. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202796

The quick way to do it is hold Option during bootup, and it gives you a menu to choose which drive to boot from.

Or the more easily discoverable way but with more steps is to select the Startup Disk in user preferences.
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On macs with the T2 chip, those options are all disabled by default: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208198#externalboot

The only way to get them back is to enter the Startup Security Utility and change the option.
 
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Nozgog said:
Yes, I only cover the middle pin with TESA stripe.

View attachment 906725

View attachment 906726

My 2015 15" battery got replaced 321 days ago (under replacement program for this specific model)

Using this trick & 99% clamshell mode my battery is still at 104% (according to coconut battery)
I keep the state of charge between 40-50%

View attachment 906729

If Apple could finally implement this in software, I could upgrade to a model beyond 2015 ;)
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Looks good. It brings back good memories from my MacBook Pro Retina Mid 2012 when it was at 98% battery health.
 

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Did anyone install this beta to test this feature? I wonder if it caps the battery charge level at some static level like %70/%80/%90 as we think it does or if it's more dynamic based on heat, battery wear level etc.
 
dogslobber said:
It's weird that you need a TB3 port for this to work. Maybe it's a feature specific to the battery requiring TB3 to read some sensors or whatnot.
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exactly my thoughts ... I have my best laptop ever (2012 late rMBP 16gb/768ssd) ... I love this thing and after 8 years is STILL GOING STRONG (I run VM's on it) ...

but does anyone have any reasoning (or guesses) as to why the cut-off for this battery extending feature?

I'll never sell that 2012 rMBP ... sometimes at night, when I'm lonely, I sleep with it
 
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As we're now living in the smarthome world, maybe one could plug the charger into a HomeKit outlet and do some Automator/AppleScript wizardry to switch that outlet on when the battery drops below 40% and off when it reaches 80% (or some user configurable thresholds).
If I knew how to code, I would make an app from this ;)
 
viorelgn said:
Now i have 96% health on battery ! is increased! ahahah
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I noticed that by discharging my battery to 30% or even 25% and charging it up to 80-90% and even at 100% it increased its capacity and health. Before doing this I used to charge it and discharge it once a week and the battery health was much lower.
 
Equitek said:
Huh... That button just doesn't appear on my Air or 13" Retina, both with 10.5.5. :(
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You are not alone. It looks like this feature is only available for the MacBooks that do have USB-C. These would be all the models released between 2016 till now. Too bad because I would have loved this on my 2012 MacBook Pro Retina Display that does support macOS Catalina. It looks like it will also be the last major macOS release that is being supported by this model. I have had an amazing 8 years with it, I can't complain.
 
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