Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

sixcolors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 386 posts

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#141

Post by nicoburns »

bdcravens wrote: post #62
geoelectric wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you check the power tab under System Information, you can find some battery health info that might be illuminating. For example, my newish MBP16: Charge Information: Charge Remaining (mAh): 8362 Fully Charged: Yes Charging: No Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 8647 Health Information: Cycle Count: 18 Condition: Normal Looking it up, specced full capacity is 8818 mAh, so I'm at 98% health right now--probably lost a point…

Yikes - I have the same, and with a cycle count of 41, I'm down to 94%.

I have a 2015 13" MacBook Pro, and I'm on 85% after 940 cycles (5560/6559mAh - I guess the battery was smaller back then). I most often run it on the charger, but fairly often run it on battery down to a low percentagr too.

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#142

Post by geoelectric »

AlphaSite wrote: post #121
geoelectric wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you check the power tab under System Information, you can find some battery health info that might be illuminating. For example, my newish MBP16: Charge Information: Charge Remaining (mAh): 8362 Fully Charged: Yes Charging: No Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 8647 Health Information: Cycle Count: 18 Condition: Normal Looking it up, specced full capacity is 8818 mAh, so I'm at 98% health right now--probably lost a point…

I suspect the original capacity must have some variance.

Almost certainly, yes. I didn't note the capacity out of the box, so that 98% from spec is a bit handwavy for sure.

That said, Apple's usually pretty good about shipping things erring over spec, and publishing the low side of the real range. It was probably at least the spec amount when I got it.

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#143

Post by outworlder »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #129
cmckn wrote: post #80

Why doesn't the UI report 80% as 100%? It seems like exposing this to the user is more confusing than anything, when the cells could be over provisioned and treated politely by a system controller, without the user being part of the decision. Aren't SSD's over provisioned in this manner? You sell a drive with a terabyte of storage, but actually ship more than a terabyte of chips in the case to accommodate degradation…

> Why doesn't the UI report 80% as 100%? Because the last time they tried "silently manage the battery without the user being part of the decision" it didn't go over real well?

That wasn't even managing the battery, per-se(although it is power management, it wasn't strictly about health). It was reducing clock speeds to extend the amount of time the device would be on. They still do it even if the device has a healthy battery: drain the phone to 1% and you will see. Rather than running at full blast and shutting down, you can extract more runtime.

Some EVs do something similar: the Nissan Leaf, when the battery gets really low(and I mean it, far past the point where you lost all percentage and mileage indicators), will enter a reduced power mode (or popularly called "turtle mode"). This allows it to eke out a few more miles out of an otherwise mostly dead battery. There is a "turtle" that lights up on the screen, maybe Apple could just do that.

Turns out batteries hate when they are almost empty and you are trying to extract full power from them, voltage drops even more. So there are some compromises that have to be made.

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#144

Post by gruez »

greedo wrote: post #120
rubber_duck wrote: post #53

I got a top spec 15 MBP a year ago and I have to say the experience is appalling - 4000$ device that goes full airplane takeoff levels of noise at any serious workload, no ability to control performance (I would gladly throttle the CPU sooner to avoid everyone in the office turning my way when I start an emulator or keep the fans at lower RPM but constantly instead of letting the CPU idle at 60-70 degrees with no fan…

Perhaps try https://www.rugarciap.com/turbo-boost-switcher-for-os-x/ This can extend your battery a decent amount, and obviously would cut down on fan noise.

...at the cost of speed. A big % of a computer's performance comes from its turbo clocks. For instance, the 16" MBP with 6 cores is 2.6GHz base, up to 4.5GHz turbo. Disabling turbo in this means you're slowing down the computer as much as 40%.

Also, it's questionable whether running at lower clocks saves power overall. Apparently it's more efficient to run higher clocks, but for shorter periods of time than it is to run medium clocks for extended periods of time.

[1] https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/race-to-sleep

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#145

Post by derefr »

vpEfljFL wrote: post #140
rubber_duck wrote: post #53

I got a top spec 15 MBP a year ago and I have to say the experience is appalling - 4000$ device that goes full airplane takeoff levels of noise at any serious workload, no ability to control performance (I would gladly throttle the CPU sooner to avoid everyone in the office turning my way when I start an emulator or keep the fans at lower RPM but constantly instead of letting the CPU idle at 60-70 degrees with no fan…

Laptops isn't designed for serious workloads. It's a small portable devices to hash some errands at starbucks. You can't change physics laws unfortunately to make all the heat disappear somewhere. Keep in mind Intel marketing as well which advertises CPU with way less heat than they expose in real life. The way you have this machines is because apple is commercial company and they should follow market demands. "10 co…

In theory, laptop manufacturers that use aluminum in their chassis could just put the CPU die right up against the chassis, Remove the bottom feet, and then tell you to only ever use it sitting on top of a table designed to function as a top-down heat pipe (i.e. the kind they use to make “scraped” frozen yoghurt.) The table would become the CPU’s direct-contact heatsink.

Not practical at all, of course, but this is well within the laws of physics. (And people do lesser things all the time, using e.g. those laptop “cooling stands” with clearance and fans built in.)

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#146

Post by geoelectric »

shantara wrote: post #87
geoelectric wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you check the power tab under System Information, you can find some battery health info that might be illuminating. For example, my newish MBP16: Charge Information: Charge Remaining (mAh): 8362 Fully Charged: Yes Charging: No Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 8647 Health Information: Cycle Count: 18 Condition: Normal Looking it up, specced full capacity is 8818 mAh, so I'm at 98% health right now--probably lost a point…

8246 mAh after 34 cycles on my 16" 2019 MBP. That's a lot worse than I expected. What's the best way to slow battery degradation if I use it for 8-10 hours daily for work? Run MBP from an outlet and do full discharges once a week? Run MBP from the battery and recharge the battery when it depletes? Run MBP from the battery, but charge it only to 80%?

At this point, I think anything you do is going to not be better than what the system could automatically do for itself. Their change will basically give you that 80% bit.

There's something to be said for occasionally running the battery down to zero and charging it all the way back up, of course, but I wouldn't think of it as an effective regimen with current battery tech.

I'm also not sure how quickly it's expected to drop in capacity. IIRC, batteries drop a notch when they start getting used, plateau there for a while where it mostly depends on environment (try not to charge them when it's 110deg ambient, for example, overheating will kill a battery fast); then eventually drop again and start heading on down.

And, of course, all of this scales by how cold it currently is ambient because lithium batteries have reduced charging capacities cold (though I don't think it damages them permanently like heat does).

For all I know, 95% (roughly where you're at) is the expected amount once all factors are concerned I wouldn't worry too much. Maybe just get some comparative specs on MacRumors or with one of the utilities (some benchmark against everyone else iirc)

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#147

Post by TrinaryWorksToo »

ratww wrote: post #56
wrs wrote: post #42

I've noticed that on newer (past few years) MacBook Pros, if their battery runs down too far they refuse to start up, even when plugged into the charger. The battery has to charge for 10-15 minutes with the "dead battery" icon on the screen. It's exactly the same behavior as iPhone/iPad. In past MacBook models, the battery could be dead--or even completely removed--and the charger would power the laptop fine. Anyone…

I've been explained that this is because those computers might need more power than the AC Charger is able to provide, so the battery is also used as a "backup" for burst loads. This [1] seems to confirm it. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20081225111200/http://support.ap...

The apple computer shows an icon when this is happening. It shows a black battery icon instead of the normal white outlined in back icon.

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#148

Post by geoelectric »

rusty__ wrote: post #36

I wish people would stop using the generic 'MacBook' when talking about 'MacBook Pro' and 'MacBook Air' - makes it very diffcult as a 'MacBook' owner to find support articles.

Well, there aren't that many things specific to them unless you're talking hardware specs. They're all part of the MacBook family, so it's valid to call them that.

I'd blame Apple who decided not to name the 12" and left it only with its family name. Sure, that's how it used to be, but post 2000s that's just not a model name anymore on its own, anymore than iPhone or iPad is.

Think "12 inch MacBook" probably would find the most hits, though. Probably even better than the "MacBook -pro -air" thing I suspect you were doing, since those two get mentioned in the same articles a lot.

At least they've mostly backed off the "The New " type crap they were doing with iPad 3, etc. You want to talk hard to search for...

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#149

Post by gruez »

RcrdBrt wrote: post #132
rootusrootus wrote: post #3

I wish they'd give us the option (on the iPhone and iPad as well) to arbitrarily set the maximum charge level. Just like on my Tesla, I'd like to be able to tell my phone not to charge above 80%.

Long time ago Ezekeel, a xda-developers user, published a kernel mod for the Nexus S that let you choose the max percentage that the battery could reach while charging. It was called BLX aka Battery Life eXtender. I always set it to 80%. I've always been intrigued by extending the life of li-ion cells and that's the only work that goes into that direction AFAIK. I believe it was 2011. There hasn't been anything like…

>There hasn't been anything like that ever since.

https://github.com/sriharshaarangi/BatteryChargeLimit/

root required, obviously.

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#150

Post by geoelectric »

teejmya wrote: post #84
geoelectric wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you check the power tab under System Information, you can find some battery health info that might be illuminating. For example, my newish MBP16: Charge Information: Charge Remaining (mAh): 8362 Fully Charged: Yes Charging: No Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 8647 Health Information: Cycle Count: 18 Condition: Normal Looking it up, specced full capacity is 8818 mAh, so I'm at 98% health right now--probably lost a point…

FruitJuice is a good app for this. https://imgur.com/dY0n6Uw

Thanks for the tip! I've been looking for something up to date that wasn't part of a huge suite.
Post reply on HN