Macbook M1: battery health drops?

victorcampos · 2023-09-10T09:58:45.304Z

Your post made me go check my battery and… It’s at 87% battery health after 19 months.

Blasted_pingin · 2023-09-10T09:59:31.919Z

Indeed I am in Europe and we get 2 years of warranty on electronic items.

I am not sure there’s an official threshold where one can declare the battery being defective.
In case of replacement of the battery, would you recommend to save data?

Blasted_pingin · 2023-09-10T10:00:36.328Z

I saw posts on other forums where people had a battery checked at 103%… It seems the check is not super trustable either.
87% after 19 months doesn’t seem super nice either.

synthbie · 2023-09-10T10:12:24.742Z

Try Coconutbattery. It’s an app that can tell you a little about the batteryhealth, and especially the charging cycles. Full charging cycles is not good for batteryhealth.

/thomas

krunchr · 2023-09-10T10:16:20.159Z

Coming December my MBA M1 is 3 years old. The current battery healthness is still at 97 %. But the most time I use it stationary via PD from my Dell display. Maybe 3 - 4 times per month I use it mobile.

Blasted_pingin · 2023-09-10T10:28:19.205Z

That’s Coconut which is telling me 84%…

I thought the tears where you have to stop charging at 80% and other stuff like that were behind us.

G0n35y · 2023-09-10T10:31:32.039Z

I had something similar with my old 2018 MBP15. The cycle count was also very low so even less excuse for this to happen.

Pretty sure it was over 3 years old by the time I took it into the store but they accepted it was a fault with very little push back and repaired free of charge.

With how they’re built this meant I got a new keyboard as part of the repair too so very happy in the end!

deeptropix · 2023-09-10T10:33:35.461Z

depends on usage. whether battery was often drained below 10% or kept charged at 90-100% or for prolonged time. also how many cycles has the battery comes into play too. I am on 2nd year of use and 1 year non stop plugged in (with very small breaks) i’m on 91%.

deeptropix · 2023-09-10T10:39:47.929Z

Maximum cycle count for i.e macbook air m1 : 1000
A normal battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at its maximum cycle count when operating under normal conditions. The one-year warranty includes service coverage for a defective battery. If it is out of warranty, Apple offers battery service for a charge.
source:

Apple Support

About battery health management in Mac notebooks

Mac notebook computers with Apple silicon use battery health management, a feature designed to improve the lifespan of your computer's battery.

Apple Support

Determine battery cycle count for Mac laptops

Learn how to determine the number of cycles your Mac laptop's battery has.

tdmusic · 2023-09-10T10:39:51.979Z

Having had a couple of laptops fail for various reasons I’d always recommend having a backup of anything you care about! Battery replacement should be safe in theory but things can go wrong. I use Backblaze personally which automatically backs up to the cloud so I don’t have to think about it.

g3o2 · 2023-09-10T11:04:45.495Z

One note of caution: keep your device charged between 20% and 85%. Avoid draining it below or charging it above. This will prolong the battery’s life.

My M1 Pro’s battery’s max capacity is 99% after almost two years, only plug it for charging.

deadfly · 2023-09-10T11:19:59.830Z

If you have any doubts you should get it checked at an Apple store. They are pretty helpful in my experience

waftlord · 2023-09-10T11:52:37.476Z

Can we get the science behind this top tip?

Claid · 2023-09-10T11:58:31.638Z

My M1 Macbook Air which I bought a couple of years ago and have absolutely ragged since I got it is at 88% battery health.

g3o2 · 2023-09-10T12:12:48.557Z

That’s what I got told by an energy advisor friend a few years back. Unfortunately, I have neither scientific reference to back it up nor any other data point besides my own.

victorcampos · 2023-09-10T12:21:36.474Z

My issue is that I use USB-C for connecting my MBA to the Thunderbolt dock, I can’t control it to not charge while I only need video output to the monitor so whenever I go weeks at a time using the computer only connected to my external monitor it’s constantly on “power adapter” power but 100% charged…

senor-bling · 2023-09-10T12:34:44.982Z

I bought mine (M1 MB Air) refurbished at 86% battery cap around 1.5 years ago, I think. Now it’s at 85%. I’ve been using it a lot, I’d say roughly two thirds of the time connected to power.

(An iPhone I bought at 84% on the other hand was dead less than a year later…)

tdmusic · 2023-09-10T12:35:33.190Z

I think that’s fine? I would assume if it’s always connected it just shuts off charging. Not sure but I usually use mine plugged in and the battery is fine. I think it’s more frequent charge cycles (letting it go down then charging every day) that are a problem (based on how poor my phone’s battery life is!)

Ozone · 2023-09-10T13:09:31.535Z

I have had a 2015 retina MBP from new. After 120 cycles (1.5yrs) the battery was below 84% (coconut) and it was ‘power babied’. Co-incidentally the screen laminate was peeling so Apple happily replaced under warranty and surprisingly replaced the battery and keyboard at the same time for free. Since then I just used and abused it for almost 5 years carefree and now its done 800 cycles and is about 80% (due for replacement).

Lesson learned. Just use the laptop as it’s meant to be used and not worry too much about it, though obviously not all batteries end up being equal. Either way they are a disposable (sic) item that will need replacing in the medium-long term no matter what.

My M1 Pro is about 20 months old and at 95% it’s only 50 cycles on it, so maybe it’s a reasonable specimen. But the battery goes so much further on these machines that an 80% battery would still easily outlast anything using intel.

thesimplemachine · 2023-09-10T22:16:41.535Z

MacBooks apparently recognize when they’re always plugged in and do automatic power management and not only stop charging, but let the battery drain a bit so it doesn’t sit at a constant 100% charge.

I had my M1 Air plugged in non-stop for a few weeks and started to get worried about it messing with the battery life. Did some searching and found that it’s totally safe to leave newer MacBooks always plugged in because of the automatic power management system. Sure enough, I unplugged it that day after having it plugged in for those few weeks and the battery charge was at ~75% or something.