Ok, big thanks to everyone who commented. I’ve turned down the screen, which I’m very comfortable with - it’s a bright screen so if I do ever need it brighter, I can just adjust it then turn it back. I’ve also disabled most of the background refreshing that was occurring. I topped off the battery a bit ago, so we will see if this has an impact.
I get that I may have to charge it daily or what not, but I’d really love to have faith that my battery will last the better part of a day without having to worry about charging - especially since I can’t seem to just pop this on an external battery… I trued using a USB A to C adapter and charging it with my regular external battery and got no love.
Sometimes. Now that I’ve changed the settings… in the last 20 minutes with the pencil off the case and the settings changed, I’m still at 100%. So perhaps that was part of the problem. I’ll be experimenting a bit over the next day or two and will report back.
For example, last night I went to bed and the iPad was charged to 100%, so I left it sitting on the table in its closed case with the pencil attached. When I woke, it was down to 95%. But when I started using it, after a half hour or so of reading and some light Reddit browsing with pencil in hand, the iPad battery was down to like 83%
As I get a handle on this, I’ll be sure to update here.
I too would like to know the impact of having the pencil attached. I keep mine attached all the time but if there is meaningful battery savings by keeping it off of the iPad I’ll change my habit.
This should be easy to work out: Charge the iPad and Pencil to 100%; attach the Pencil; let the iPad sit for n hours and note the battery drop. Then repreat without the Pencil attachd.
Even if thats the case, you’ll be measuring drop over the same range and should have a pretty clear indication after an hour or so as to whether the Pencil has a significant effect. I’ll give this a try if I can ever find a couple of hours that I don’t use my iPad
Each of my iPads (ipad 1, ipad 3, iPad Pro 9.7”, iPad Pro 12.9 (2nd Gen)” and the iPad Pro 11 latest version.) has had a battery life of about 10 hours. I’ve not seen that the latest ipad battery life is any worse than a previous edition.
What does the settings app say is using all of your battery life?
I’ve just finished testing the potential impact of the Pencil on iPad battery life. I fully charged my iPad Pro (2018 11") and Pencil and then unplugged the iPad and let it sit closed. After three hours the battery for both devices are still showing as being 100% charged.
I think it’s safe to conclude that simply leaving the Pencil charging does not significantly impact iPad battery life.
I’ve run a similar experiment over days, not hours. Charged up my iPad and let it sit (asleep, no use) with and without the pencil. There is a noticeable impact. I’m not a heavy iPad user, so I don’t need to charge daily. If you are charging daily due to heavy use, then no, the pencil will not have a noticeable impact. But if you are lightly using the iPad and are used to long battery life, then the slow drain of your iPad battery to the pencil battery will be noticeable and you will have to charge more frequently. In general, with the pencil attached I have to charge every 1-2 days. With the pencil unattached I can easily get away with charging every 4-5 days.
This tells me that there won’t be a large impact on battery over three hours, but there will be an impact if the pencil is attached all day. Will it make your iPad battery go to zero? No. But your battery will not have as much life after a full day of topping up the pencil than if you used it all day without the pencil attached and charging. The pencil is drawing energy from the iPad battery. That will affect battery life. The draw per hour is likely small, but over many hours that draw will add up and will show up in the iPad battery life.
Edit to add: There is an additional consideration - Apple Pencil battery life. If you leave the pencil unattached, you need to keep an eye on charge level. Li-ion batteries don’t age well if they get completely discharged a lot. The apple battery is small, so it will drop to zero quickly if you leave it in a drawer or bag instead of attached and charging. The pencil isn’t cheap, so there is a balance to consider between optimizing iPad battery life and maintaining pencil battery health.
Very interesting. I use my iPad a lot and I always have the pencil attached. I think I will keep the pencil in the briefcase and only pull it out and charge it when needed. I don’t use it that often. Thanks for the follow up on this.
Thanks for this info! I’ve never bothered to test that. I have been a bit nervous since a friend pulled a neglected Apple Pencil out of a drawer and found it would not take a charge (it was left in the drawer for much, much longer than 10 days).
On NYE, I went to bed at 10pm. I had the iPad with pencil attached on the charger, it was full. I unplugged it and left it on my desk. Woke up, did some chores, and got to my iPad to read at around 10:30am. It was at 99%. The previous time I’d done that, before changing a ton of auto-refresh and brightness settings based on this post, it was at 92%. Used it intermittently during the day to read (books), email, a little bit of Reddit, do some community moderation in Facebook, respond to Facebook messages, and do a few text messages.
While the family watched a movie I wasn’t particularly into, I read again and put it away at around 9pm. It was down to 56% and was only 55% this morning at 7:30. Still not the epic days of my iPad 2 or iPad Air 2, but much better. I’ll continue to play a bit and see how consistent this can be.
If I’m reading this right, the effect on battery drain of having the Pencil attached to the iPad, everything else being relatively equal, is ~1%. Am I understanding this correctly?
That’s what I’m seeing after adjusting auto refresh on most of my apps and turning the screen down a bit. I haven’t charged since yesterday morning (around 6:30) and have worked down to a battery life of about 27%. I’m responding to this, looking up a few previous posts, need to do a little writing, then I’ll likely charge it while I go run errands. It’s not quite as good as the 2-3 days I’ve rocked in the past (especially since I’ve not got a portable/battery charge yet - my external batteries don’t seem to charge this thing) but it will do for the time being.
