MBP battery dies quickly

I have a late 2015 MBP. The battery is at 85% its original capacity (according to FruitJuice) and I usually hit the recommended battery time each day.

Recently the battery has been dying very quickly. Like within 2-3 hours of non-intensive use.

I’ve tried an SMC rest but this hasn’t helped.

Any other ideas appreciated. Thanks!

I’ve had that issue a couple of times and SMC did the trick. The last time I did it, I had to do 2-3 times and wait like 10-15 mins before restarting my laptop after the 3rd attempt. Some how resolved the issue

My mid-2017 MBP is just over a year old and FruitJuice says it is at 88% of original capacity. This seems like a rapid decline – but the device is in use 12-13 hours/day and frequently runs Windows 10 under Parallels, both of which are resource pigs. As @paulminors reported, my MBP also dies in 2-3 hours. I’ve been tracking usage and following FruitJuice’s daily time-on-battery recommendations.

I’ve wondered if FruitJuice is hokum or actually helps.

My personal experience with Fruitjuice, which I still have installed and activated on boot-up, is that it saw me run my battery cycles up way too easily on my previous MBP.

I understand the sense in cycling the battery every now and then, but I found doing it to according to what FJ recommends, sees one cycle through charges very quickly.

I now rather just use my laptop ‘as a laptop’ – meaning, when I am away from the desk, the battery is being used – when I am at the desk, it is plugged in and charging. I keep FJ in the menubar, just to see my history, and where the cycles are – but resist the urge to follow its prompts.

Others might differ – nevermind the whole debate about whether the newer batteries actually ‘need’ to be cycled like they did in the past – but personally, I would caution against slavishly following its recommendations.

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Good advice @BradG – I like the info in FruitJuice. If there is a similar menubar app but with out the nattering about daily cycles, I’d go with that instead.

When you do an SMC reset, there’s no way to know it’s actually “worked” right? The computer doesn’t make a noise or anything so I have to just assume it’s worked. To be clear, on your third attempt, you did the SMC reset, waited for 15 minutes, then booted up?

Yes, this is how I’ve been using FruitJuice as well. I don’t follow it religiously. It’s more of a tracking tool for me as well.

@paulminors How many cycles is your battery on?

I’m skeptical that FruitJuice is necessary with modern laptops. I think it’s snake oil. Where is the evidence that it serves any purpose today?

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I used fruitjuice for a few years and liked it because: data. However, I decide when I got my 2016 MBP to just live me life and plug/unplug whenever I please. YOLO

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@BradG 677 of 1,000 cycles.

That might explain why you are seeing some degradation. My previous MBP was just north of 450 cycles, and I too struggled to get 3 hours out of it.

Maybe others can weigh on where there cycles are at - but yours has been well-used (as it should I guess). My mid-2015 is on about 125 cycles currently.

Yep, that was it. As you said, there’s no way to know if it worked

Fruit Juice is bad. Apple says there is no need to cycle batteries. The new battery technology doesn’t have a memory like batteries in the past. Battery life is currently based on full cycles. If you full cycle every night, that’s less than 3 years life. Partial cycles mean longer life.
I would never install Fruit Juice on my laptop.
More evidence can be had by considering all the other Apple devices that use the same battery technology, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, etc. People just use them, and the batteries have good life and lifespan.

For battery stats, try iStat Menus.

iOS devices are used very differently from Mac laptops. Most iOS devices are rarely used while plugged in. In contrast, many Mac laptops hardly spend any time on battery power.

This is really interesting. @katiefloyd I know you have your smart switch set up so that your MacBook get’s a cycle each night. What are your thoughts on this?

Apple actually publishes a lot of useful information about batteries used in their products and how to take care of them, assess their health, etc.

These resources can be very useful for not only maintaining tip-top performance and usage, but also in any discussions you might have with Apple staff over why you have concerns over a particular battery issue.

Hope that helps.

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