Service Battery Macbook Pro - Early 2015 Model

Could you please advise if there are other options apart from resetting SMC / calibrating battery like suggested in few other posts to get rid of this "Service battery" message?

Apple stopped recommending battery calibration for notebook computers when they moved to built-in batteries about 2009.

Prashant778 wrote:

There has to be a root cause for everything, if the product doesn't meet the specifications it was supposed to adhere to, else all products wouldn't have improved from their primitive versions and we wouldn't have had Service Specialists !

Again, the root cause is variability in manufacturing variations, sometimes manufacturing defects. different conditions, etc. A battery could be damaged by any number of different causes including excessive heat, mechanical stress, etc. It has improved vastly in 20 years, but it's still a technology that on average has improved, but where some examples do better or worse. 1000 cycles is from a predictive model, but not a perfect one. You can avail yourself of the many papers available on battery longevity, which all make it clear there is no perfection in battery longevity and many different variables that affect it.

As much as you want it to be so, Apple doesn't have access to some super dooper flawless battery technology. They buy from suppliers that sell identical technology to other companies. The technology itself is subject all manner of vulnerabilities where a battery can lose capacity prematurely.

Apple has at least researched the National Renewable Energy Laboratory lifetime model for lithium rechargeable battery longevity. However, they are specific that it's only a model and subject to many different inputs that can affect it.

https://www.nrel.gov/transportation/battery-lifespan.html

Physics of Degradation

Predictive models are also used to provide feedback during the cell design process. Compared to experimentation, physical models of stress and degradation allow engineers to better understand the impacts of design concepts on lifetime and accelerate the design process. For example, predictive models can enable a designer to reduce stresses in an electrode stack to avert a shortened lifespan.

Multi-physics models of battery degradation include:

* Non-uniform degradation due to temperature and potential imbalance in large cells

* Solid/electrolyte interphase layer formation and growth

* Micro-scale and macro-scale mechanical stress and degradation, coupled with electrochemistry and temperature

Prashant778 wrote:

Again, you are more focussed on "variability", bla-bla which is good of course if you are a student. Things in reality work differently and if you are in corporate, even more differently. Good luck, You can continue your research on statistics.

You obviously have no experience in manufacturing or failure analysis, which is very much corporate. If you're looking for some perfect means to power a device, then find something that plugs into AC. At least until the power goes out.

Over two decades of experience with lithium-ion battery technology has increased the average longevity, but still hasn't eliminated premature "failure". You make it sound like someone is out there trying to cheat you out of the battery life that you deserved when what you experienced is more the nature of the technology that sometimes it fails faster than the nominal rating.

In the end you're talking about a computer that maybe cost $1500 and where Apple charges $200 for a replacement battery. Replacing the batteries is like replacing the tires on a car. Occasionally the tires will wear in a way that requires replacement before a certain rated life. And sometimes batteries will. Most people just pay the cost of replacement and call it a day.

Your tire analogy is a good one. It is important to find out why the tires have failed and to get that fixed. However, driving around on bald tires is a safety risk. It is important to have them replaced. When you do that, they can perform diagnostics and hopefully find out what is causing the problem.

The same is true for your MacBook. This is a fire risk. The “service battery” alert is based on more than just cycle count. It can also be based on abnormal voltages and/or abnormal temperature. Servicing the battery is inexpensive. Some areas have flat-rate pricing for out-of-warranty machines. (With your use of “tyre”, I’m not sure where you are, but it probably isn’t the US or Canada.)

If you find yourself replacing tires or MacBook batteries too often, then maybe you should get a new car and/or a new computer. But in either case, you should get it fixed before is causes serious damage or even injury. If you want to use this experience to inform your future purchase decisions, that’s your call. But for now, safety is more important.

Prashant778 wrote:

The root cause for this issue is NOT the battery, so try and come out of this obsession that it was battery failure. I take word of specialists of Apple more seriously than posts of people who are less experienced and do not even know the entire picture. Try spending time reading the post where I shared the feedback from Apple that it could be also a fault in electric circuitry.

In my experience, most Apple employees who deal with the public are trained to follow a script or select from a series of stock answers.

But you're not going to get an answer. Maybe if you hire someone to take the battery and analyze it for whatever the issue is. Or you could just bite the bullet, pay Apple for a battery service, and move on with your life.

Prashant778 wrote:

I already moved ahead since yesterday, satisfied with Apple's expert checks, feedback, and the root cause he shared. However, it looks like that you are still "firm-rooted" to the battery semblance, and may be also crippled with "Dunning-Kruger" effect.

If you think that Apple technical specialists just work on series of answers, I would suggest you to NOT join Apple, because I really trust these specialists !

Frankly I sense that you don't seem to be able to accept anything beyond your own preconceived notions of what you're owed. And yes - most customer service reps are trained to give specific answers. It's not going to be people who are truly expert in the field. Such people are frankly too valuable to be dealing with retail customers.

Prashant778 wrote:

You see, you are obessed with battery replacement and I am loving it. Do you specialize in "battery replacement therapy" or do you realize that an issue can have a root cause which wouldn't need battery replacement?

Do you have anything other than insults?

Then let us know what happens in the future. I've personally had a Mac battery that had a "service now" message even though it seemed to work. At least until the battery started swelling. That's what several people here have tried to get across - that there are a lot of faults that could be indicated by "service battery" that may otherwise seem normal but carry safety risks.