iphone 12 pro max battery health degrading

I want to come back to this thread and tell everyone that is suspecting that their phone is having battery issues: Your concerns are valid.

I started to do all kind of testing, resetting the phone, turning of app refresh, using power saving mode, did a fresh reinstall and upgraded.

One day I turned off my FaceID and my battery was back to normal. Went to Apple here in Stockholm and they changed my whole phone to a new one, no questions asked.

Here is the screenshot of my battery usage, that Lawrence Finch tried to tell me was normal for a brand new iPhone 12 Mini! 1 hour of screen on time and massive battery drain.

My suggestion is: Turn off FaceID and see if your battery changes back to normal. If it does, go to Apple to get your phone replaced because it means your FaceID sensor is broken.

Here is normal battery usage for a iPhone 12 Mini, with more than 5 hours of Screen on time.

[Edited by Moderator] 

For the average user the phone will lose about 1% of capacity a month. So after 11 months 88%-89% would be about right.

Batteries are consumables; they lose a little capacity every time they are discharged, then recharged. On average this works out to about a 1% loss for every 25 “full charge cycles” ( some will be a little more, others a little less). As one example, if you charge the phone overnight, every night (and that is what you should do; it is a best practice), it starts the day at 100%. If it drops to 20% by the end of the day before you charge it again overnight that counts as 0.8 full charge cycles (20% to 100%), or about 24 full charge cycles per month of use. For this example your battery capacity will lose about 1% per month. Of course, if the end-of-day level is higher than 20% the capacity loss will be a little less, and if it is lower than 20%, or you charge it during the day, the capacity loss will be higher.

If you don’t charge overnight most or every night the capacity will drop faster, because you won’t get the overnight rest period when the outside power source runs the phone rather than the battery.

Roland0000 wrote:

Mine is at 88% after 10 months of use. Very disappointed with the battery health and performance, I wonder what my battery health will be after 2 years… for sure way below 80%. My use is mainly social media and I try to avoid overheating.

Anyone knows if the warranty covers this type of problem?

Apple considers the battery fit for use until it drops below 80%. If drops that far before your warranty expires, Apple will replace it.

On average, battery health declines between 1 and 2 percent a month. So, your phone appears to be behaving normally.

Darylcar wrote: "...battery health of my iphone 12 pro max which is I bought last year November and now in 99% . Why too early?"

Darylcar ~ It's not too early. Apple says: "Maximum battery capacity measures the device battery capacity relative to when it was new." ...So not relative to when you started using it in November. Also, in measuring a chemically dynamic process such as in a battery, the % is calculated by an algorithm and is therefore only an approximation. Nothing is wrong with your iPhone. Read more in this Apple Support Article:

iPhone Battery and Performance

...found by searching Apple's Knowledge Base.

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The battery does not degrade significantly over time. It degrades based on full charge cycles. It is rated to stay above 80% for 500 cycles. That works out to an average of a 1% drop for each 25 full charge cycles. For a typical user that 1.5 to 2 years.

For example, if you charge overnight each night, and it is at 20% by the end of the day that requires 0.8 charge cycles per night, about 25 full charge cycles per month, or a drop of 1% per month. It isn’t quite that easy, because capacity loss isn’t completely linear, but it’s a good approximation.

Yes it does, which is why the recalibration is required in iOS 14.5. The health reported by your iPhone 11 was not accurate.

If you had a car made two years ago and the gas gauge read "Full" until it was 3/4 full and dropped to 3/4 tank but new cars now accurately read the fuel level as it drops to 3/4 of a tank, that doesn't mean the newer vehicle uses more gas because it more accurately reports the interim fuel level.

This is a user-to-user forum, it is not Apple. There is nothing to look into. How long have you had the phone? As I posted, for an average user battery health will drop about 1% per month. I’m no convinced you either didn’t read or didn’t understand my post above. Here it is again; give it another try:

Batteries are consumables; they lose a little capacity every time they are discharged, then recharged. On average this works out to about a 1% loss for every 25 “full charge cycles”. As one example, if you charge the phone overnight, every night (and that is what you should do; it is a best practice), it starts the day at 100%. If it drops to 20% by the end of the day before you charge it again overnight that counts as 0.8 full charge cycles (20% to 100%), or about 24 full charge cycles per month of use. For this example your battery capacity will lose about 1% per month. Of course, if the end-of-day level is higher than 20% the capacity loss will be a little less, and if it is lower than 20%, or you charge it during the day, the capacity loss will be higher.

The absolute best way to improve the life of your battery long term is to enable Optimized Battery Charging (Settings/Battery/Battery Health) and charge the device overnight, every night. The battery will fast charge to 80%, then pause. During the night the phone will use mains power instead of battery power, allowing the battery to “rest”, and thus reducing the need to charge the battery quite as often. The phone will resume charging to reach 100% when you are ready to use your phone; it will “learn” your usage pattern.

When you open coconut battery look there’s a tab that says battery info. Click on that and see who manufactured the battery. I have three friends who have iPhone 12s one is having the same issue and the batteries made by the same company as mine. The other two have batteries made by two very different companies and there’s are well above 100% of capacity after having had more charge cycles. I still have my iPhone X with the original battery and after 300 charge cycles the battery is at 94% regardless of how we use our phones, this issue could be I’m not saying is but could be attributable to a bad batch of batteries and that’s just conjecture on my part.

[Edited by Moderator]

First, you should be charging the phone overnight, every night. But I agree that your battery drain is abnormal. Use the Get Support link at the top of this page to contact Apple.

I’ll tell you a little secret about your XS Max (well, not a secret, but an observation from another forum regular, SergZak). All iPhones have a specification for the battery. For the XS Max that is 3174 milliampere-hours (MaH). So the battery monitor is calibrated for 100% at that value. But there are variations in manufacturing, so some batteries will have less capacity, and some will have more. Suppose your battery had, say, 3374 MaH capacity. That would still show as 100%, but as it aged the health would stay at 100% until it fell below 3174 MaH. This would appear to you as if your battery had fabulous life. The only way to determine this is with a 3rd party app, and then only if you check the battery capacity when the phone is new.

If you're looking to worry about something, feel free.

However there are only two applicable scenarios here:

1) Batteries are aging prematurely.

If this is true, your battery health will rapidly reach 80% and will be replaced under warranty.

2) Batteries are aging normally.

If, either through battery health recalibration as was done for the iPhone 11 starting in iOS 14.5:

About recalibration of battery health reporting in iOS 14.5 - Apple Support

or through other mechanisms, your battery health does not fall below 80% within one year, you are literally worrying about nothing.

In either case, I would advise you set a calendar appointment to check your battery health again in three months and if it has fallen below 80%, make an appointment to have your battery replaced then.

Until then, worrying about whether your battery health is 95%, 92% or 91% literally just adds stress in your life as everyone's iPhone 12 is covered under warranty for at least another five months.

So you have had the phone for 8 months. On average any smartphone will lose between 0.5% and 1% of capacity a month depending on usage patterns and how often it needs to be charged. That means your phone should be down between 4% and 8%, so somewhere between 92% and 96%. As your phone is at the high end of that range you don’t have an issue. How can it be every 2 weeks if it is only down 4% in 35 weeks? That’s only 0.1% per week.

Batteries are consumables; they lose a little capacity every time they are discharged, then recharged. On average this works out to about a 1% loss for every 25 “full charge cycles”. As one example, if you charge the phone overnight, every night (and that is what you should do; it is a best practice), it starts the day at 100%. If it drops to 20% by the end of the day before you charge it again overnight that counts as 0.8 full charge cycles (20% to 100%), or about 24 full charge cycles per month of use. For this example your battery capacity will lose about 1% per month. Of course, if the end-of-day level is higher than 20% the capacity loss will be a little less, and if it is lower than 20%, or you charge it during the day, the capacity loss will be higher.

I’ve turned off 5G being the main signal my battery usually drops 1% per week since turning off 5G (in all fairness I use WiFi mostly and phone switches to 4g from 5G a lot and now my battery has stay at 95% health for longer than a week. Could it be that 5G is the main reason?

Update of my situation, I went to apple today cause my battery health was 87%, everyone was baffled including the techs so they gave me a new phone and said my battery health should not be that low and said something is wrong

I said if you are seeing a 1% drop per week, you'll get your battery replaced in just a few months, problem solved.

Most people should not be seeing 100%; I've also mentioned my personal launch day 12 Pro Max is now at 91%:

Bought in November

That's nine months ago.

My Battery Health is 100% - 9 (months) = 91%.

Normal.

Older phones didn't show drops in battery health in the same manner because they didn't have the built-in diagnostics of iPhone 12 batteries.

The iPhone 11 will now be showing new assessments of battery health:

About recalibration of battery health reporting in iOS 14.5 - Apple Support

If for whatever reason you don't believe it is normal, take your phone in to Apple to be examined, and they will decide whether to replace your battery or not:

Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

Only Apple can make that decision; no one here can.

exactly like mine, started dropping at late March , 92% ast june with 86 charge cyles. Just replaced without paying at genius bar, but u must find the Manager before U can replace it without paying, the other junior staff members are restricted by the rules of 80% under warranty. I used 3 weeks to document the drop of health.