Optimized battery charging in Big Sur

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Optimized battery charging in Big Sur

There seems to be a severe problem/issue in Big Sur with the System Preferences > Battery > Optimized battery charging. This week I had two times the same situation. My MacBook Pro (MacBookPro14,3) showed the remaining battery at 4% and kept falling. So I attached it to the Power Adapter. The battery symbol in the menu bar showed a plug symbol instead of the typical thunder charging symbol. The MacBook refused to charge the battery in this critical situation. The battery went down to 1%, and macOS shut the system down and turned the machine off. At the first moment, I thought that the Power Adapter or the cable is broken. But this wasn't the case because, after the shutdown, the battery started to charge. After charging, I performed an SMC reset just in case. Today it happened again. It was the same situation. But this time, I opened the preferences and turned off the "optimized battery charging". The MacBook started immediately to charge the battery.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 11.2

Posted on Apr 23, 2021 2:56 AM

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Answer 1

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PRP_53

Level 10

86,689 points

Apr 23, 2021 4:35 AM in response to sebtomba

If battery charging is paused or on hold on your Mac

Put context to all this. In Big Sur 11.2.2 - the coded algorithm in Big Sur would perform as outlined in the above linked Apple Document on both Intel and M1 CPUs ( personal experience ). Updating to 11.2.3 - and the Pause @ 80% when on charger is not performing as designed.

Now none of this relate directly to your situation but some insights. The Big Sur 11.3 is in Release Candidate - so one can only hope there will be something in it to fix yous and mine battery charger issues.

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Answer 2

sebtomba Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 23, 2021 5:18 AM in response to PRP_53

I'm on Big Sur 11.2.3

TBH, I have no clue how the algorithm is implemented. But I assume it collects stats about the time of the day I'm charging my Mac. So f.e. if I'm always charging around 10 am and use the computer always at 7-8 am, then the algorithm tries to delay the charging until 10 am. But what happens if I'm leaving the MacBook at 11 pm uncharged with only a 10% battery left and go to bed? In the morning, it is probably 8%, and I need to attach it to the power adapter. But the algorithm delays the charging anyway, and the battery (if unnoticed) goes to < 1%. On the other hand, I don't recall that the battery menu showing that charging is on hold and can be enforced. But I may be wrong. Or it's a different issue.

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Answer 3

sebtomba Author

Level 1

8 points

May 9, 2021 12:36 AM in response to sebtomba

Big Sur 11.3 seems to solve this issue.

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Optimized battery charging in Big Sur

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