Confusing Battery behaviour - need advices

Dear community,


I am using two battery utilities to check and take care of it :

  • AlDente Pro to limit the charge to 80% when plugged in working at home.
  • Coconut Battery to check the health from time to time (for my iPhone and iPad too).


Until 5 days ago I was using a M2 Pro MBP 16, used those 2 utilities for months with it, keeping the battery health at 100% and the cycles low.

5 days ago I received a brand new MacBook Pro 16 M3 Max, so was kind of early Christmas for me.


However when I unboxed my new M3 I found out that, with Coconut Battery:

  • Battery was 3 cycles already.
  • The "Full Charge Capacity" was already 98% out of the box.

First it was quite a surprise as with my M2 Pro the battery had 0 cycles and like 103% full charge capacity...


First of all what do you think ? Is this to be expected ?


Secondly the battery behaviour seems odd as the "Full Charge Capacity" is fluctuating a lot between like 99 and 97 many times a day.

I though maybe Coconut has it wrong, but doing research it appears that it is mainly displaying the result of the command "ioreg -w0 -l | grep Capacity" in the terminal that gives 3 values.

See the attached image comparing the Coconut Battery values and the terminal command values.


The point is also that the macOS battery menu says that the battery health is 100%, but as you can see I do not understand on which basis it can conclude that.

Why is the "AppleRawMax Capacity" fluctuating so much ? How is the "Max Capacity" = 100 computed ?


So my final question is should I send it back and ask for a replacement unit ?


Thanks for your insights !

MacBook Pro (M3, 2023)

Posted on Nov 13, 2023 8:51 AM

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Posted on Nov 13, 2023 9:24 AM

IMO there is nothing wrong here.


Battery "health" is an inexact number at best. It is the current full charge capacity divided by the design capacity, and therein lies the problem


Design capacity is the AVERAGE expected capacity value of all batteries of that model. That means some individual batteries have a lower initial value than the average, so "health" may show 98 or 99% on a new computer. My last Macbook Pro showed 102% when new.


Also Health is not linear over time. I like data so here is a spoonful. This is the Coconut battery history from my older Macbook Pro. Health is the third column from the left; cycle count is the second column:



Note that between May 22 2022 and June 25 2022, Health plummeted almost 10 points in a month. But then it recovered. You cannot put faith in a metric that "wiggles."


Also look at those numbers—the battery was NINE years old in Summer 2022! Still works fine.


AFAIK, Health exists to give Apple a threshold value for the eval of batteries under warranty. Their usual policy has been to replace a battery under warranty if it falls under 80% at under 1000 cycles.


Please don't obsess over something so inexact.


On your third-party battery apps:


  • Coconut is a reporting app; it alters nothing so I find it acceptable to have on my computers.
  • Al Dente Pro appears to CHANGE something, and that potentially conflicts with rather elegant battery/power management software that came with your Mac. I recommend removing that one and asking for a refund.



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4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 13, 2023 9:24 AM in response to Grobaouche

IMO there is nothing wrong here.


Battery "health" is an inexact number at best. It is the current full charge capacity divided by the design capacity, and therein lies the problem


Design capacity is the AVERAGE expected capacity value of all batteries of that model. That means some individual batteries have a lower initial value than the average, so "health" may show 98 or 99% on a new computer. My last Macbook Pro showed 102% when new.


Also Health is not linear over time. I like data so here is a spoonful. This is the Coconut battery history from my older Macbook Pro. Health is the third column from the left; cycle count is the second column:



Note that between May 22 2022 and June 25 2022, Health plummeted almost 10 points in a month. But then it recovered. You cannot put faith in a metric that "wiggles."


Also look at those numbers—the battery was NINE years old in Summer 2022! Still works fine.


AFAIK, Health exists to give Apple a threshold value for the eval of batteries under warranty. Their usual policy has been to replace a battery under warranty if it falls under 80% at under 1000 cycles.


Please don't obsess over something so inexact.


On your third-party battery apps:


  • Coconut is a reporting app; it alters nothing so I find it acceptable to have on my computers.
  • Al Dente Pro appears to CHANGE something, and that potentially conflicts with rather elegant battery/power management software that came with your Mac. I recommend removing that one and asking for a refund.



Dec 1, 2023 3:46 PM in response to Grobaouche

Here is a bit more detailed information which expands upon @Allan Jones' response:


Keep in mind Apple only just recently showed the Battery Maximum Capacity in macOS so people have never seen how the Lithium Batteries degrade over time. In fact, the Maximum Capacity can fluctuate up & down. For example....a battery with a Full Charge Capacity of 4,315 mAh (battery for MBPro 13" 2017). A 200mAh fluctuation results in a fluctuation of 5%. A 200 mAh fluctuation is not unusual for an Apple Lithium Battery. I only begin to worry about the battery once the fluctuations get to 400 - 500 mAh.


Design Capacity = 4,315 mAh = 100%


Full Charge Capacity = 4,115 mAh = 95%


Before Apple exposed the Battery Maximum Capacity value, the only people who may even have noticed were the users utilizing a third party app such as Coconut Battery to monitor their batteries health.


Unfortunately even most Apple techs are not aware of these specific details. I only discovered it when I analyzed my organization's Apple laptops when people were complaining of battery related issues, but macOS showed the Battery Condition as Normal and the Apple Diagnostics reported no issues either. Apple only cares about when macOS shows the Battery Condition is "Service Recommended", or when the Battery Cycle Count is over 1,000 cycles, or the Apple Diagnostics report a battery failure.


You can take the laptop to an Apple Store to be examined, but they won't do anything unless one of those conditions I mentioned are met.


My recommendation to everyone is to ignore the battery information until the battery no longer performs to your expectations to see if it merits a replacement. Some people may be happy with the battery performance even when the Battery Maximum Capacity is below 80%....it all depends on a user's workload & expectations.


FYI, macOS now includes Optimized Charging so macOS will automatically exercise the battery for you so you don't have to worry about the battery if the laptop is using the power adapter all the time. Part of the Optimized Charging will have the charge level sit at 80% for a while. I believe this is available on USB-C Macs with one of the later update patches to macOS 10.15.x Catalina.

About Optimized Battery Charging - Apple Support



Nov 16, 2023 2:25 AM in response to Allan Jones

Thanks for your feedback and advices, I agree.


However the fact that the battery was oscillating quite quickly within 3-5% and was never around 100 in the first place did not inspire me confidence for the long term.

Instead of watching those numbers days after days I decided to ask for an exchange, and sent the unit back.

Will receive the new one next week and put here an update.

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Confusing Battery behaviour - need advices

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