Question: Q: 2016 macbook pro 15" with touch bar poor battery life

Well, it was easy to get rid of one possible cause of the problem: I used Boot Camp and installed Windows 10. Windows 10 reports battery life similar to that of macOS 10.12. And the battery life drops at about the same rate as macOS 10.12 if you're doing roughly the same things (playing a movie while browsing web pages in Safari/Edge). So it it's a but in macOS then precisely the same bug occurs in Windows 10.

However ...

When I started my tests (one in each OS) the predictors said that the battery would last another 3 hours 20 minutes. I ran my tests for 30 minutes. And after 30 minutes the predictors said that the batter would last another 3 hours and 10 minutes (not quite to the minute but close enough). So in both OSes the predicted battery life dropped 10 minutes in 30 minutes of use.

This suggests to me that the problem is not with low battery capacity, but with the prediction system. The prediction system uses the charge remaining in the battery, and the current drain rate, to predict how much longer the computer can function. The problem is this: the figure for the charge remaining the battery is not digitally produced by the battery. Instead it is a calculation based on the PD across the battery and graded on a curve. The curve has to be custom-created by the manufacturer based on their knowledge of how the battery preforms in real life. The curve is stored in firmware.

The computer uses the same result you do for its judgement. If it thinks that the battery will last less than another (for example) five minutes it will put the computer to hibernate mode. So if the curve is faulty, so is the computer's judgement about when the computer should hibernate.

My guess, based on the above, is that the battery does have something like whatever capacity Apple claims it does; the battery's power/charge curve, or some other part of power assessment, is incorrect in firmware; and that Apple will release a user-installable fix correcting this rather than repairing or replacing these computers.

Guys

Im going to give some honest advice here. DO NOT! Return your laptops to Apple. This will cause some people hassle and disappointment to find that their replacements machines are also suffering from this problem. I shall back this up with a couple pointers.

Yesterday I was in the Apple Store buying a case for my new MacBook. My card stopped working so I had to phone the bank to get them to sort it, meaning I had lots of time to spend in the store. I tested out 2 machines that were in their by unplugging them. one a 13 inch and one a 15 (both touch bars.)

Both the machines after calculating were giving me 2:45. Both were on %100 percent battery (obviously cause they leave them plugged in) and both were on 50 percent brightness on screen and keyboard. All I did was light web browsing on the Apple Store website on safari with them.

Another point I make is that 2 people I know who have bought 15' models are also experiencing problematic battery readings.

An Apple employee at the store also said that they are aware of the issue and that there will be a software fix for the bad battery readings at some point in the future. Its all to do with poor algorithms and the computer thinking it has no power when there is actually plenty of juice left in them.

So I repeat. DO NOT return your touch bar MacBook's. Wait until a software fix comes for it. Some of you I have read don't have an Apple Store close at all. Im just putting this out there to save you guys a trip! Other than the battery problems. I hope your all enjoying your laptops.

Regards,

C

I have been having exactly the same issue - its been a frustrating week to say the least. I was delivered a new MacBook pro 15" with touchbar 512gb version and noticed immediately that the batter was giving me maximum 4 hours of light use. A huge step down from my MacBook pro late 2015 retina (8 hours roughly). This was all quite confusing seeing as i was on the same OS version 10.12.2 beta 4 on both.

I contacted apple support, we ran tests, reset the CMS etc etc but it did not help. I reinstalled the OS back to 10.2.1 did not help. I had bought the laptop from a reseller and apple told me to contact them, they sent me a new MBP which arrived this morning. Exactly the same issue is happening. I have to agree with all the above it seems like a software issue but specifically with the new MacBook pro. They have clearly not aligned Sierra with the hardware properly. Interesting as well that the beta 4 has suddenly removed the time remaining function on the battery icon. I'm using Battery Monitor from the app store however and it is showing exactly the same issue - max 4.5 hours after charging to 100% and it lasts that long also.

Disaster by apple. they need to sort this out asap because as we continuously charge our laptops when clearly there's juice in them even though reading 0% we are damaging the long term health of our batteries. Let's see how quickly they respond.

Hey everyone,

Received a new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar 15" as well, and like several of you, was shocked by the short battery life, even with the software updates. After some extensive trial and error, I have remedied my battery woes! Sharing out in case it helps any of you.

The largest change in my case was as some suggested, an SMC reset AND a NVRAM Reset. After doing both, my time remaining shot from 3-4 hours to 9-10 hours and even longer with further tweaks. I was shocked, but was able to verify the change based on using the Battery Guru app. The Milliamp output has been cut nearly in half to ~600 and the machine is significantly cooler during light usage. See below.

A little background:

• As mentioned, my average was 3-4 hours with light usage. This was playing Spotify, writing emails, and surfing Safari only.
• I have been using Fruitjuice and Battery Guru to monitor and verify usage time and energy output. Both put the machine at roughly 3-4 hours of battery time and on BG, I had an average ~1100 Milliamp output.
• Assuming the higher output was the screen, kept brightness to 75% and reduced keyboard lighting to its lowest setting.
• Confirmed Spotlight, Photos and iCloud had finished indexing before making a judgement.
• Even after all of the above, still 3-4 hours.

But then: I noticed something was amiss when charging the device. The last time I did so, I found the machine running hot and I noticed the fan was going nuts. That lead to the SMC and NVRam reset. After doing so, voila! 9-10+ hours of battery life!

But not only that, I've been able to extend the battery even more so, doing some additional suggestions that the forums have suggested.:

• Revisited my startup apps in Login Items and removed things like Skype for Business, Adobe Creative Cloud and several update checkers. Though several of these were negligible, some suggested S4B and Adobe may be eating up more resources and some have reported improvements.
• Due to the recharge incident, I decided to disable Power Nap while on battery. I'm going to see if I run into the issue again while Power Nap is on charge, will report if it occurs again.
• Download Turbo Boost Switcher to disable Turbo Boost. I found this adds around an hour of battery life back and the milliamp output can drop around 400 during light usage. Performance doesn't seem to be affected when doing light usage. I turn it back on when I'm working on more intensive applications or plugged in.
• I keep my keyboard lighting low and brightness around 75%.

Anyway, that's been my experience, and I'm now very happy with the machine and thrilled that I don't feel the battery anxiety I once had. It would seem that there is something glitchy in either the hardware and software still, but hopefully it's just a SMC/NVRAM reset fix for many.

Good luck out there.

G