2016 macbook pro 15" with touch bar poor battery life

I followed the instructions on Apple's site. The instructions don't indicate that there is any requirement (or dependency) between when your reset the SMC and the actual battery charge at the time of the reset--although I happen to know mine had been plugged in for a while and was at 100% charge when I did it. Be sure to follow the instructions exactly (e.g., be plugged in)--I'm not sure which aspects can be done slightly differently that won't invalidate the attempted reset so I was careful to do it "by the book."

Previously to the reset, I was getting 4.5 hours maximum (with display down as much as 25% and very light use). I've been working on processing materials for a website this evening while unplugged. Downloading MP3 files, processing them, then uploading them back up to the site. Not super intensive, but the audio processing does use the CPU fairly reasonably--more than other light duty use. I'm presently seeing:

Remaining charge: 77%

Time remaining: 7:44

Time on battery: 2:40

I do have the display at 50% (plenty bright for what I'm doing) and have keyboard backlighting off since I don't need it right now. For the entire 2:40 I've been actively typing, surfing, processing files--so the touch bar has been lit 100% of the time.

Hope it works out for your try!

When I turn off the computer and then plug in the charger the computer automatically turns on.

Do I plug in before I shutdown?

Thanks!

Also is there a way to check after the reset if it actually reset?

Thanks!!

The instructions don't seem to account for how the new MBP automatically turns on when you connect power, so I did what you suggested: made sure I was plugged in prior to shutting down. Then followed the instructions from there.

I don't know how to verify the reset actually took place--maybe someone with more experience on the MBP knows?

All I know is that my battery situation changed dramatically from that point forward.

Now at 73%, on for 3:05, predicted remaining 7:08.

Thank you!

I will try it and see what happens.

Fingers crossed.

It would seem that your macbook is different to mine ACGarland. I have tried resetting the SMC many times and whilst it does show a battery increase in the time estimation this does not actually help in reality.

Last night I charged it up to 100% and removed the charger - the battery monitor app read 2hrs 50 until discharge. So i then reset the SMC and it shot up to 7hrs 02. However after 10 mins it was down to 6hrs 32, 10 mins after that it was down to 6hrs... 45 mins After charging it was down to 80% 3hrs 30 left.

There's clearly something wrong. I just hope that it's software as this is my second MPB 15 inch touch bar and im guessing it is software related. Otherwise I should change it again in the 14 days grace period ?

As a new 15" MBP owner with the 460 dGPU and 2.9 GHz i7 CPU, I am interested in this topic. When I first checked, the time remaining on the battery was around 2:48 with a full charge which was similar to what others reported. I downloaded gfxCardStatus (Google) . Not only does show which graphics card is being used but, if your installed applications allow, it will switch. When I tried to switch to iGPU, it was prevented by Keyboard Maestro V6. (gfxCardStatus show which apps and processes are preventing the switch.) I would never have expected a keyboard macro program impacting the GPU switch since this is clearly not a"graphics intensive" program! After closing the application and removing the remaining service, I again checked the battery time remaining. It jumped to 7:48!

My suggestion would be to try this program to see if there any apps or processes that may be preventing dynamic switching of the GPU's. It may impact the so-called light browsing and email checking battery time.

FWIW,

Like JohnZonie, I've also been using gfxCardStatus (installed years ago on the 2011 MBP which had graphics issues until fixed by Apple and migrated across the the new machine). It can be surprising what apps keep the machine in the more intensive external GPU mode. For example, Adobe acrobat viewer keeps it in that mode constantly whereas Preview does not--so I've taken to using Preview (the default PDF viewer) over Adobe, except for situations where I need one of Adobe's features or ways it operates that I prefer.

In general, in these sorts of tests you want to get things back to the minimal set of Apple-provided apps (which are battery smart) and monitor the GPU usage to see what else might be impacting performance in ways that are not obvious. Other candidates are items that have icons in the menu bar (especially add-ons which were put together with minimal effort or lack of expertise) as well as programs set to launch on login (check System Preferences > Users).

I just do not understand how you're getting the longer battery life ACGarland. I'm getting max 3 hours of light use, web surfing etc. I feel like perhaps you are an apple representative as everything you have said has been supportive of apple & not really acknowledging the issue remains. I don't believe you're getting the 7 hours plus use that you claim.

I've tried gfxCardStatus the only application for me which was preventing switch to iGPU was photoshop which I closed. Very rarely while web browsing do I get a notification from the app that the Radeon graphics are being used it really seems to be constantly on the Intel graphics. So I am dubious that this is the issue at all. After closing photoshop about 10 mins ago and having hardly used it since getting the laptop I am seeing around 1hr 30min battery on 50% charge. 3 hours!

I am using mail & safari as native apps - that's pretty much it!

In addition having monitored the Activity monitor a lot it really does not seem like any applications are using energy in an abnormal way. Kernel_task, Safari & Mail the only apps really using much. But I have compared with my MacBook pro 2015 retina which has excellent battery life and it seems to be very similar. When the previous version MacBook pro's were introduced with a similar issue and it turned out to be a migration assistant issue my understanding is that the activity monitor was showing high CPU usage on some random tasks. So we are not seeing this, gfxCardStatus for me personally is not showing anything abnormal - so what else are we considering?

Lidoshuffling mentioned something about the battery curve not quite showing the reality and the firmware being incorrectly calibrated with the battery - but this sounds far fetched. Surely such an obvious thing to show up in any QC (no matter how doubtful we are over apple's ability in recent times).

Let's be honest here either a shoddy battery with apple over estimating battery life potential or large batches of these MBP's with a battery issue?

What constitutes "large batches"

No idea ! but it seems this issue is rife

No idea, but you know that there are "large batches" of them.

Have a nice day.

Read the forum's buddy

Have a nice day

I read the forums, and I don't see these "large batches" buddy.

http://www.macrumors.com/2016/12/03/macbook-pro-battery-life-concerns/