In battery-powered devices, it is especially useful to be able to consult the information on their consumption, load, use, etc. This information, which has been available for some years on iPhones and iPads, on Macs has recently come from the hand of macOS 11 Big Sur. Let’s see how to consult this information and what conclusions we can reach with it.
The history of the use of the battery goes beyond the amount of charge available in it over a period of time, since it crosses the information with the use of the machine. It is located in the System Preferences , we will access it like this:
- In the Apple menu () we choose System Preferences.
- We played drums.
- We select Usage historyin the sidebar.
Last 24 hours and background tasks
At this point, we can choose between seeing the last 24 hours of use or the last 10 days, we will start with the first option. The information is divided into two graphs, in the upper part the battery level and in the lower part the amount of screen time during a period of time.
It is important that we look at the intervals, in the battery level graph each line represents 15 minutes, that is, we have 4 measurements per hour. So we can see how much the battery changes, increasing or decreasing, every quarter of an hour and have an idea of how fast the charge or discharge is. Times when the computer has been plugged in are shaded in light green and marked with a lightning strike below the graph. In the graph at the bottom each bar represents one hour. It represents the amount of time, with a maximum of 60 minutes, that the screen has been in use during that hour.
Crossing both graphs, it will be usual, therefore, that in the hours where the use time is high, the decrease in the battery is pronounced. If not, we must consider that some app or service in the background is wearing down the battery more than it should.
Last 10 days and charging cycles
If we change from the Last 24 hours to the Last 10 days the information we see is very similar. At the top we see a representation of battery consumption during the day. If, for example, we unplug the Mac in the morning at 100% and it remains at 0% at night, we will see 100% in the graph. In the case of the graph that illustrates the article, we see that some values are closer to 130%, which means that the Mac has been charged during the day and that extra energy has also been consumed.
As for the lower graph, it shows us the number of hours that the computer screen has been on during a specific day. Here the limit is set at 24h, although the usual thing is that it approaches 8 or 10. Again there must be a correlation between the screen on and the battery consumption to rule out that an app is downloading our Mac without our knowledge .
Last but not least, the top graph gives us an idea of the number of charge cycles the Mac has in a week. Useful information in order to control the wear of our battery.
IN APPLESFERA
Belkin SoundForm Elite, a small speaker with great sound quality
Whether we are enjoying the 20 hours of battery life of the new MacBook Pro with Apple silicone , or if we need to check that the consumption of our MacBook Air corresponds to the use we give it, the battery information section of System Preferences is our ally.
