I have also felt like my battery was draining faster than it should.
So, I recently ran a battery life test on my M2 iPad Air while streaming video, and I thought I’d share my experience for anyone curious about my real-world usage.
For context, my brightness was set at about 30% (my usual setting), Bluetooth was turned off since I was using external speakers, and push notifications and alerts were active throughout.
I started streaming at 1:00 PM with the battery at 80%. By 6:03 PM, it had dropped to 18%, meaning 62% of the battery was used over 5 hours and 3 minutes. That works out to an average drain of around 12.28% per hour.
After that, I left the iPad idle from 6:03 PM to 6:32 PM, and the battery stayed steady at 18%. Then I resumed streaming at 6:32 PM and kept going until the battery hit 0% at 7:44 PM. During this second stretch, 18% of the battery was used over 1 hour and 12 minutes, which is about 15% per hour.
All in all, I streamed for a total of 6 hours and 15 minutes, draining the battery from 80% to 0%. Averaging everything out, the drain rate was about 12.8% per hour. Starting with a full 100% charge, I estimate I’d get about 7 hours and 48 minutes of continuous streaming under these same conditions.
Next, just because I’m a geek and have been really obsessing over whether or not my battery is functioning well, I’m planning to run a similar test that includes my full scope of daily usage. This would mean streaming while also using other apps like email, Word, and maybe some light browsing for work. I’m curious to see how multitasking impacts the overall battery life.
If anyone else here has done similar tests, or has tips for optimizing battery performance, I’d love to hear them! 😊