Automating Photoshop to test MacBook battery life?

[DanJ_LRSFC]

We've had reports from our Art Department that some of the batteries on their Macbooks are starting to fail. Does anyone have or know of a script that will work with Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 which can run unattended and will prevent the computer from sleeping that will allow us to simulate usage to evaluate the battery life?

Thanks,
Dan Jackson (Senior ITServices Technician).
Long Road Sixth Form College
Cambridge, UK.

[rich_thomas]

Hi Dan,

There are a few things that you can do to check this. If you take a look in System Report, ( Apple menu > About This Mac > System Report) under the power section there will be battery health information. If condition shows as "Normal" then Apple would not usually replace a battery. The Mac considers battery condition to be normal if the battery holds above 80% of its original charge.

Its also worth looking at the cycle count on the battery. If this number is over about 500, it could be time for the battery to be replaced. This is the amount of cumulative 100% charge cycles that the battery has had in its lifetime. If needed, the Genius Bar can give you a more accurate picture of cycle count vs. charge capacity with their diagnostics.

If you want to put the Mac under load to see how long the battery lasts, take a look at this: http://osxdaily.com/2012/10/02/stress-test-mac-cpu/

It's not exactly scientific as it only demonstrates how the Mac runs under an artificially high CPU load, but it might give a bit of an idea about how long the users can expect the battery to last when being pushed.

Cheers,
Rich

[Asnyder]

Here is an EA for cycle count:

#!/bin/sh

echo "<result>$(ioreg -r -c "AppleSmartBattery" | grep -w "CycleCount" | awk '{print $3}' | sed s/"//g)</result>"