Recently I wanted to test how long the battery of my 2013 MacBook Air lasts. The quickest solution I found, is as follows:
- Download Firefox.
- Get the iMacros for Firefox extension.
- Make a list of, say, ten websites.
- After installation, click the iMacros button so the sidebar appears.
- Open a new tab for the purpose of recording the macro.
- Click record.
- Type in these ten sites. Just type the URL in the address bar. Clicking anywhere will often result in failed playback. Searching for a keyword in Google is fine, though.
- Stop recording and edit the macro. Add the line "WAIT SECONDS=5" a couple of times, to simulate the time spent reading.
- Play the macro once to make sure you won't have errors occuring during playback.
- In the settings of iMacros, set playback speed to slow.
Now to test the battery:
- Click on the battery icon in the menubar and click "show percentage". It should obviously show 100% at this point because we want to start fully charged.
- In System Preferences, turn off the screensaver. Under Energy Saver, set "turn display off after..." to "Never".
- Note the current time somewhere, then remove power cord.
- Set the screen brightness to something reasonable, like 75%.
- Set the loop field to 10000 or some other high number.
- Click the Play Loop button.
- Every half hour, have a look at the battery level and write it down.
So this is my ghetto battery test. It's a bit rough around the edges, but should give you an idea of how many hours the battery lasts. Don't take the results too serious, this is meant to get a ballpark figure.