I now find myself opening them, doing a task and
then closing them so as not to activate the discrete
graphics chip and drain the battery.
Sounds like what's really needed here is a way to tell MacOS not to use the discrete graphics chip when on battery power.
Is there no way to do that? It's been a while since I used a MBP with discrete graphics. There used to be a menubar app for that, but I always felt it should have been an option baked into MacOS itself.
There is an app for that (https://gfx.io/), but it doesn't switch automatically when battery is in use so you have to enable it manually (and you have to close any apps that are using the discrete chip first).
Mostly though I just use that app to know when the discrete chip is enabled, and then quit whatever program enabled it when I've finished with it.
Is there no way to do that? It's been a while since I used a MBP with discrete graphics. There used to be a menubar app for that, but I always felt it should have been an option baked into MacOS itself.